[HN Gopher] Burnt Out Amazon Employees Are Embracing the Great R...
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Burnt Out Amazon Employees Are Embracing the Great Resignation
Author : Apocryphon
Score : 38 points
Date : 2022-01-24 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Schnierer expressed frustration at specific HR policies, like
| one that pauses all pay increases and stock vesting while
| employees are on parental or medical leave.
|
| Why do they offer parental or medical leave, then?
|
| This is akin to cutting someone's wages when they are on PTO.
| It's not "paid" time off anymore.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I think you might be misunderstanding. They're still getting
| paid. They're just frozen in time and not getting stock vests
| or raises.
| Arainach wrote:
| Stock vests are a significant part of many tech workers'
| comp, including Amazon workers.
| lljk_kennedy wrote:
| That's still a drop in OTE over a year, especially for a
| company that pushes the "total compensation" message.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| It is a weird nickel-and-dime-ey policy to have though. Like,
| why specifically those two types of leave? Where does it
| end?! Why not pause vesting and raises while someone is on
| vacation? Why not pause raises and vesting on the weekends?
| I'd better stop before I give them any more ideas.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| (Perhaps literally) playing Devil's Advocate:
|
| Could it be that employees that take maternal or paternal
| (parental) leave are significantly and disproportionately
| more likely to exit a short time after returning from
| leave? Or else see some other significant pattern of
| attrition after parental leave - _controlling for the
| absence and costs of the leave over its duration_?
|
| Not commenting on the ethics or legality of this sort of HR
| accounting...
| dominotw wrote:
| > It's not "paid" time off anymore.
|
| huh? i don't know anyone who gets paid purely in stock.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| It's part of their compensation.
|
| Their yearly bonuses are not predicated on how many days off
| they have taken, why would it be any different with stocks?
| Arainach wrote:
| That's only true for vacation and normal sick leave. Most
| extended leaves (medical and parental) do affect your
| bonus. This is certainly true at Microsoft and Google and
| likely many other companies. The exact formula varies - at
| some places, if you take 3 months of parental leave, you'd
| get 75% of your target bonus (since you worked 75% of the
| year). At others there are more complicated formulas that
| give partial credit or assume that the portion of the year
| you spent on leave you got an average rating or whatever.
| Similarly, at most places I've worked if you take unpaid
| leave (including long-term sick leave) those dates aren't
| bonus eligible.
| helen___keller wrote:
| The article notes the backloaded vesting schedule as a
| contributing factor, but ironically it's one of the biggest
| reasons I took a position with AWS late last year.
|
| In a market with sky high tech valuations, a big tech position
| that's all cash for the first two years was very appealing since
| a correction across the board seems likely(note: Amazon offers
| extra cash for the first two years to keep your comp roughly the
| same every year).
| master_crab wrote:
| Yeah but that correction is happening now -- after you signed
| the acceptance letter which stated the amount of stock you will
| earn in year 3-4. So you are getting hosed unless they comp you
| (which is possible considering how things are going there now)
|
| Source - former AWS engineer
| helen___keller wrote:
| Right, so I get plenty of dollars now and either get more RSU
| by year 3 or a new job
| Weryj wrote:
| Funny seeing this, I resigned from Amazon on Friday.
| dcchambers wrote:
| At what point does the candidate pool simply run out of
| experienced people for these companies to hire? There's always
| going to be new grads and junior engineers entering the market,
| ready to sacrifice the prime years of their lives for the good of
| the company, but the demand for experienced engineers and other
| staff has never been higher. Where are they finding these people
| that aren't aware of the toxic work environment? Or are they
| aware and that fat TC is just too great to ignore?
|
| I can't believe that the leadership of these companies fail to
| see the damage to their brand amongst potential employees.
| They're treading a very fine line between "How do we force the
| most out of our employees for profit?" and "What do we do when we
| can't get anyone to work for us any more?" I think we're starting
| to see the scale tip toward the later.
| [deleted]
| tablespoon wrote:
| > At what point does the candidate pool simply run out of
| experienced people for these companies to hire? There's always
| going to be new grads and junior engineers entering the market,
| ready to sacrifice the prime years of their lives for the good
| of the company, but the demand for experienced engineers and
| other staff has never been higher. Where are they finding these
| people that aren't aware of the toxic work environment? Or are
| they aware and that fat TC is just too great to ignore?
|
| There are a fair number of people out there who are either not
| careful or who think that somehow "things will be different for
| them" (e.g. _assume_ they 're some better-than-average person
| who can make it work, and that most of the horror stories are
| from people who just weren't as good as they are).
|
| > I can't believe that the leadership of these companies fail
| to see the damage to their brand amongst potential employees.
| They're treading a very fine line between "How do we force the
| most out of our employees for profit?" and "What do we do when
| we can't get anyone to work for us any more?" I think we're
| starting to see the scale tip toward the later.
|
| There a lot of things that work well until they suddenly don't.
| Maybe they're falsely reassured that since it hadn't caught up
| to them yet, so it won't catch up with them ever. Sort of like
| people who believe in technological progress, know about a lot
| of cases where technology pulled a rabbit out of a hat and
| saved the day (e.g. the Green Revolution [1]), so downplay
| alarm over threats as insufficiently optimistic because they
| assume a rabbit will be found in a new hat before the threat
| manifests itself.
|
| Also, a company culture can be extremely difficult to change
| once it's established itself.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
| janeerie wrote:
| I have an interview with Amazon next week. My primary
| motivation for this is to make significantly more than I do
| now, and a hope that my division/role would be different from
| those that produce the horror stories. I'm seriously
| considering cancelling though...
| [deleted]
| Dig1t wrote:
| It's crazy they stop stock vesting on parental leave, that just
| seems really messed up to me. I can get medical leave as that one
| is pretty easy to abuse/string out for a very long time. However
| it just seems like a disincentive to have children and a definite
| message being sent by Amazon by doing something scummy like that
| for parental leave.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > It's crazy they stop stock vesting on parental leave, that
| just seems really messed up to me.
|
| The linked article explicitly states that: "A few days after
| she sent the note, according to a report in Business Insider,
| Amazon changed the policy and reestablished vesting during
| parental leave and for up to 26 weeks of medical leave."
| 8note wrote:
| That's good for the future, but still bad for all the people
| whos past leave still affects their future vests
| dominotw wrote:
| seems fair to me. you are still getting paid.
|
| > it just seems like a disincentive to have children
|
| people who get paid in stock aren't warehouse employees they
| are highly paid software engineer types, surely they can
| tolerate getting by on 200k/yr salary for a few months.
|
| this is a huge over reaction.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > people who get paid in stock aren't warehouse employees
| they are highly paid software engineer types, surely they can
| tolerate getting by on 200k/yr salary for a few months.
|
| Why would anyone be OK with not getting paid their fair, and
| agreed, share?
|
| I don't understand why anyone would side with a trillion
| dollar corporation, instead of a worker, regardless of how
| much he or she makes.
| dominotw wrote:
| > Why would anyone be OK with not getting paid their fair,
| and agreed, share?
|
| Agreed? Surely their employment contract included this
| clause, wouldn't that be plainly illegal to do that
| otherwise?
|
| > I don't understand why anyone would side with a trillion
| dollar corporation, instead of a worker,
|
| Because not everyone chooses which side they are on first
| and comes up with the justification later.
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(page generated 2022-01-24 23:20 UTC)