Maybe Amazon won't change

[shootingstar]

How it manages its warehouse workers...turnover is very high.

 

[Kzoo]

Maybe not 

[maddmaxx ★]

That explains why Amazon is developing warehouse robotic machinery.  

[Dottleshead ★]

4 hours ago, Kzoo said:

Maybe not 

This 

[Dottleshead ★]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

That explains why Amazon is developing warehouse robotic machinery.  

On the other hand, maybe robots can buy their goods too. 

[Kzoo]

58 minutes ago, Dottles said:

On the other hand, maybe robots can buy their goods too. 

If not, the people who design and build the robots certainly can.

[ChrisL]

I had numerous distribution centers “DC’s” as clients and it’s not just Amazon. The working environment is tough, tight shipping timelines, little room for error and an entry level work force.  

Target was also one of my clients and they had the best working environment but their DC’s were pretty much completely automated.

[BR46]

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

That explains why Amazon is developing warehouse robotic machinery.  

There's good money to be made in repairing the robots. 

[Further]

3 minutes ago, BR46 said:

There's good money to be made in repairing the robots. 

Fixin shit is always an in demand skill..

[BR46]

2 minutes ago, Further said:

Fixin shit is always an in demand skill..

When I was at Road America this past weekend I was asked by 3 different race/ machine shops if I wanted to come out of retirement and work part time. 

[Ralphie ★]

38 minutes ago, Further said:

Fixin shit is always an in demand skill..

Yes!  Because even in the future, everything is broke.  

 

[maddmaxx ★]

7 hours ago, Further said:

Fixin shit is always an in demand skill..

Unfortunately it's a shrinking workforce.

[BR46]

9 hours ago, Further said:

Fixin shit is always an in demand skill..

 

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Unfortunately it's a shrinking workforce.

Everyone is told that they have to go to college to make money.

[Razors Edge ★]

18 hours ago, shootingstar said:

How it manages its warehouse workers...turnover is very high.

It remains to be seen.  Any performance during the COVID era will undoubtedly be an outlier and a horrible metric to judge past and future performances against.

I didn't read the whole NYT article, but the beginning focus on a worker who caught COVID and was in horrible shape from it indicates it is as much a "the world turned upside down in 2020" article as much as a Amazon should have been prepared for such a roller coaster.

 

[MickinMD ★]

19 hours ago, shootingstar said:

How it manages its warehouse workers...turnover is very high.

 

My nephew works in the Amazon warehouse at BWI Airport. The quality of the help is so poor that, at age 19, he was promoted twice - he's 20 now. He's also about 6'2", broad at the shoulders and narrow at the hips, a former football league J.J. Watt Award Winner, and workers do what he tells them to do.

BUT...he doesn't see a long-term future there.  Right now he's in North Carolina at a 4-day airline steward training session run by a private company. He's hoping that leads to a job with the airlines.  He's personable, polite, and no unruly passenger is likely to try to punch him in the nose.

[Scrapr ★]

I read the NYT article. What stood out to me was the reliance on app based management & HR. That is a disaster even if it works right. People don't quit Amazon they quit their managers. There were multiple examples in the article of workers being fired because the app was wrong. Literally firing people remotely. I have been on a 5 year strike against Amazon. My work may just be paying off

[dinneR ★]

1 hour ago, Scrapr said:

I read the NYT article. What stood out to me was the reliance on app based management & HR. That is a disaster even if it works right. People don't quit Amazon they quit their managers. There were multiple examples in the article of workers being fired because the app was wrong. Literally firing people remotely. I have been on a 5 year strike against Amazon. My work may just be paying off

I don't do amazon either. They have a big fraud problem as well. 

From the NYT:

Bezos came to believe that an entrenched blue-collar work force represented “a march to mediocrity,” as David Niekerk, a former Amazon executive who built the company’s warehouse human resources operations, told The Times, as part of an investigative project being published this morning. “What he would say is that our nature as humans is to expend as little energy as possible to get what we want or need.”

In response, Amazon encouraged employee turnover. After three years on the job, hourly workers no longer received automatic raises, and the company offered bonuses to people who quit. It also offered limited upward mobility for hourly workers, preferring to hire managers from the outside.

As is often the case with one of Amazon’s business strategies, it worked.

Turnover at Amazon is much higher than at many other companies — with an annual rate of roughly 150 percent for warehouse workers, The Times’s story discloses, which means that the number who leave the company over a full year is larger than the level of total warehouse employment. The churn is so high that it’s visible in the government’s statistics on turnover in the entire warehouse industry: When Amazon opens a new fulfillment center, local turnover often surges.

[Scrapr ★]

Yeah...that passed me off. The MBAs know everything and the people doing the work are expendable. F them

The world would be better with fewer MBAs

[Dottleshead ★]

21 hours ago, Kzoo said:

If not, the people who design and build the robots certainly can.

I had a great uncle that used to work in a beer factory and would spout the unionized talk. But there is some truth in it.  The economy would work for 1% of the 1% -- which means guys like me.  Shucks.

[Square Wheels]

12 hours ago, BR46 said:

 

Everyone is told that they have to go to college to make money.

Mike Rowe never said that.

[BR46]

1 minute ago, Square Wheels said:

Mike Rowe never said that.

I like when Mike Rowe said about everyone wanting the corner office but what are you going to do when nobody knows how to build the corner office.

I did quite well in machine maintenance and know several people who were able to afford early retirement that never went to college.

[Kzoo]

So the question is....... Why should Amazon change if it works for them?  They have 150% turnover and a strong recruiting presence - so what.  I know of construction firms that would kill for for something close to the turnover rate and they don't have the on-boarding skills or resources that an Amazon has.  No one is forced to go to work there and no one is forced to stay.  I am betting that for every one disgruntled Amazon employee (or ex) there are several that welcome the opportunity to make more money than there last job and have better benefits.

Remember the 'free' in free market means you are free to make you own choices in the marketplace.

[Razors Edge ★]

19 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

So the question is....... Why should Amazon change if it works for them?  They have 150% turnover and a strong recruiting presence - so what.  I know of construction firms that would kill for for something close to the turnover rate and they don't have the on-boarding skills or resources that an Amazon has.  No one is forced to go to work there and no one is forced to stay.  I am betting that for every one disgruntled Amazon employee (or ex) there are several that welcome the opportunity to make more money than there last job and have better benefits.

Remember the 'free' in free market means you are free to make you own choices in the marketplace.

There is no "free" market, but I generally agree with the sentiment.  To some extent, local, regional, and state gov't groups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion.

The main thing would be to compare what Amazon warehouse & distribution center employees are getting in comparison to similar businesses.  If folks are saying Amazon has crazy turn-over, is that true relative to other similar businesses.  If they have high injury or crappy management or dopey HR software, is that true relative to other similar businesses.  How is their pay, overall compensation, and general working environment - compared to other similar businesses.

If the trend is that ALL or the great majority of these warehouse & distribution centers are crap - Amazon or otherwise - then THAT is the story, and the Amazon angle (like the Apple China labor angle) is just a distraction from the root and true issues.  If it is just Amazon - and it isn't - then that's where it is good to keep the attention on them.

Amazon and many other businesses have all sorts of crummy HR reputations, but whether those are true trends and cultures, or just what happens when you have a ton of employees across the US and world is another question.

[Kzoo]

10 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

There is no "free" market, but I generally agree with the sentiment.  To some extent, local, regional, and state gov't groups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion.

There is no "free" market - yes there is.  Are you free to sell your house in VA to the highest taker and move to CA if you want.  Are you free to work anywhere you desire as long someone will hire you?  Are you free to ask for any wage you desire at the  new job?  Is your employer free to tell you to go pound sand?  The marketplace is free to the extent that any segment is regulated by the government and that changes over time.

 

groups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion. - Only of those conditions are baked into the incentive offering.  I have no issue if they are and in a FREE MARKET someone like Amazon is free to decide not to accept such conditions.  And we have a lot of historical experience that shows employment conditions inside of government incentives are toothless.

 

What school did you take your macro economics class at?

 

[Razors Edge ★]

5 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

There is no "free" market - yes there is.  Are you free to sell your house in VA to the highest taker and move to CA if you want.  Are you free to work anywhere you desire as long someone will hire you?  Are you free to ask for any wage you desire at the  new job?  Is your employer free to tell you to go pound sand?  The marketplace is free to the extent that any segment is regulated by the government and that changes over time.

 

groups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion. - Only of those conditions are baked into the incentive offering.  I have no issue if they are and in a FREE MARKET someone like Amazon is free to decide not to accept such conditions.  And we have a lot of historical experience that shows employment conditions inside of government incentives are toothless.

 

What school did you take your macro economics class at?

 

BWAHAHAHA.  I guess the Econ classes I took, flawed though they and I were, were at least taken   You're odd beliefs in the unicorn free market is just cute.

[dinneR ★]

 

8 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

There is no "free" market - yes there is.  Are you free to sell your house in VA to the highest taker and move to CA if you want.  Are you free to work anywhere you desire as long someone will hire you?  Are you free to ask for any wage you desire at the  new job?  Is your employer free to tell you to go pound sand?  The marketplace is free to the extent that any segment is regulated by the government and that changes over time.

 

groups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion. - Only of those conditions are baked into the incentive offering.  I have no issue if they are and in a FREE MARKET someone like Amazon is free to decide not to accept such conditions.  And we have a lot of historical experience that shows employment conditions inside of government incentives are toothless.

 

What school did you take your macro economics class at?

 

One of my co-workers is selling his house. The county will set the price and find the buyer for him. No offers, no bidding wars. The value is allowed to increase at most 3% a year.

Amazon doesn't always obey the law. They push the boundaries because they know how far they can go before enforcement kicks in. The way they have dealt with counterfeits and taxes should be stopped. 

[Kzoo]

4 minutes ago, denniS said:

 

One of my co-workers is selling his house. The county will set the price and find the buyer for him. No offers, no bidding wars. The value is allowed to increase at most 3% a year.

Amazon doesn't always obey the law. They push the boundaries because they know how far they can go before enforcement kicks in. The way they have dealt with counterfeits and taxes should be stopped. 

I one hand you are tell us that the rich are allowed to come in and FREELY pay exorbitant prices to buy up property there.  Then you tell us that there are restrictions on price and ownership.  From this distance I would have to assume that if there are restrictions on selling, then the propertygroups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion.was maybe originally purchased from the government who can control such issues.  I'd like to see what court would hold that.

And Amazon breaking laws is not the same as being free to conduct you business within the marketplace. 

[Razors Edge ★]

Just now, Kzoo said:

I one hand you are tell us that the rich are allowed to come in and FREELY pay exorbitant prices to buy up property there.  Then you tell us that there are restrictions on price and ownership.  From this distance I would have to assume that if there are restrictions on selling, then the propertygroups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion.was maybe originally purchased from the government who can control such issues.  I'd like to see what court would hold that.

And Amazon breaking laws is not the same as being free to conduct you business within the marketplace. 

Zoodles, no one is arguing we don't have a "free-ish" market, and you yourself noted gov't regulations on the market, but to pretend we have a truly "free market" is just batsheot crazy - and ignores well over two hundred years of evolving rules and regulations that greatly impact labor laws and how corporations and businesses can behave.

[dinneR ★]

1 minute ago, Kzoo said:

I one hand you are tell us that the rich are allowed to come in and FREELY pay exorbitant prices to buy up property there.  Then you tell us that there are restrictions on price and ownership.  From this distance I would have to assume that if there are restrictions on selling, then the propertygroups provide a bunch of incentives to have an Amazon facility, so how that facility "behaves" is part of a broader discussion.was maybe originally purchased from the government who can control such issues.  I'd like to see what court would hold that.

And Amazon breaking laws is not the same as being free to conduct you business within the marketplace. 

The restrictions are on affordables. You agree to the restrictions when you buy and they still exist when you sell. 

 I just find amazon a crummy company. I know most people like them. I don't. The fraud and tax issues should be handled by the gov't. Amazon is just pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with. 

Their labor practices should be dealt with by OSHA etc. But yes, they can hire and fire at will if it's good for business. Eventually, people will catch on or take advantage of it and the market will work.

[KrAzY]

I know someone that worked in the warehouse. It is definitely not a good place from what all I hear. My other friend says if you can get an office job, you are much better treated for sure.