Jeff Bezos defends Amazon after article criticises working conditions

Former and current Amazon employees spoke out about their “bruising” experiences at the company.

So far Amazon’s ambitions and its rising stock price have enabled it to keep attracting great people and driving them hard.

The LinkedIn post denies most of what The New York Times wrote by insisting the writers must not have fact-checked their work.

“Here’s why I’m writing you”.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is asking his representatives to peruse a New York Times report that portrayed the organization’s “wounding work environment”. The letter “doesn’t describe the Amazon I know”, says Bezos, and he encourages employees to speak to HR about any “lack of empathy”.

The controversial article from the Nytimes.com reported on the interviews they got on the workplace ethic and culture being integrated into the workplace.

In Amazon’s own recruiting video, a young woman warns, “You either fit here or you don’t”. The individuals we rent listed here are one of the best of the most effective…

Apart from rejecting the NYT’s portrayal of Amazon’s working conditions, Bezos said he didn’t believe a company that treated its employees in such a poor way in the tech industry could be successful. “I do know I would go away such an organization”.

“But hopefully, you don’t recognise the company described”. In a memo to employees responding to the allegations, Bezos painted a picture of caring Amazonians who are “fun” and “brilliant” and “helping to invent the future, and laughing along the way”. “Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover”. Ranking systems push employees to fight for the top slots and those at the bottom risk losing their jobs.

It includes more frequent ratings by managers and other internal feedback and data that can be aggregated and analyzed to provide a better portrait of performance than a single rating.

The article stated that employees at Amazon were routinely mistreated and pitted against each another’s ideas at meetings, all while working long hours.

Elly Baker, GMB union lead, told The Register: “It does not have a positive approach to staff in UK blue collar workers, interesting it’s the same approach it seems to be taking to white collar workers in the US”. Rather than having your fitness level measured at a checkup or visit to the doctor, it’s now available in real time to everyone with a fitness tracker such as Fitbit or Apple Watch.