Amazon
Amazon is the largest e-commerce company in the world. Amazon provides its customers with several services such as online shopping, digital streaming services, cloud computing services, and artificial intelligence. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington Amazon employs 1335,000 people to run its operations all over the world. Let’s know about Amazon Pip.
Amazon has emerged as the world’s largest internet company in terms of revenue generation. It would not be wrong to say that Amazon has set the bar for other e-commerce companies around the world. Amazon strives to achieve efficiency in every sector of its work, which enables Amazon to achieve large-scale operational efficiency. Any organization to succeed in the business world must possess a dedicated and competent workforce.
The trait of inefficiency must be completely eliminated from the workforce of the organization. Similarly, Amazon aims to employ the best and most efficient employees in its workforce. For this purpose, Amazon uses an enhanced program to check on inefficient employees and measure their performance and take suitable action. This program is known as the Amazon performance improvement plan.
This article provides information about the performance improvement plan employed by Amazon.
Amazon PIP
Amazon’s performance improvement plan is designed to provide inefficiency or underperforming employees with one chance to prove themselves and continue to be a part of the Amazon workforce. The performance improvement plan is three months in duration and the underperforming employees participate in this program. The managers identify the employees whose performance does not meet the standards and these employees are given goals that must be achieved within the duration of the performance improvement plan. If the employee does not achieve the goals laid out in the performance improvement plan, Amazon has the right to dismiss such employees on grounds of low productivity. This usually leads to more talented and efficient employees taking the place of dismissed employees.
Objectives of the performance improvement plan
Amazon uses performance improvement plans for achieving various objectives. The various objectives of performance improvement plan are discussed as follows-
- Remove inefficiencies of employees – The primary objective of the performance improvement plan is to systematically eliminate the lacking areas of employees that lead to several inefficiencies. Every organization aims to have better operational efficiency, which is only possible when all the employees work efficiently. Managers after identifying less productive or inefficient employees can use the performance improvement plan to provide new goals to the chosen employees and evaluate if the employees in question are capable of achieving the given goals within the specified time frame.
- Address behavior-related concerns – Every organization lays down specific guidelines regarding behavior that employees need to follow while working. Performance improvement program enables organizations to address issues such as behavior problems of any employees. Such employees may be included in the performance improvement plan and be asked to improve their behavior if they wish to stay with the organization and be a part of the workforce.
- To increase employee productivity – Performance improvement plans contain the major objective to increase the productivity levels of the organization’s workforce. The unproductive employees are identified and the managers may guide them to improve their work efforts or employees who are highly unproductive may be included in the performance improvement plan. Such employees generally focus on their productivity during performance improvement plans to avoid being dismissed by the organization. The performance improvement plan not only motivates the participant employees to focus on their productivity but also motivates their peers to focus on their work wholeheartedly to avoid being included in the performance improvement plan. So it can be said that a performance improvement plan may also serve as a source of negative motivation for the organization’s workforce.
- Make way for fresh talent – Organizations may use the performance improvement plan as a tool to induce new and fresh talent in the organization’s workforce. The employees selected for the performance improvement plan need to prove their mettle if they want to stay with the organization. In case the employees are still deemed unproductive at the end of the performance improvement plan, such employees may be terminated by the organization on the grounds of low productivity and inefficient performance. Organizations may use this as an opportunity to hire new talent in place of terminated employees. This will help the organization to induce a new wave of fresh talent the organization.
Working of Amazon PIP
The performance improvement plan used by Amazon is a systematic process that aims to identify inefficient employees and provide them with a specific timeframe to improve their performance. The performance improvement plan at Amazon works through the following steps –
- Managers identify employees that are not performing as per the expectations.
- The performance improvement plan at Amazon is divided into two phases. These are –
- Dev list- Dev list or better known as development list and usually serves as the precursor to a performance improvement plan. The employees on the development list interact with their respective managers to discuss various areas of employees’ work that require immediate improvement. In case the employee’s performance improves at this stage, the employee can manage to avoid the performance improvement plan stage.
- Performance improvement plan – An Employee entering this stage is provided with a written document that specifies the tasks and goals to be achieved in the performance improvement plan. The employee performance during this stage is strictly monitored and evaluated.
- In case employees do not showcase the desired performance in the performance improvement plan, Amazon holds the right to terminate such employees.
Conclusion – To conclude, it can be said the Amazon performance improvement plan helps the organizations to systematically remove inefficiency from the organization. An organization of Amazon’s stature can simply not afford to have inefficient and unproductive workers in the organization’s workforce. Amazon strives for efficiency and employees must perform their duties efficiently, so if certain employees are identified as weak links in the organization workforce they must be put to test through the performance improvement plan to enable them to prove themselves and increase their productivity. Although employees may deem a performance improvement plan as a difficult task to conquer, from Amazon’s viewpoint, the performance improvement plan is for the greater good of the organization.
Frequently asked questions
Question 1. Does every organization use a performance improvement plan?
Answer 1. Many organizations use performance improvement plans as a tool to enhance employee discipline. All organizations may not use this tool but may use modified or similar versions of this plan. Organizations generally provide warnings to an employee who has consistently been unproductive and not able to meet the required targets.
Question 2. Does inclusion in a performance improvement plan mean termination for an employee?
Answer 2. Employees generally consider inclusion in performance improvement plans as the end of their tenure for the organization. But it may not be the case, if employees can perform well in the performance improvement plan, the organization will allow the employee to stay in their current role. But failure in performance improvement plans may lead to termination of the employee or in some cases, an employee may be demoted to a job of lower rank in the organization.
Question 3. What is the duration of the performance improvement plan at Amazon?
Answer 3. The performance improvement plan at Amazon generally is of 3 months duration.
