Times.com is the first one to report:
In the company's annual letter to shareholders, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos revealed what has to be the most counterintuitive personnel policy in corporate America today: If an employee isn't happy working at the online retail giant, they can earn up to $5,000 just for quitting.
Pay To Quit started at Amazon-owned Zappos, and the parent company adopted the concept for its fulfillment centers...
In a Harvard Business Review blog post examining this practice at Zappos back in 2008, author and Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor says the quit money (it was $1,000 per employee back then) worked out costing less than the online shoe retailer would have lost if unmotivated employees put the brakes on its fast-paced corporate culture.
Would you like to see the practice adopted by your current employer? I wouldn't, yet.
Related Stories
Amazon's started a "Pay to Quit" program where full-time employees are offered up to $5,000 to leave the company (to ensure the remaining workforce is truly motivated). Jeff Bezos revealed the perk in a letter to shareholders, while also announcing that Amazon is welcoming tourists into its fulfillment centers in 6 different U.S. states. But one Seattle blog describes the move as "obviously an attempt to counter all the bad press that Amazon's warehouses have gotten over the past year," linking to an undercover BBC investigation and stories about Amazon's arrival in a former coal-mining town. And Gawker has begun soliciting new horror stories from Amazon employees. ("You literally must re-interview for your position...constantly. It comes up at least every three months...")
NOTE: This story is a follow-up to one we posted on April 13: Amazon Will Pay Employees Up To $5,000 For Quitting
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:17PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by black6host on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:47PM
I read about Zappos doing this quite some time ago. Back then it was 1000.00 USD. I thought it was a great idea. It's going to cost you more than that by the time you figure out a particular employee just isn't suited for the job.
The problem with implementation is that we would hope for the best. If we spent a grand on each employee that wanted to take us up on such an offer then we would lose the money with certainty. If we didn't offer it we might lose the money but might not. (Frankly it's my belief it was a given. The money would be lost either way.) But the folks holding the purse strings didn't see it that way. They wanted to take the risk and actually paid more than a grand per bad employee. Actually they were a major part of the problem as to why turnover was so high. To them it was easier to take the possible loss, in their eyes, over time. Even though it would cost more.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:58PM
Would you like to see the practice adopted by your current employer? I wouldn't, yet.
If it is an extra option on top of the existing ways to end your employment: why not?
And $5000 sound like a reasonable figure - it seems to be a bit over a month's salary.
1.5 (median USA income) month's worth could be even better - that sounds like a reasonable amount of time to find another job, meaning you'd feel free to walk out when you really don't feel like staying instead of prolonging your contract and procrastinating.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:21PM
There's a whole lot of folks here in the US who'll tell you 1.5 months is NOT enough time to find a job. I certainly wouldn't leave a position confident that I'd be employed in that amount of time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:37PM
Point taken. ;)
I think the idea is sound; how well it works depends on a trade off.
Say quitting employees get X months of median income. The deal seemed targeted at people who really want to leave now, not at people who are unhappy but can weather it. People who really, urgently want to leave now would be willing to take a risk of some unemployment time - but not too much. Basically, Amazon is offering unhappy employees a reduction in the effects of unemployment. If that + unhappiness of staying balances out the expected unhappiness of the resulting unemployment, then unhappy employee would probably quit.
In other words: X should end up being VAL("it won't be pretty, but I'll make it through without losing my dignity") - for those of you who speak QBASIC
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:50PM
See my comment here [soylentnews.org] - it would have been better in reply to this.
For your convenience, the gist of it is: may work if a limited number of companies adopt it. The moment their number reach a critical mass, we are going to see abuses (e.g. professional job-hoppers).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:59PM
Yeah, there are a whole lot of people who are wrong on any given issue. One month is long enough to find a job, even in the abysmal situation we have right now. It may be a job you hate but if you can't find a job in a month, you either didn't really look or you are way too picky.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GeminiDomino on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:22PM
If it's a job you hate, then it's defeating the purpose of leaving a job you hate rather than dragging them down with you.
(As to the rest of the assertion, it's not even worth a rebuttal.)
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:40PM
Fair point. I got off-track on the subject at hand.
Ditto.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by goody on Monday April 14 2014, @03:17AM
One month might be sufficient if you have a low skill position. I've read in the past that one should expect to be out of work one month for each $10K of salary. Judging by the stories we've been seeing, that's not uncustomary.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday April 14 2014, @03:52AM
Yes, you can get a job immediately, assuming you are willing to work for negative money [as in, it will cost you more to live than your job will pay]. Perhaps it'll be a draw if you are willing to live in the park.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Grishnakh on Monday April 14 2014, @01:07PM
Perhaps it'll be a draw if you are willing to live in the park.
That's illegal. You'll be arrested by the cops for vagrancy. They'll probably beat you for good measure before slapping the cuffs on you too.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday April 15 2014, @01:57AM
Free night in jail! Bonus, it's heated!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2014, @05:50AM
You must live in a very strange place if this is something you believe to be true. You might want to inform the homeless population around these parts that if they sleep where they have for years, the cops are going to beat them up and slap cuffs on them.
Jaywalking is illegal too. So is spitting on the sidewalk. Rarely does that get one beaten up and slapped with handcuffs.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:20PM
Try being a vagrant in Central Park, NYC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @10:35AM
check your facts, the NLCHP just came out with a report on anti-homeless laws [nlchp.org]
specifically 34% of cities have city-wide bans against camping, and 57% have location specific bans on camping, 43% prohibit sleeping in vehicles, 53% of cities prohibit sitting/lying down in public, 74% of homeless people interviewed did not know of a place where they could sleep that's both legal and safe.
read the report it's mind-boggling and heart-breaking how low the USA has sunk
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:44PM
Imagine 20% of the companies in an industry would adopt such a practice.
How long before it is going to be abused by professional job-hoppers?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:13PM
How long before it is going to be abused by professional job-hoppers?
More to the point, how long before employers are forced to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions in order to keep the good employees?
The number people who would be sequential job-leavers is pretty minimal. The same arguments are used as scare tactics when anyone suggests a decent unemployment insurance scheme, or even a hike to minimum wages.
Pure propaganda by the people who want to continue to drive down wages and create unstable work environments.
Good employers never have a problem getting or retaining good employees.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:09PM
$5k is a bit over one month's salary for you? Where do you live, Silicon Valley? I'd say the majority of people, or Americans at least, are closer to the bracket I'm stuck in, which is less than half that amount: about $2k/month, and that's split between two people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:01PM
Median household income is $50k. 25th percentile is $2k a month.
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Monday April 14 2014, @01:07PM
This - I actually googled for "median US income" to figure that out. Then I divided by twelve and did some very non-mathematical rounding.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by monster on Tuesday April 15 2014, @08:04AM
Isn't also the case that a fair percentage of households have both parents working? That would mean $25k per year/person.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:03PM
Amazon is only giving employees a very small annual window to be paid for quiting.
The effect is that they are actually giving people who hate their jobs an incentive to stick around. It is the same thing as the annual bonus or deferred compensation that anyone who has worked on wall-street knows about -- you only get the money if you are still employed on the disbursement date. So if you happen to realize just how crappy the job is a day after this year's window ends, you've got 5,000 reasons to stick it out for another 11+ months when they will probably make the same offer again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:09PM
I'm sure there is much rejoicing among the people who work in Amazon's warehouses.
Extremely poor work conditions inside Amazon warehouse [blogspot.com]
(Too bad the labor market is so crappy that there's nowhere else to go.)
Working in oppressive heat with no fans and no water breaks allowed is pretty brutal.
I've had kidney stones; hydration is critical to avoiding extreme pain.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:22PM
What the hell. Nobody heard of a screen door? Fence? Mesh? A damm $200 massive air moving fan?
(Score: 1) by goody on Monday April 14 2014, @12:03AM
Are they really rejoicing? From what I understand, a lot of the warehouse workers technically aren't Amazon employees but work for subcontractors. This is how Amazon gets away with treating workers like shit in lousy conditions, it's essentially outsourced slavery. I would guess these workers aren't eligible for the $5K.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tynin on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:25PM
At my last job, it was obvious that no one was ever going to be promoted anytime soon. Management ruled with keeping people afraid of losing their jobs. HR would always side with management on everything. My dept was especially bad with the highest turn over rate in the building. My boss would target someone, and it didn't matter what they did at that point, he would eventually get all the paperwork needed to see them fired. And not just any kind of fired, but fired so you couldn't collect unemployment, which apparently is as easy as having someone let go for "violating company policy or rules". Too many rules were on the book, and many of them could be changed without anyone being told (that whole subject to change without notice bull crap). The only reason I stayed as long as I did was because the company was going through round after round of layoffs. If you got laid off, you got a SWEET severance package. $5k would have been enough to see me smiling out the door.
I like to think I'd never work under those conditions again.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @10:57AM
Warehouse workers are fungible commodities and they know it. Managers do not understand people who have to work for a living. A warehouse worker will have to pay for car repairs or a medical emergency, quit, get this money, and go to the next warehouse and apply for a job. This has nothing to do with loyalty and everything to do with survival. When you don't make enough to survive, you do what you have to. And once Amazon sees their turnover skyrocket (and it's already sky high!), they'll have to concede this was a bad idea.
Managers ought to be required to work for a living for a couple of years before they're allowed to manage people who do.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by chewbacon on Monday April 14 2014, @02:42PM
Here. Here.
I was invited to work on a project for assessing equipment and technology needs for a new ICU I was working in. At more than one of these meetings, while other nurses and I were looking at schematics and taking notes, management was talking about having another meeting. You heard that right: they had hijacked this meeting and turned it into a meeting to have another meeting.
Meanwhile, my cohorts and I were productive. Why? Because being the little worker bees we were, we hadn't forgotten what it's like to work. The management I used to work for loved to delegate and, when faced with having to do work on their own, loved to delay doing any work.