Latest / Spending time with Dr. Christina / The Amazon experience: Policies, Culture, and Vulnerable Workforce

Transcript

The Amazon experience: Policies, Culture, and Vulnerable Workforce · Spending time with Dr. Christina

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to my podcast spending
• 0:02
  time with dr. Christina. We're now in season
• 0:05
  8 episode 1 of the Amazon experience and in this
• 0:10
  first episode I want to talk about Amazon's policies
• 0:14
  I want to talk about the culture and I want to
• 0:17
  talk about it's very vulnerable population that
• 0:21
  I took notice of Now when we think about Amazon,
• 0:25
  we see the advertisements everywhere And we get
• 0:29
  packages from them daily. The marketing seems
• 0:32
  to be amazing, right? But what exactly is going
• 0:36
  on inside of Amazon? This is similar to UPS.
• 0:40
  Many people were fascinated by this company.
• 0:44
  We always get our packages on time. My father
• 0:47
  personally worked at UPS as well as some of my
• 0:49
  uncles. And I can tell you what we see on the
• 0:53
  outside is more like movie magic. on the inside
• 0:58
  it's very industrious very hard -working people
• 1:02
  that are out and about making sure things happen
• 1:06
  but there's also a very Glimpse side to things
• 1:11
  working and I want to talk about what I've noticed
• 1:15
  as a professional with over 20 years leadership
• 1:18
  experience Shortly after I graduated with my
• 1:22
  first graduate degree in corporate and organizational
• 1:24
  communications and also a post -master's in IT
• 1:28
  I was able to secure Senior leadership positions
• 1:33
  very early in my 20s. In fact by the time I was
• 1:36
  25 I was director of information systems, which
• 1:40
  helped me propel into law so to give you more
• 1:46
  insight about why I'm talking about Amazon is
• 1:50
  that I had opportunity to spend about a Year
• 1:55
  a little over a year, maybe 14 months at two
• 1:58
  different parts of the organization Two months
• 2:01
  or a little over two months at the delivery station
• 2:03
  before transferring to one of their other corporate
• 2:06
  type warehouses where Everything else seems to
• 2:11
  happen. So let's talk about that tonight and
• 2:13
  I want to help to guide a lot of you amazonians
• 2:16
  that are still out there and to get some assistance
• 2:20
  get some guidance and to know That somebody sees
• 2:25
  you and knows about what's going on in this organization
• 2:28
  now To begin, there's a lot of different scholarly
• 2:33
  articles already out there about Amazon and what
• 2:36
  happens internally, whether it's corporate or
• 2:38
  at the warehouse level. My experience was at
• 2:41
  the warehouse level. So let's talk about some
• 2:45
  things lightly and get into it. When we think
• 2:49
  about policies, I can tell you firsthand, Amazon
• 2:54
  has some really great policies, right? They seem
• 2:57
  to identify a lot of different concerns of their
• 3:01
  employees, but do they adhere to them? Absolutely
• 3:05
  not. What I found out is that you have Different
• 3:11
  managers and we're gonna spend a segment on their
• 3:14
  management team from their level three all the
• 3:17
  way up to their level seven I would say but they
• 3:21
  have policies that are in place that are followed
• 3:24
  at whim That is Amazon's first problem that everybody
• 3:29
  is not on the same page Managers are not on the
• 3:33
  same page and therefore managers are not on the
• 3:36
  same page Then employees can't be on the same
• 3:40
  page and you may be thinking like what sort of
• 3:42
  policy am I talking about? Pretty much. I would
• 3:46
  say everything everything from their policies
• 3:49
  concerning the workload To their policies concerning
• 3:54
  phone usage in the workplace to their policies
• 3:57
  even over some of the simplest things as even
• 4:01
  termination so That is Amazon's first issue.
• 4:06
  They don't have consistency Everything looks
• 4:10
  good on paper, but it's not actually followed
• 4:14
  right? so this is one of the first things that
• 4:17
  I've noticed as a member of a senior leadership
• 4:20
  team that has come to Amazon as an early retiree
• 4:24
  just someone there to make extra money just like
• 4:27
  a lot of Other people a lot of professors a lot
• 4:30
  of friends of mine that do it So when I went
• 4:33
  there personally I have friends that come there
• 4:37
  seasonally and they're all professionals and
• 4:39
  they go there to make extra money and different
• 4:43
  agendas and things like that and One season I
• 4:46
  came along and I stayed I can tell you that Again,
• 4:52
  everything looks good on paper with Amazon, but
• 4:55
  is it actually adhere to it's absolutely not
• 4:59
  and I'm sure that many of you probably have seen
• 5:01
  YouTube videos of people talking about Their
• 5:04
  time in Amazon and things to that nature while
• 5:07
  it tries to do a lot of good Because it's taken
• 5:11
  on all sorts of members of the workforce. I mean
• 5:14
  we have people that had immigration problems
• 5:17
  that they can come to Amazon and they can get
• 5:20
  their work visa and that can kind of even things
• 5:23
  out for them because it's a matter of sponsorship
• 5:25
  of staying in this country. Now there's also
• 5:28
  a workforce out there that maybe they have worked
• 5:33
  in warehouses and they have probably felt like
• 5:35
  maybe they weren't respected. They weren't treated
• 5:37
  right. Maybe they worked at places like Tops
• 5:40
  or they worked at, you know, this is common in
• 5:43
  New York, a supermarket, or maybe they worked
• 5:45
  at another type of warehouse. Maybe they worked
• 5:47
  at UPS, which can be kind of brutal. I did spend
• 5:50
  a season there and I'll be talking about that
• 5:53
  later. As I mentioned, my father and my uncles
• 5:55
  worked there. However, for the most part, This
• 6:00
  can be a place with somebody that has no high
• 6:03
  school diploma, a language barrier, someone that
• 6:09
  has no citizenship, maybe someone that even has
• 6:15
  been a member of another vulnerable population,
• 6:19
  which is what I'm going to be talking about.
• 6:21
  Maybe they were formerly incarcerated or had
• 6:23
  a record. You can come to Amazon and find employment
• 6:26
  similar to a lot of other places today, which
• 6:30
  is great. However, when we think about the big
• 6:36
  picture of this workforce and we think about
• 6:39
  some of the tools that this workforce is laying
• 6:43
  out, their leadership principles, those are the
• 6:45
  tools I'm referring to. Are they actually taught
• 6:49
  and are they actually followed? Well, I can tell
• 6:52
  you firsthand, I looked them up on my own because
• 6:55
  you know, this is my way. And this is for a lot
• 6:58
  of professionals out there. They want to know
• 7:00
  what this organization is about. What is the
• 7:03
  mission statement? What are the policies? What
• 7:06
  What does this organization stand for? And it
• 7:09
  all looks good on paper. We've got some DEI.
• 7:12
  We've got some help if you don't have your high
• 7:15
  school diploma. We'll help to get it to you.
• 7:17
  We will help you get your college degree. But
• 7:20
  even that is limited. And I'll have to spend
• 7:22
  a segment on that talking about the college part.
• 7:26
  But for, again, the most part. It sounds good,
• 7:31
  but it's something that's really not adhered
• 7:34
  to. In fact, what I found is that a lot of people
• 7:38
  that are in these positions, they're limited.
• 7:43
  They're not given opportunities to grow. One
• 7:46
  person that I knew fairly well, really nice young
• 7:49
  man, was telling me he came in there. He worked
• 7:53
  really hard, and I have seen him work very hard,
• 7:55
  but he did not have an opportunity to move up.
• 7:58
  In fact, he told me they would take an outsider
• 8:00
  before they would take him to promote him. And
• 8:04
  everybody wants a chance to grow. And what he's
• 8:07
  referring to mainly is the college graduate program.
• 8:12
  I've seen that in place. And, you know, they
• 8:15
  bring in college grads, no experience. They intern
• 8:18
  sometimes or they put them into the position
• 8:20
  right out into managerial roles. And it can be
• 8:23
  very hard. It's like a workforce clash. And why
• 8:27
  is it? Because we have managers that are new,
• 8:31
  just on paper, been to college, no experience.
• 8:36
  And they're training a workforce that has been
• 8:38
  there for years. And so there is a clash because
• 8:42
  a lot of times when they come into that managerial
• 8:45
  role, they can't even do the job. They can't
• 8:48
  even do, say, picking. They can't even do sorting.
• 8:52
  They can't even do counting. And so now we have
• 8:55
  a clash. That's a first break in policy because
• 8:59
  you always want to be able to have a staff. That
• 9:03
  can do the job. This is why a lot of people will
• 9:05
  come in and start at the bottom Even in the military
• 9:08
  we come in we start in at the bottom and you
• 9:10
  work your way up, right? so That part is hard
• 9:16
  That is the first clash as I mentioned the second
• 9:19
  part that we're dealing with in this culture
• 9:21
  Is that the leadership principles that I've mentioned
• 9:25
  that I myself have looked up. They're not known
• 9:27
  They're not adhered to maybe one person may know
• 9:31
  one but when we're talking about this company
• 9:36
  a company that sells itself on say DEI that sells
• 9:42
  itself on leadership and it sells itself on being
• 9:47
  really a place where you can bring your family
• 9:50
  and they can come and get health benefits day
• 9:52
  one as their commercials say is this company
• 9:55
  really about what it says well again I can tell
• 9:59
  you It must be a case where the marketing is
• 10:03
  very good because when you get on the inside
• 10:06
  from the two organizations that I spent, there's
• 10:09
  a huge disconnect. And this vulnerable population
• 10:14
  that I'm talking about, this is the population
• 10:18
  of Americans that have been formerly incarcerated
• 10:22
  and now working at Amazon. I have found that
• 10:26
  that particular sample of the population has
• 10:32
  been truly truly taken advantage of a lot of
• 10:38
  instances that I can think of I even think of
• 10:41
  a manager sending an email to me through the
• 10:44
  messaging system telling me I'm telling him about
• 10:47
  one thing and he's telling me about who I'm working
• 10:52
  around that I'm basically working around people
• 10:57
  That are formerly incarcerated on parole probation
• 11:00
  blah blah blah now what I want to say about this
• 11:05
  is that first you know as a woman and as a woman
• 11:10
  of color and as a person that has worked group
• 11:13
  in New York City and Has worked at higher levels.
• 11:19
  I'm thinking how did they recruit this young
• 11:22
  man number one? number two this may be a warehouse
• 11:26
  but this is a corporate warehouse number three
• 11:30
  where is your respect for other people and coming
• 11:35
  from New York City I love to name names right
• 11:38
  because we love to put people in their place
• 11:40
  a lot of times but again this is not what I'm
• 11:45
  here to do I am here to talk about this on this
• 11:49
  podcast so that people that are out there will
• 11:53
  know what they're getting into and You know,
• 11:57
  I remember early on I'll break into a story time
• 12:00
  really quick where I was at the delivery warehouse
• 12:02
  and I met a young lady and I remember her father
• 12:06
  called her up and She told me that he was telling
• 12:10
  her to kind of come out of there. Don't stay
• 12:13
  there now the delivery station This is really
• 12:17
  nothing compared. I mean when I say nothing,
• 12:20
  I mean it is Heavy heavy work, right? This is
• 12:23
  not like the other places the other warehouses
• 12:26
  the fulfillment centers where you're going up
• 12:28
  to machine and you're picking or you're sorting
• 12:30
  the delivery stations you are carrying some very
• 12:34
  heavy heavy bags and I can see why her father
• 12:38
  warned her to not go there. I mean I myself have
• 12:42
  a nephew a young man who wanted to come there
• 12:45
  and I can see now. I was waiting for him actually
• 12:49
  to come. He was deployed. And when he came back,
• 12:52
  he was probably going to come there. And I said,
• 12:56
  no, absolutely not. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not
• 13:02
  until I see more, not until this organization
• 13:05
  gets itself together. Now, I was actually curious
• 13:08
  about Amazon because they were always recruiting
• 13:10
  at my college, but I was going in another direction.
• 13:13
  This was not the direction I was going on. In
• 13:16
  fact, Amazon to recruit ups a lot of the warehouses
• 13:19
  were recruiting and they got a lot of folks to
• 13:21
  come in there And they stayed and here they are
• 13:24
  20 years later But you know I can tell you first
• 13:30
  hand Going through this process that they're
• 13:34
  not spending enough time on their managers They're
• 13:38
  not spending enough time developing their managers.
• 13:41
  They're not spending enough time developing this
• 13:44
  culture that they're selling. And that's what
• 13:49
  I find most alarming. But hey, there's a lot
• 13:52
  of scholarly work out there. When you start to
• 13:54
  look at who's writing and what they're saying,
• 13:57
  they're documenting these instances. So to regress
• 14:02
  some, I want to talk again about this vulnerable
• 14:06
  population. I feel in my time that was there,
• 14:14
  what I witnessed was shameful. I think that clearly
• 14:19
  Amazon takes advantage. And when I say Amazon,
• 14:23
  it is their managerial team. It is this unprepared,
• 14:29
  untrained managerial team that they're sending
• 14:31
  out. You are lucky if you get one good manager
• 14:36
  that has experience and that is balanced and
• 14:39
  that can lead. I had one of them and it was for
• 14:43
  a brief time and she transferred back to Texas.
• 14:47
  And but again for the most part and then I remember
• 14:50
  there was another gentleman that was very good
• 14:52
  a level six manager however Amazon has spent
• 14:57
  a lot of time Not recruiting the proper folks
• 15:04
  and I remember I was talking to a member of the
• 15:07
  HR team One time and he said hey, we're supposed
• 15:10
  to get these duties back because you know the
• 15:14
  recruitment Agencies that we're using they don't
• 15:16
  know what to look for. We know what to look for.
• 15:19
  I do hope that happens because When I think about
• 15:23
  this gentleman HR really he was one of the best
• 15:26
  that I've seen period I'm in all of HR because
• 15:29
  see what Amazon does is that? None of their human
• 15:33
  resources folks have any background any training
• 15:39
  they don't have any human resources they don't
• 15:42
  have a lot of times any degrees they don't have
• 15:46
  a lot of experience they take the job and they
• 15:49
  apply well they apply for it and they take the
• 15:51
  job and when they offered it to them because
• 15:54
  they want the easy hours I actually met a gentleman
• 15:58
  there he and his wife both worked at Amazon he
• 16:01
  worked at one warehouse, she worked at the other,
• 16:05
  never met her. This is his experience he's telling
• 16:08
  me. He took the job to have early hours. Hey,
• 16:15
  do you know what this means to the people that
• 16:17
  work at this organization? Granted, human resources
• 16:21
  always kind of supports the corporate agenda,
• 16:24
  but you can't learn human resources overnight
• 16:28
  and... You're either good at it or you're not.
• 16:31
  You either know benefits or you don't. And just
• 16:35
  to regress some, when I say their human resources
• 16:39
  are not trained professionals, I really do mean
• 16:42
  that. However, there is a group and this group,
• 16:47
  they have titles such as, you know, business
• 16:51
  partner, even associate vice president, business
• 16:55
  partner. This seems to be something going around
• 16:58
  because I've seen this at other organizations
• 17:00
  and other recruiters that are now calling themselves
• 17:04
  talent acquisition or business partners, so on
• 17:07
  and so forth. Now these folks, they seem to have
• 17:12
  experience at the very least, even if they don't
• 17:14
  have the degrees, but it seems like they kind
• 17:18
  of separate the week from the shaft, right? We
• 17:21
  have this general HR group that sits at a bar
• 17:25
  and can answer some questions. They're going
• 17:28
  to give you a phone number to call their outsourced
• 17:31
  agencies, which are a lot of times are in third
• 17:34
  world countries. A lot of times when I call,
• 17:37
  I think I was calling either India. Most of the
• 17:40
  time I was calling India or sometimes I'm calling
• 17:42
  the West Indies. However, they're third party
• 17:45
  organizations, not internal to Amazon. And if
• 17:53
  you want to get someone That knows something
• 17:57
  about human resources and something about what
• 18:00
  you need a lot of times You're gonna see one
• 18:02
  of these business partners that are in the front
• 18:04
  office That's what I have found in many other
• 18:07
  people have found however nevertheless And not
• 18:12
  to go off on the HR tangent because I have a
• 18:15
  background in employment law So a lot of these
• 18:17
  things I look at because I've studied human rights.
• 18:20
  I've studied human services I have studied humans
• 18:24
  and so for the most part I'll spend a time or
• 18:28
  a bit looking at these different things and I'm
• 18:31
  like what is going on here because these are
• 18:35
  things that would never Get too much life in
• 18:39
  another organization it just wouldn't and a lot
• 18:43
  of times folks that are not trained or not skilled
• 18:47
  would be eliminated however this is a place where
• 18:53
  and I don't know if this is good or what but
• 18:56
  anybody can be anything at Amazon and sometimes
• 19:00
  this is not always so great because you're getting
• 19:03
  people in positions that just can't do the work
• 19:09
  And you have to think about, and I think about
• 19:11
  from a leadership perspective, why on earth would
• 19:14
  someone do this? Either it's to control the environment
• 19:19
  and keep your position. Really, that's the main
• 19:23
  thing that I can think about. Or it is a fact
• 19:26
  where you do want to give opportunities, even
• 19:28
  if they fail and then you give room for elimination
• 19:31
  and bringing other folks in. So that is disheartening
• 19:35
  if that's the case. With that being said this
• 19:39
  is the end of this first episode We have so much
• 19:42
  more to cover Please join me for the remainder
• 19:45
  of this series as we continue to talk about the
• 19:47
  Amazon experience in the Meanwhile, I wish you
• 19:51
  all a good week and just thank you again for
• 19:53
  joining me