Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the corporate might do extra to deal with employees higher

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy mentioned Tuesday the corporate might do extra to deal with staff higher and acknowledged one among its approaches to employee security throughout the coronavirus pandemic fell brief.

“I feel in case you have a big group of individuals like we do — we now have 1.2 million staff — it is virtually like a small nation,” Jassy mentioned on stage on the GeekWire Summit in Seattle. “There are many issues you can do higher.”

When requested what Amazon might do higher, Jassy pointed to the corporate’s processes round pandemic go away in its warehouses. Amazon told employees it will present as much as two weeks of paid sick go away for workers who confirmed signs, had the virus, or had been in quarantine.

However that course of didn’t work completely. Amazon staff told CNBC final April they skilled points getting paid whereas they had been out on go away. Moreover, the corporate’s extremely automated human assets methods grew to become so overloaded with employees requesting Covid-19 go away that some staff had been mistakenly denied sick go away or threatened with termination, Bloomberg reported.

“Through the pandemic in our achievement facilities, we had a system and a course of round individuals having the ability to request brief and long run go away and the method simply did not scale,” Jassy mentioned. “We by no means anticipated having a pandemic or having demand like that. It did not work the way in which we wished it to work.”

Amazon and different e-commerce corporations benefited from the coronavirus-fueled surge in on-line orders. However the pandemic additionally generated unprecedented pressure on Amazon’s achievement and logistics operations and examined the corporate’s relationship with its front-line employees, who could not work remotely. Amazon disclosed last October that almost 20,000 front-line employees contracted Covid-19 between March 1, 2020 and Sept. 19, 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic set in movement a rising push amongst Amazon warehouse and supply employees to advocate for higher working situations, resulting in protests and organizing makes an attempt. Within the months earlier than stepping down as CEO, Amazon founder and govt chairman Jeff Bezos outlined a vision for making the corporate “Earth’s greatest employer” and pledged to deal with employees higher.

“We do not fake that we’re excellent,” Jassy mentioned. “Generally I feel there are exaggerations and anecdotal references that are not reflective of the entire. However there’s loads we are able to preserve engaged on and that we are going to be engaged on.”

Jassy additionally mentioned he is concerned with reshaping Amazon’s relationship with town of Seattle, the place the corporate is headquartered. Seattle lawmakers sparked animosity with Amazon in 2018 after they handed a so-called “head tax,” that aimed to levy increased taxes on massive corporations. Lawmakers ultimately scuttled the tax, however that did little to restore town’s relationship with Amazon.

“I feel our relationship with Seattle has had ups and downs frankly. I feel the primary 20ish years on the firm was fairly collaborative,” Jassy mentioned. “I might say the final 5 years, as you recognize, town council has turn out to be much less enamored with enterprise or Amazon, it is simply been rougher.”

Lately, Amazon has grown its presence outdoors of Seattle. It has staffed up within the Seattle suburb of Bellevue and leased workplace house in Microsoft’s longtime house of Redmond, Washington.

“We do not consider HQ1 being Seattle any longer. We actually consider it as Puget Sound,” Jassy mentioned. “We have now lots of people in Seattle, however we even have lots of people in Bellevue and it’s the place most of our development will find yourself being.”

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