Taking Advantage

Chronicling Amazon's "something for nothing" abuse of temporary promotions

Everyone likes abstract principles.

But we learn a lot more from real-world examples of how people treat one another.

In organizational life, this has a way of exposing gaps between the principles we say matter to us and how our actions align.

For example, Amazon commits itself to a principle it calls Earn Trust, which purports to be about candor and treating others with respect.

I wrote recently about how it undermined that principle by surprising its managers with a pay freeze after recording record profits. And by letting them find out through media reports instead of adult conversations.

Now let me provide some real world examples of another way in which Amazon is disrespecting this principle, and minimizing the dignity of its people in the process.

---

First, I have to explain the meaning of “step-up” in context.

Within Amazon, step-up is the term for an interim appointee to a position. If a manager is on extended leave but will return, for example, someone will fill their role until they come back. That person is labeled a “step-up.”

In the abstract, this sounds like a harmless or even positive thing, right? Someone gets an opportunity to grow on an interim basis before stepping back down. It readies them for their own promotion later. Best applied, stepping up is the final prelude to promotion, giving someone a finishing school to learn in situ before taking the full weight of a role.

But when placed in the hands of an inauthentic employer who doesn’t have the genuine interests of its people at heart, it can devolve rapidly into serial abuse.

---

Here are some examples I witnessed during my time within Amazon. The names are fictitious and I have employed selective vagary as necessary to shield identities.

In all cases the essential truth and fact pattern are preserved.

Kenny filled in as a warehouse Senior Operations Manager after his boss left the business unexpectedly. It was sold to him as a short-duration growth opportunity, but ended up lasting nine months.

He delivered a successful peak season, proving he was ready to be made permanent. Rather than be promoted, he was stepped back down to make room for a new hire. When the new hire struggled, Kenny was expected to support and fill in as necessary.

Elaine subbed as a Regional Operations Director for several months while her boss filled in for his boss, who had been promoted to a new role leaving a vacancy which went unfilled. Elaine wasn’t given formal recognition or authority, and therefore struggled to fully immerse in the role. Yet, she was responsible for regional performance. At the end of this unrecognized step-up period, she went back to her role as a General Manager with no discernible advantage gained from her investment of ca. 400 additional hours of work and commitment.

Kosmo was hired to run one of the largest fulfillment centers in all of Amazon, but was not promoted to General Manager. He was expected to deliver a huge operation without the recognition, authority, or pay entitled by the size of the challenge. The hours and demands of his role were grueling. Because he was held at Level 7, many others were doing a hell of a lot less and making a hell of a lot more money. Only after more than a year of successful delivery and two peak seasons was he promoted.

Estelle was given an interim appointment to run a warehouse when a series of moves created an unplanned vacancy. She superbly delivered in the role for six months, including a peak season, before being stepped back down. Someone else took over the warehouse. Later, she was asked to once again step up and do the same role again. She did so, finally gaining a permanent Site Leader appointment after nearly two years of auditioning.

George led one of Amazon’s most challenging sites for an entire year without even being recognized as stepping up. The site’s General Manager was employed on various projects and was proxying frequently for his boss, whose role was too big for one person.

George performed all of the roles of site leadership and was known by everyone to be running the site, but was neither recognized nor paid for it. Eventually, he was promoted, but only on the condition he move away from his family indefinitely to lead a different site.

Jerry stepped up as an Area Manager over a peak season after the site lost several managers to a new launch on short notice. He was absolutely superb in the role, so much so that he was invited to repeatedly fill interim roles over the next year. In talent review discussions, he was acknowledged as being better than half of those permanently filling manager positions.

After a second successful peak as an interim manager, as he prepared to compete for a permanent manager role, Amazon changed its policy and made him ineligible because he didn’t have a degree.

Frank filled in as HR Manager for a huge warehouse for more than nine months, at times covering a neighboring site simultaneously. He worked in a role two levels senior to the the one reflected in his business title and was given no additional pay. After eventually stepping back down, Frank was told he lacked the sponsorship to be promoted despite proving he could deliver in the role. He was forced into a lateral move at the same level.

Bob worked in three different Level 7 HR roles over the course of three years, responsible for leading masses of activity involving thousands of employees across several buildings. Bob was known to be an amazing leader and partner, and was recognized as such in several consecutive performance reviews. Nonetheless, Bob remained stalled at Level 6 for reasons never explained to him.

---

There was a point a few years ago when Amazon committed itself to reducing reliance on step-ups. Guidance was concocted and issued. HR leaders were empowered to hold operators accountable to it.

But HR turned out to be the worst offender of all, with mid-level HR managers routinely subjected to indefinite auditions only to be denied promotion over vague or arbitrary quibbles. This before inexplicably being returned to their interim roles, entrusted with a position they were allegedly not good enough to occupy, and without the pay, status, or responsibility to match.

What I have described to you here is not opportunity. It is abuse.

This is taking extra work from people without paying for it, all the while persuading them it’s in their best interest without committing to how any advantage will accrue to them.

If we were talking about a matter of weeks in a bigger role, the notion of symbiosis might better apply.

But when we’re talking about months or years, it’s just usury. This is taking advantage of someone’s earnestness to extract something for nothing.

These examples illustrate a willingness to accept extra time and effort, but not to pay for it. And also not to recognize it, as that might lead to being forced to pay for it.

Nearly every example here implicates someone who just had their pay frozen after the company’s best quarter ever. There is a clear pattern of refusing to pay people what they fairly deserve for the value they add.

Amazon leaves these arrangements vague so they don’t have to commit to promotions, even as they extract blood, sweat, and tears from team players who help them mask critical gaps across the organization.

And this is just the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. You can find examples of this sort of thing in just about every Amazon facility, and I’d be willing to bet the corporate environment is similar.

---

Why does the Amazon operations network find itself so reliant on step-ups to function? A few possible reasons spring to mind.

High Turnover?

Indeed, it doesn’t help that people are constantly leaving Amazon ops because of punishing working conditions.

But this is a known. It is an assailable problem. It doesn’t get fixed because Amazon doesn’t want to make the investments in people, teams, and leaders to reduce attrition.

In fact, as recent events show, it doesn’t even want to share profits with employees, and is perfectly content with pissing people off at risk of them leaving.

All of which means high turnover is not the reason for so many people in interim roles.

Cumbersome Promotion Process?

In the time I was with Amazon, promotions went from being frictionless to heavily administrative.

Many promotions require candidates to compete in a rigorous board process similar to a hiring panel. Others require a written nomination demonstrating broad support for the candidate and providing data and evidence supporting the promotion. The sponsor must then go on a series of calls to defend the nomination, which is systematically parsed and attacked by more senior managers who have no personal knowledge of the candidate or their performance.

The rigidity and lethargy of this process don’t help. But these are self-imposed conditions. So they can’t be the reason why step-ups continue to be so common.

Seeing People as a Cost Rather Than a Benefit?

Bullseye.

In my time with Amazon, I listened dozens of times as senior finance controllers and operational leaders construed as “naive” the notion of paying people a penny more than the minimum they could get away with.

I watched time and again as every plot development in the network became a reason to reduce staffing. More productive? Well, then you’ve proven you don’t need as many managers to hit your targets. Less productive? Well, then you’re proving you don’t have enough focus, so let’s create focus by reducing staff. Demand, profit, share price, the price of tea in China … whatever the variable, it was interpreted to say we needed to shrink management teams.

Running lean as a management staff means that one unexpected departure, promotion, or extended illness creates a hole you’re not ready to fill. Amazon is perfectly happy for it to be filled by someone who won’t earn a penny more, won’t get any guarantee of promotion, and will allow them to save on staffing costs to muddle through.

Next time you hear an Amazon executive moaning about costs, ask them how much money they saved over the past decade by relying on interim or probationary managers who never got paid for their extra work. It’s massive enough it can’t even be measured.

Where did all that savings go?

---

There’s an easy fix to all this.

I and others suggested it when I was still with Amazon.

First, make a rule that no one can be in an interim position for more than three weeks without a ticket being raised to give them the proper business title along with a 10% raise until they step back down.

Second, self-limit. Something the best organizations do.

If someone is in a role for one day longer than the agreed probationary period for that role, they are automatically promoted.

Automatically promoted into the role they are already doing.

No approvals, no exceptions. The IT systems are tuned to automatically award a business title and to prompt generation of an offer at the new salary level.

Third, you figure out how people will try to circumvent these rules, and you seal off those avenues. Discipline anyone who runs afoul.

Such a reform will have two impacts.

First, it will force the company to choose between taking better care of its organizations and paying the higher premium of not doing so.

Second, it will ensure individuals who work extra hours and contribute at a higher level are fairly compensated for it.

---

As it stands, an abusive employment practice continues. It should be probed and ended. If Amazon won’t self-police, regulators, employment lawyers, and labor unions will end up filling the void.

Until that happens, the company will keep getting something for nothing.

And we should expect more from a retailer with a $1.8T market cap which says it wants to be the best employer in the world. An employer which targets younger demographics, hiring people too inexperienced to clock and react to the dysfunction of an issue like this one.

Promotions are a powerful tool in organizations. This level of carrot-dangling chicanery is predatory and wrong.

TC is an independent writer, speaker, coach, and consultant specializing in organizational leadership. He is also a former Amazon senior manager.