One anecdote from a different corner of corporate life (not Amazon) comes to mind - a young and upcoming marketing manager was promised a promotion for several years. It never came. When she asked why - as she had gotten several recommendations for excellent work, and by all appearance had checked every box, there were no answers other than 'maybe next year'.
The ultimate answer was simple. She was underpaid relative to her current band. If they promoted her, they would have to admit that and fix it. And it would cause all kinds of other issues. So they preferred that she eventually would leave, so they wouldn't have to address their previous screw ups.
In your case of UK manager shortage and then not coming through on allowing them to keep manager roles post peak, a similar logic may have been at play. If they did, they would have to admit that promoting from within the team actually worked. And they would have to consider that more often. But it would mess with other things they were doing. So putting everyone back into their previous and convenient boxes is so much easier - even if that means destroying a lot of good will among those that helped out in time of need.
In some way that was the big picture during Covid. While many employees may have at one point or another day dreamed about working from home, nobody had ever asked for that. Then the pandemic hit, and for the most part it wasn't the employees volunteering to work from home, they were told by management they had to upend their life and do it. And everyone did, some more happily than others. It often involved significant sacrifice, but everyone came together as a team.
Then the pandemic receded. And instead of appreciating the commitment and sacrifices everyone made, clueless non-empathetic executive rolled out the RTO drum beat. Going as far as firing everyone who refused to return and installing surveillance technology to force compliance. They didn't want to admit that for some people working from home is actually better and totally works in today's knowledge worker environment. But that would mean they would have to change their ways, and that's just too much effort. Why not have the other people change again instead.
You see the pattern....
I had one outstanding SDE in my team at Amazon. He was significantly below pay band when I inherited him. He had started as a CS agent a long time ago and taught himself coding, and as a result didn't check all the college degree boxes. But he was one of the more diligent and reliable persons on my team. It took a lot of arguing and persistence on my part to get him an exception for his academic background and properly situated in the pay band. This shouldn't be the exception or that hard, we should welcome people who went the extra mile and are extremely valuable team members.
Come to think of - the VP of global CS during my time, who I worked with very well, also had come up through the ranks there, and wasn't a management import. Probably why CS was outstanding back then. He understood and embodied what CS meant and what it meant for the people to deliver it.
Corporate culture can be such a downer once you see it from the inside. It truly lets you see both the best and the worst of people, unfortunately a lot more of the latter.
Excellent writing and analysis (as usual).
One anecdote from a different corner of corporate life (not Amazon) comes to mind - a young and upcoming marketing manager was promised a promotion for several years. It never came. When she asked why - as she had gotten several recommendations for excellent work, and by all appearance had checked every box, there were no answers other than 'maybe next year'.
The ultimate answer was simple. She was underpaid relative to her current band. If they promoted her, they would have to admit that and fix it. And it would cause all kinds of other issues. So they preferred that she eventually would leave, so they wouldn't have to address their previous screw ups.
In your case of UK manager shortage and then not coming through on allowing them to keep manager roles post peak, a similar logic may have been at play. If they did, they would have to admit that promoting from within the team actually worked. And they would have to consider that more often. But it would mess with other things they were doing. So putting everyone back into their previous and convenient boxes is so much easier - even if that means destroying a lot of good will among those that helped out in time of need.
In some way that was the big picture during Covid. While many employees may have at one point or another day dreamed about working from home, nobody had ever asked for that. Then the pandemic hit, and for the most part it wasn't the employees volunteering to work from home, they were told by management they had to upend their life and do it. And everyone did, some more happily than others. It often involved significant sacrifice, but everyone came together as a team.
Then the pandemic receded. And instead of appreciating the commitment and sacrifices everyone made, clueless non-empathetic executive rolled out the RTO drum beat. Going as far as firing everyone who refused to return and installing surveillance technology to force compliance. They didn't want to admit that for some people working from home is actually better and totally works in today's knowledge worker environment. But that would mean they would have to change their ways, and that's just too much effort. Why not have the other people change again instead.
You see the pattern....
I had one outstanding SDE in my team at Amazon. He was significantly below pay band when I inherited him. He had started as a CS agent a long time ago and taught himself coding, and as a result didn't check all the college degree boxes. But he was one of the more diligent and reliable persons on my team. It took a lot of arguing and persistence on my part to get him an exception for his academic background and properly situated in the pay band. This shouldn't be the exception or that hard, we should welcome people who went the extra mile and are extremely valuable team members.
Come to think of - the VP of global CS during my time, who I worked with very well, also had come up through the ranks there, and wasn't a management import. Probably why CS was outstanding back then. He understood and embodied what CS meant and what it meant for the people to deliver it.
Corporate culture can be such a downer once you see it from the inside. It truly lets you see both the best and the worst of people, unfortunately a lot more of the latter.