assignment about amazon company

Amazon: Company Analysis Essay

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Among the many organizations around the world, Amazon stands out for its scale and innovation. It is the largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. The purpose of Amazon, like any other similar company, is to maximize profit. In this regard, the organization is famous for its harsh working conditions, forcing workers to act to the limit of their capabilities. Such a policy is typical for corporations of this level; however, the executive director, Jeff Bezos, has his vision for Amazon’s future. According to him, it is directly connected with the prospect of all humankind. He is trying to advance promising technologies as far as possible. Bezos wants to create a safe and comfortable future for emerging generations in which they will not have to worry about anything. Bezos’s distant goals include the creation and development of the space program. However, it is necessary to accumulate enough funds and collect enough technology.

Like any other organization, Amazon’s strengths and weaknesses can be analyzed internally and externally. In the case of Amazon, its strongest point is its executive director, as well as the accumulated capital. Due to its broad reach and a massive marketplace for goods and services, Amazon has secured a strong market position. At the same time, the entrepreneurial leader Bezos is continuously expanding the company, conquering new areas of activity. It helps Amazon steadily grow and increase its capital and influence in the international market. However, the complex internal structure is the weak point of the organization. Since Amazon currently owns many formations, managing them at the same time can be extremely difficult. Thus, the size and complexity of Amazon’s structure may be an internal weakness of the corporation that impedes its operation.

From the outside, a massive number of company divisions allows it to feel confident in the market. At the same time, it is not even necessary for Amazon itself to purposefully search for new contracts. However, the company’s size and policy are weak points that threaten its further development. Very often, an organization is criticized because of its strict monopolization of the market, as well as of the exploitation of employees and harsh working conditions. Thus, because of its desire to achieve maximum profit, the company allows itself too much, and this is its weak point.

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About Amazon

Let's prepare for assessments.

Before we get into the details of assessments, take some time to learn about Amazon, get to know our business teams, and “meet” a few Amazonians.

Leadership Principles

Next, dive into our Leadership Principles. We use our Leadership Principles every day, whether we're discussing ideas for new projects or deciding on the best approach to solving a problem. It is just one of the things that makes Amazon peculiar. All candidates are evaluated based on our Leadership Principles. The best way to prepare is to consider how you’ve applied the Leadership Principles in your previous professional experience.

Customer Obsession

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job".

Invent and Simplify

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here". As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Are right, A Lot

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

Learn and Be Curious

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

Insist on the Highest Standards

Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Bias for Action

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Deliver Results

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer

​Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.

Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

​We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.

About assessments

At Amazon, one of our highest priorities is hiring and developing the best, and we work hard to raise the performance bar with every hire. Amazon uses online assessments as one way to help us get to know you better, and we design them to measure key characteristics required for success in a role. Assessments also allow us to assess applicants consistently and equitably, as every individual is provided with the same experience and information needed to complete the assessment. Depending on the position, we may ask you to take an assessment during the application process or send it to you separately after you’ve applied. The type and number of assessments will depend on the role you apply for and in some cases, must be completed within a certain timeframe. The two common types of assessments are work style assessments and work sample simulations.

WORK STYLE ASSESSMENT

These assessments are centered around Amazon’s peculiar culture and Leadership Principles, and typically take 10-20 minutes to complete. In these assessments, we ask you to choose the extent to which a statement represents your work style. For instance, we may ask you which of the two statements "I like for things to be clearly structured,” or “I look forward to the opportunity to learn new things," best describes you.

WORK SAMPLE SIMULATION

These assessments ask you to complete virtual tasks related to a specific position and typically take 20 minutes - one hour to complete. They may ask you to make decisions based on our Leadership Principles, complete activities critical to success at Amazon, and demonstrate your problem-solving, prioritization, and interpersonal abilities. Depending on the role you are applying for, the assessment may ask you to interpret data from a chart, answer a customer question, choose how to resolve an issue, multitask, or find the right information from multiple sources.

• For any Software Development Engineer I & II applicants we recommend reviewing our Software Development Topics to help you prepare for technical evaluations and interviews. For all other roles, no advance preparation is required to complete the assessment(s). Just be yourself and do your best.
• Some questions may ask about your work style. Try not to overthink them or spend too much time on any one question. We want to get to know the authentic you, as there are many types of successful people at Amazon.
• Before starting your assessment, read any information provided carefully since things like timing, deadlines, and assessment types can vary depending on the team.

The formalities

• Most assessments are conducted virtually unless administered as part of a hiring event or on-site interview day.
• During your assessment, be in a quiet and comfortable place with no distractions.
• Review provided instructions carefully, as some assessments must be completed by a particular date. If an assessment deadline is missed, we’re unable to grant extensions. Many assessments are also timed, so be sure to set aside an appropriate amount of time.
• All assessments require the internet, have a computer with a reliable connection and access to email. You will be notified of any additional technical requirements in advance.
• If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation , such as an ASL interpreter or a different interview format, or if you have physical accessibility needs, please reach out to us as we are committed to making reasonable provisions for all individuals.
• Technical assistance is available for all assessments should you experience a disruption that you cannot resolve (e.g. assessment freezes or crashes). If an issue occurs, use the contact information provided in the assessment.
• We take your data privacy very seriously. To learn about how we store your results review our privacy policy.
• All assessments must be completed solely by the applicant.

Amazon supports pay equity. We will not consider a candidate’s current or historical compensation when determining whether to offer employment or in determining any aspect of offer compensation for any candidate or role located in the United States.

After assessments

• In most cases, you will be notified via email if we’re moving forward with your application. You can also check your status any time in our application portal.
• After you complete the assessment, certain roles may require you to participate in a phone/virtual interview, or come on-site for an in-person interview, which allows us to dive deeper into your skills and experience to learn even more about you. To help prepare, explore our prep guides for phone and in-person interviews.

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Inside Amazon’s Growth Strategy

If the key to success is focus, why does Amazon work?

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Since Amazon started as an online retailer in 1994, it has expanded into streaming, cloud computing, content creation, and even groceries. But traditional business strategy tells us that the key to success is focus. So, why does Amazon work?

“I think in Amazon’s case, everything is very tightly connected. If you remove one part, the whole becomes less,” says Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta . “That’s the key question: are the pieces fitting together nicely, or they just happen to be another business because it’s profitable?”

Gupta has studied Amazon’s growth strategy and he tells Cold Call host Brian Kenny how Amazon looks beyond traditional industry boundaries to define their competitors and why connecting products and services with their customers is at the core of their strategy.

Key episode topics include: business models, growth strategy, operations and supply chain management, innovation, technology and analytics, online retail, customer-centricity, customer experience, competitive strategy.  

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: If the Key to Business Success Is Focus, Why Does Amazon Work? (May 2019)
• Find more episodes of Cold Call .
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business. Amazon started as an online retailer back in 1994. Since then, it has expanded into streaming, cloud computing, content creation, and even groceries. But if traditional business strategy tells us that the key to success is focus – why does Amazon work ? Today, we bring you a conversation with Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta – who has studied Amazon’s growth strategy. You’ll learn how Amazon builds its business around its customers — rather than its products and services. You’ll also learn how they look beyond traditional industry boundaries to define their competitors – and why connecting products and services with their customers is at the core of their strategy. This episode originally aired on Cold Call in May 2019. Here it is.

BRIAN KENNY: In the world of computer science, Jon Wainwright is kind of a big deal. A pioneer of computer languages, he was the principle architect of both Script 5 and Manuscript. What makes Jon a legend has nothing to do with programming. Let me explain. On April 3, 1995, Jon was in need of some work-related reading material. So, he fired up his T1 modem and navigated the fledgling internet to the beta version of a new online bookstore. With the click of a mouse, he became the very first customer to make a purchase on Amazon.com. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, the book he purchased, never became a best seller. But Amazon took off like a rocket ship and hasn’t slowed down since. With a market cap larger than all other retailers combined, including Walmart, Amazon owns 49% of all online sales. In the time it takes me to read this introduction, the company will earn over 300,000 dollars. Will we ever see the likes of it again? Today, we’ll hear from professor Sunil Gupta, about his case entitled, “Amazon in 2017.” I’m your host Brian Kenny. You’re listening to Cold Call, part of the HBR Presents network. Sunil Gupta is an expert in the area of digital technology and its impact on consumer behavior and firm strategy. He is the author of the recently published, Driving Digital Strategy, a guide to re-imagining your business. This case is the perfect stepping off point to cover some of the ideas in that book, Sunil. Thank you for joining me today.

SUNIL GUPTA: Thank you for having me.

BRIAN KENNY: This is your second spin I think on Cold Call. We appreciate you coming back.

SUNIL GUPTA: I enjoy doing this.

BRIAN KENNY: Good, as long as it’s not too painful for you. I like having you here. I’ve had an opportunity to read the book. The case I think is really kind of a great foundational piece to launch into some of the ideas. I’m going to assume anybody listening to this podcast has purchased something on Amazon or watched something on Amazon Prime. I had forgotten about their modest beginnings and just how much they’ve grown and expanded and changed. The case was a great reminder of that. We’ll get into some of that. Let me start by asking you, just to set it up for us. What led you to write the case?

SUNIL GUPTA: As you said, everybody knows Amazon. At the same time, Amazon has become quite complex. I mean, they have gone into businesses that defy imagination. That raises the question, is Amazon spreading itself too thin? Are they an online retailer? Are they video producers? Are they now making movies? In strategy, we learn, everybody should focus. Obviously Jeff Bezos missed that class.

BRIAN KENNY: He didn’t come to HBS by the way.

SUNIL GUPTA: You sort of start wondering as to, what is the magic behind this? What is the secret sauce that makes Amazon such a huge success? The market gap almost touched a trillion dollars a few months ago.

BRIAN KENNY: Insane.

SUNIL GUPTA: That was the reason why I thought A, everybody knows about it, and B, it’s hugely successful and C, his business model seems to defy logic.

BRIAN KENNY: The case we know by the title takes place in 2017. Maybe you can just start us off by setting it up. How does the case open up?

SUNIL GUPTA: At that point in time, Amazon had just bought Whole Foods, which was very counterintuitive because Amazon has been an online player. So why is it getting into offline business? That was against his grain as an online player. The second thing is food is a very low margin category. You sort of say, Amazon is a technology company, its stock is going to stratosphere. Why buy a low margin business that Amazon actually had been trying Amazon Fresh for 10 years and hasn’t succeeded? Why don’t they give up? That was a starting point. But of course, the case describes all the other 20 different things that they have done in the last 20 years and asked the question, what is Amazon up to?

BRIAN KENNY: Amazon and Jeff Bezos are sort of synonymous. He’s a cult of personality there, kind of like Steve Jobs was with Apple. Jeff’s been in the news a lot lately for other reasons, you know, personal reasons. He is still obviously, probably one of the best known CEOs in the world. What’s he like as a leader?

SUNIL GUPTA: I don’t know him personally. Based on the research that I’ve done, he certainly is very customer obsessed. He’s focused on customer. He always says, “You start with the customer and work backwards.” He still takes evidently calls on the call center. The culture is very entrepreneurial, but also very heart driven. I mean, the idea for example of Amazon Prime evidently didn’t come from Jeff Bezos, it came from a low person in the organization. He’s quick to adapt the ideas if he sees some merit in it. It’s almost a 25-year-old company that still works like a startup.

BRIAN KENNY: Was the original concept for Amazon … I mean, I know he sold books originally. Was it ever really a book company?

SUNIL GUPTA: I think it started more as an online retailer. Book was an easy thing because everybody knows exactly what you’re buying. It’s no concern about the quality. His premise in the online store was a very clear value proposition of three things. One was convenience that you can shop in your pajamas, so we don’t have to fight the traffic of Boston or Los Angeles. The second was infinite variety. I don’t have the constraint of a physical store. Even if I have Walmart, which is a huge store, I can only stock so many things. As a result, you only have the top sellers. In Amazon, I can have the long tail of any product if you will. The third was price. It was cheaper, simply because I don’t have fixed costs of the brick and mortar store. I can reduce the cost structure and therefore I can be cheaper. Those were the three key value propositions. That’s how it started. The idea was, I’ll start with books and then move on to electronics and other things. But then of course, it moved far beyond being an online retailer.

BRIAN KENNY: This gets into some of the ideas in your book. I was really intrigued in the book about the notion of what kind of business are we in? Just that question alone. At face value, it looked like Amazon was a retailer. They went in directions that nobody could have imagined. The case really goes into some of a litany of all the things they tried.

SUNIL GUPTA: Right. Again, the purpose of the case was to illustrate as to how these are all connected. From a distance they look completely disconnected and completely lack of focus. Let’s start with how the concept evolved. The first thing was, as I said was online retailer. Very soon it became a marketplace. Now, what is a marketplace? They basically allow third party sellers also to sell on the Amazon platform, which is distinct from a traditional retailer. Walmart doesn’t allow me to set up shop within Walmart, but Amazon allows me to do that. Now, why would they do that? Simply because it increases the variety that they can sell on the platform. Therefore, consumers are quite happy with the variety of the product they can get on Amazon. Amazon gets commission without having the inventory and the capital cost. Perhaps the most important thing of becoming a platform is it creates what we call the network effects. If there are lots of products, everything I can buy is available on Amazon. More consumers are likely to go there. Because there are more consumers, more sellers are likely to go there. It just feeds in itself. More consumers mean more sellers, more sellers mean more consumers, and it becomes a virtual cycle. That’s why there is only one Amazon. Even if I start an online retail, which is in many ways better than Amazon, nobody’s coming to gupta.com, because buyers and sellers are not there. That became the next phase, change from online retailer to marketplace. Then it went into AWS, and you sort of say, “Well, how can it go into a technology company and compete with IBM and Microsoft?” It was competing with Walmart before.

BRIAN KENNY: That’s the web services division.

SUNIL GUPTA: That’s the web services. In fact, at that point in time, Wall Street was very down on that. They said, “What is Bezos thinking?” The idea again, if you think about it, it was very simple. Amazon was building this technology for its own purpose. And then, they started giving this technology, using this technology for the third party sellers, who were selling on its platform.

BRIAN KENNY: Let me just interrupt for a second. That’s a marked, a marked change in direction. They had always been a consumer platform. Now they’re in a business-to-business play. I bet a lot of consumers don’t even know about Amazon Web Services.

SUNIL GUPTA: Correct. Again, not in a traditional sense saying, “This is my market.” That’s simply saying, “I have this capability. There’s a demand for this capability. Can I do it?” Part of that was opportunistic also. If you remember in 2001, the dot.com bubble crashed. If you’re a B2C company, you hedge your bets and get into B2B business. Part of that may have been luck. That was, again, a change of direction. And then, Amazon started producing hardware, Kindle, and now competing with Apple. You sort of say, why is an online retailer getting into hardware production? If you think a little bit about it, the answer is very easy. Kindle was designed to sell eBooks as people move from buying the hard copy books to downloading the eBooks. The Kindle is the classic razor and blade strategy. I sell razors cheap in order to make money on the blades. I’m not making that much money Kindle, but I’m making money on eBooks, which is very different from Apple’s strategy. Apple actually makes money on devices, but Amazon is not making money on devices, or at least not making huge money on devices. Similarly, it moved into online streaming of the video content and suddenly became a competition on Netflix. You sort of say, “Why is a retailer becoming a competition on Netflix?” Again, if you think a little about it, the answer becomes clear. As you and I moved on to not buying DVDs, but actually streaming the stuff, that’s what Netflix did. They used to send the DVDs to us.

BRIAN KENNY: I remember that. I still have a couple.

SUNIL GUPTA: Amazon is very good in sort of moving with the customer. If the customer moved from buying books to eBooks, I move in that direction. If customers move from buying DVDs to streaming, I move in that direction. Now, can Amazon do it? Of course, they can. They have AWS. Netflix is one of the largest customers.

BRIAN KENNY: Are they leading or following? Are they creating a market? In the beginning it seemed like they created something entirely new. Now, are they anticipating, or are they just sort of reacting to what’s happening?

SUNIL GUPTA: No, it’s a combination of both. In some ways they are actually following the consumer behavior and say consumers are moving to a streaming and move with that. They were not the first ones. Netflix actually started the streaming thing. Then, they sort of come up with it. If you think about it, Amazon became not only distributing third party content on videos, but now they have Amazon Studio. I mean, they are making movies, and the competition now becomes Hollywood instead of Walmart. You sort of say, “What has gone wrong with Jeff Bezos? Why is he making movies?” Movies are pretty expensive business and highly risky. The key to that is to understand the purpose of the movies. The purpose of the movies is to hook the consumers from Amazon Prime. If you remember, Amazon Prime started with 79 dollars per year. The benefit at that time was two-day free shipping. Now, you and I are smart enough to sort of do the math in our heads saying, how many shipments do we expect next year, and is 79 dollars worth it or not? Bezos does not want you to do that math. He basically says, “Oh, by the way, I’ll throw in some free content, some free music, some free unique movies.” Now you can’t do the calculation. Why does he care about Prime? Right now, Amazon has about one hundred million Prime customers globally. Let’s say I get an average 100 dollars per year, that’s 10 billion dollars in my pocket before I open the store.

BRIAN KENNY: Right.

SUNIL GUPTA: The research also shows that Amazon Prime customers buy three to four times more than non-Prime customers. I mean, if you’re a Prime customer, you don’t even price shop.

BRIAN KENNY: Once you’re Prime, you’ve got to justify being a member. You buy everything on Amazon.

SUNIL GUPTA: Exactly. Your purchase increases. You become price sensitive, which is fantastic. In fact Jeff Bezos has gone public and say that every time we win a Golden Globe award for our content, we sell more shoes. The purpose of creating their own content is not to make money on the content. This is another different razor to sell you more shoes. Once you understand that, what looks like disparate business is actually extremely tied together.

BRIAN KENNY: It all comes right back to the core. They haven’t always had good ideas. Have they had some misses along the way too?

SUNIL GUPTA: I think the biggest failure was Fire phone.

BRIAN KENNY: Remind us what that was?

SUNIL GUPTA: Amazon launched their own phone. They were obviously very late in the market. iPhone was already there. Samsung had done very good. You have two major players, if not many others, who are very well established. Consumers love their iPhones. The question of course was, why is Amazon launching the phone? What are the odds of success? Clearly the odds of success were low. The reason to launch it was they didn’t want to be beholden to the iPhone or the Googles of the world. They know that the world is moving towards mobile, in terms of shopping, certainly in emerging markets, everybody’s moving to mobile shopping. If tomorrow Apple or Google sort of restrict the Amazon use, or availability of Amazon, because they’re all competing with each other now. It becomes a challenge. To Amazon’s credit, I mean, it’s true for all innovations. Not all innovations succeed. You’ve got to take a shot. If you think about it, all the technology and thought process that got into Fire phone, was not completely a waste. That went into Echo. Now Alexa is a big hit.

BRIAN KENNY: They’re a market leader in that in that. Let’s talk a little bit about the ideas that underlie his Amazon case. I think it starts with knowing what business you’re in. Your book addresses this. I think I know we’re in the education space here at Harvard Business School. Should we be thinking about other businesses?

SUNIL GUPTA: You’re right. The bigger question that Amazon case raises is: how do you define what business you are in? Most of us tend to define business by the traditional industry boundaries. If I’m a bank, I’m in banking and other banks are my competition. I think industry boundaries are getting blurred today. Amazon can get into banking. I have lots of customers, I can start giving loans to small and medium enterprises.

BRIAN KENNY: They know a lot about those customers.

SUNIL GUPTA: They know a lot about customers. The key asset is now customers and data, and not the product and services that you offer. Once you know about customers, you can do lots of different things. One thing is, I would say is the industry boundaries are getting blurred. You need to think about not competition, but what do customers want. Do I have capabilities to serve that? The second thing is the traditional definition of where competitive advantage comes from is changing. What I learned, in doing my MBA class many years ago, we used to read Michael Porter’s competitive strategy stuff. If I were to simplify and summarize what I learned in competitive strategy was competitive advantage comes from making your product better or cheaper. Differentiation or cost leadership, which makes sense. If you think about it, it’s very much product-focused. I think in today’s world, competitive advantage comes from connecting products and connecting customers. The Kindle and eBooks is an example of connecting products, multiple products right? Making movies of Amazon and selling more shoes is connecting products. Razor and blade have been around forever. I think what is different today is razor and blade could be in completely different industries. Movies and shoes. The other side is connecting customers. We are in a network economy. That’s why there is only one Facebook, or one WhatsApp. If you are the only person on Facebook, what’s the value of Facebook? Not much, unless you love yourself. As more and more people get onto Facebook, the value of Facebook increases. It’s not about improving product. Without changing product, Facebook value increases. I think in this connected world that we live in, it’s about connecting products and connecting consumers.

BRIAN KENNY: We’ve got a lot of listeners out there. Many of whom are probably leading firms of one kind or another. How do they even go about exploring redefining their business?

SUNIL GUPTA: I think again, you need to think about what is your key asset? Everything starts with the consumer. In the Amazon case, you move with the consumer to some extent. I asked the same of a company for a medical device manufacturer. I said, “Who’s your competition?” The typical answer is: the other medical devices. Medical business is now becoming a lot about data. Google is getting into that. Apple. iPhone is becoming a medical device. Suddenly you have a very different kind of player getting into this thing. When I say, “What business are you in?” You need to think about who might actually get into that business and that changes the whole picture.

BRIAN KENNY: Why is Amazon so good at engaging customers?

SUNIL GUPTA: I think it comes from the culture of being customer obsessed, that no matter what the customer is right. They deliver on that promise. I mean, the level of convenience that customers expect from companies has changed. It used to be, if a company delivers a product within a week, that was considered good. Now, if you don’t deliver on the same day it just seems awful. They’ve raised the bar in everything. Of course, they’re using technology very effectively, whether it’s in their warehousing, whether now they’re investing in drones. I think they’re still a 25-year-old startup.

BRIAN KENNY: That’s another point that I wanted to touch upon. They’re able to adapt their supply chain it seems almost effortlessly to whatever business direction they move in. Is it possible for another entry to come into this space and scale in the same way that Amazon has? Is this a once-in-a-lifetime type thing?

SUNIL GUPTA: That’s a tough question. I think Amazon, it’s not that they’re adapting supply chain for everything, right? For example, I don’t think Amazon supply chain is ready for delivering frozen food yet. If I have a supply chain to ship you electronics, I can use the same supply chain to ship you prescription medication. That opens up another billion dollar, several billion dollar market. If I call myself an online retailer, I will never think of prescription drug delivery. If I think of my capabilities, I have the warehouse to deliver electronics and books. Why can’t I deliver your prescription medication? That opens up completely different businesses.

BRIAN KENNY: What are the kind of pitfalls that you need to be careful of, as you start to move into adjacent markets?

SUNIL GUPTA: I think definitely the big challenge is: how far do you go? On one hand it’s good to expand the business scope because the industry boundaries are getting blurred. The danger is do you lose focus? The classic challenge of losing focus. There’s a balance. I think in Amazon’s case, if you notice, everything is very tightly connected. If you remove one part, the whole becomes less. That’s the key question: are the pieces fitting together nicely, or they just happen to be another business because it’s profitable?

BRIAN KENNY: We’ve done a couple of cases on Cold Call that touch on the organizational impact of firms that move into new businesses. Some of them are examples of where it’s benefitted the employees. In other cases, it seems to have disrupted the culture in negative ways. How do you see this playing out at Amazon? Does it impact them in any way?

SUNIL GUPTA: If you look at Amazon, it has grown the top line 20, 25% every quarter without fail, except for one quarter in 2001. Right now, it’s in 2019, their sales are 232 billion. I don’t know that many companies, which grow at that rate, even when they’re over 200 billion. I think, if you’re on a winning team, that as an employee, it has to energize you. If you are in a culture which encourages experimentation and innovation, it has to excite you. At the same time, I’m sure it’s a very demanding culture, and there have been reports about how demanding the culture of Amazon is. It probably is not for everybody. For the people who are innovative, who are entrepreneurial, who want to be on a winning team, I’m sure it’s an exciting place.

BRIAN KENNY: There are sort of shades of Apple there. I mean, I think Apple had the same reputation. You’ve discussed this case in class with students.

SUNIL GUPTA: Oh, many students.

BRIAN KENNY: What are sort of the top line things that surprise you as you discuss it?

SUNIL GUPTA: The nice thing about this case is, everybody knows Amazon as a consumer. Everybody has shopped at Amazon. It’s very easy case. In fact, it’s a very short case that I give, at the opening of most sessions. People see it as very surface level. They sort of don’t realize the deep insights that comes out. As a three page case, you sort of say, I will be done in ten minutes, but then you peel the layers of the onion. That was a shocking thing to them, as to how you peel the layers of the onion and how you see the connection across different things. Why did Amazon buy Whole Foods? It makes no sense. Why did they get into AWS? It makes no sense. When you start un-peeling that layer, you see the connection as to why Amazon is doing all these different things. I think that’s the “A-ha” moment that comes across.

BRIAN KENNY: Much more on that in your book. How’s the book doing?

SUNIL GUPTA: Book is doing great.

BRIAN KENNY: Great.

SUNIL GUPTA: Fabulous. It was released in August. I’ve been going around on tour for many, different parts of the world.

BRIAN KENNY: I bet you can buy it on Amazon.

SUNIL GUPTA: You can certainly buy it on Amazon.

BRIAN KENNY: That’s great. Sunil, thanks for joining us today.

SUNIL GUPTA: Thank you very much Brian.

HANNAH BATES: That was Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta – in conversation with Brian Kenny on Cold Call . If you liked this episode and want to hear more of Harvard Business School’s legendary case studies in podcast form – search for Cold Call wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review. We’re a production of the Harvard Business Review – if you want more articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, be sure to subscribe to HBR at HBR.org. This episode was produced by Anne Saini, Ian Fox, and me, Hannah Bates. Special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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Amazon’s Mission Statement & Vision Statement (An Analysis)

Amazon’s mission statement and vision statement influence the multinational technology and e-commerce business toward long-term growth and success. This success is attributed to stringent measures to ensure that the vision and mission statements are fulfilled. In theory, the corporate vision statement provides organizational direction toward a desired future condition of the business, while the corporate mission statement presents the business purpose and goals that guide strategic management in the company. Based on this business analysis case, Amazon’s mission statement focuses on customer satisfaction. The business strengths identified in the SWOT analysis of Amazon are applied while focusing on this purpose. In relation, the company’s vision statement shows a target future of global leadership in human resource management and workplace safety in the online retail industry and beyond.

Amazon’s mission and vision statements support strategic competitive advantages over other IT and consumer electronics firms, like Google (Alphabet) , Apple , Microsoft , and Samsung , as well as retail and e-commerce companies, like Walmart , Aldi , Home Depot , Costco , and eBay . Amazon’s vision and mission also guide competitiveness against other entertainment content producers and distributors, including Netflix , Disney , Sony , and Facebook (Meta Platforms) . These competitors create the rivalry evaluated in the Five Forces analysis of Amazon . Moreover, the company’s vision and mission statements influence subsidiaries, like Whole Foods Market . Amazon’s vision statement and mission statement unify its e-commerce, retail, and computer technology businesses.

Amazon’s Mission Statement

Amazon’s mission is “ to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. ” This mission statement’s focus implies customer satisfaction in the retail, online service, and IT business. The following characteristics are associated with Amazon’s mission statement:

• Lowest prices
• Best selection of goods and services
• Convenience in e-commerce
• Global industry leadership

The “lowest prices” variable based on the mission statement guides the pricing strategies included in Amazon’s marketing mix or 4P . Low prices are a selling point that makes the company’s e-commerce website and services attractive to customers. A corresponding strategic objective is to reduce operational costs to enable the business to minimize prices. Amazon’s corporate mission statement also points to having the best product mix and selection to satisfy customers. For example, the wide selection of products on the company’s website and mobile app is a factor that attracts shoppers. Moreover, Amazon’s mission statement emphasizes convenience, such as in accessing the company’s products via the Internet. This characteristic is a response to customers’ use of “convenience” as a criterion when evaluating the quality and attractiveness of online retail services. The inclusion of “Earth” means that Amazon’s corporate mission statement pushes the multinational business to become a leader in customer satisfaction relative to all firms in the global market.

Amazon’s Vision Statement

Amazon’s vision is “ to become Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. ” This vision statement underscores the aim of becoming the best e-commerce company in the world, with emphasis on human resources and workplace safety. The following characteristics are identified in Amazon’s vision statement:

• Global reach
• Best employer
• Safest workplace

The “global reach” component of Amazon’s vision statement is all about international leadership in the market. For example, in stating the “Earth” as the market, the company shows that it aims to continue expanding globally. A corresponding strategic objective is international expansion through market penetration and market development, which are included in Amazon’s generic competitive strategy and intensive growth strategies . The employee-centeredness of Amazon’s corporate vision statement shows that the company considers employees as among the most important stakeholders in the online retail business. This consideration agrees with Amazon’s corporate social responsibility strategy for its stakeholders . Furthermore, the corporate vision’s emphasis on workplace safety indicates continuing efforts to address the e-commerce firm’s workers’ needs. These efforts contribute to business growth and to making Amazon’s services more attractive to workers and, in turn, more attractive to target customers based on corporate or brand image.

Evaluation of Amazon’s Mission & Vision

Amazon’s mission statement satisfies only a few of the conventional characteristics of ideal mission statements. For example, the company includes target customers and market (customers in the global market), and basic business aims (industry leadership and customer satisfaction) in the corporate mission. However, the company does not include technology and the nature of the business and its operations. In this regard, Amazon can add details in its corporate mission to give employees and investors a better idea of what the company is all about. These details should make the corporate mission statement more comprehensive, especially in representing the company’s businesses, such as online retail services, cloud-based computing services, digital content delivery, software and hardware, and brick-and-mortar retail (e.g., Amazon Go).

Similar to the corporate mission, Amazon’s vision statement satisfies only a few of the ideal characteristics of vision statements. The e-commerce firm’s vision statement is one-sided, in that it focuses on workers only, without details about the long-term strategic targets of the business with regard to customers, products, industry, and market. Amazon’s corporate vision statement needs a holistic description of the target future condition of the e-commerce and technology corporation. An appropriate recommendation is to improve the vision statement by including how the company’s product mix (e-commerce service, cloud computing service, consumer electronics and other merchandise, etc.) relates to being the best employer and being the safest place to work. Additional details about long-term industry positioning can also make Amazon’s vision statement more relevant to the business and its investors. Such improvements to the vision statement can strengthen it in clearly guiding the technology firm’s long-term strategic planning.

• Amazon.com, Inc. – Form 10-K .
• Amazon.com, Inc. – Our Approach .
• Amazon.com, Inc. – Who We Are .
• Jaworski, B., & Cheung, V. (2023). Getting Started on the Journey: Mission, Vision, and Purpose. In Creating the Organization of the Future (pp. 55-64). Emerald Publishing Limited.
• Lüthy, A. (2023). From the Mission Statement to Value-Oriented Corporate Management. In Value-Oriented Leadership in Theory and Practice: Concepts-Study Results-Practical Insights (pp. 79-93). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
• U.S. Department of Commerce – International Trade Administration – Retail Trade Industry .
• U.S. Department of Commerce – International Trade Administration – Software and Information Technology Industry .
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How to Prepare for an Amazon Assessment in 2024 (Study Guide)

Congratulations – you’ve made the first step to further your career by applying for a role at one of the leading retail giants in the world!

With over 700,000 employees, the opportunities (and competition) for a place at Amazon are high.

Before being offered an interview with Amazon, you’ll be given one of Amazon’s online assessments to complete. With the right practice and mindset, there is no need to stress over these assessments!

In this guide, we will help you prepare for the Amazon assessment so that you can go in confident. We will cover:

• What the Amazon Assessment Test is
• Answers to common Amazon assessment test questions
• How the recruitment process works
• How to prepare for the Amazon work simulation test
• The most common Amazon assessment tests
• Common mistakes to avoid.

Let’s get into it!

Table of Contents

What is the Amazon Assessment Test?

When you apply for a role at Amazon, you will likely be sent one or more Amazon online assessments as part of the recruitment process. This helps the company identify the candidates most well-suited to each role. It also aims to give everyone a fairer chance in the hiring process from day one.

The amazon assessment tests are designed to evaluate your characteristics and skills. They will be sent to you during the application process or after you have applied and usually have a time limit in which to complete them.

The two most common types of assessment are the following. Whichever role you apply for your assessment will likely include one or both.

• Workstyle assessment
• Work sample simulation

The work style assessments usually take 10 to 20 minutes to complete and are centered around Amazon’s leadership principles. You can expect to be asked to rank to what extent certain phrases describe you.

The work sample simulation usually takes 20 minutes to an hour and relates to the specific role you are applying for. It may ask you to make decisions based on Amazon’s leadership principles.

Find Answers to Common Amazon Assessment Questions

You will find that there are commonly used questions in the Amazon assessment tests. One of the best ways to prepare for the test is to be aware of what questions recur, and regular themes.

Practice assessments use these recurring questions and allow you to think about your answers well before taking the real test. There are various tests available on Job Test Prep, including:

• Amazon Work Style Assessment – A personality test sent to almost all applicants
• Amazon Work Simulation Assessment – A test that looks at your analytical skills, decision-making ability, and leadership skills.
• Amazon Area Manager Assessment – A practice test covering a wide range of tested topics

Other Amazon Tests-Including Pathway Tests, MBA Assessments, Financial Analytics, and more.

How Does the Amazon Recruitment Process Work?

How does the recruitment process for Amazon work as a whole? Let’s dissect it so you know exactly what to expect at every stage.

• Application form and resume screening
• Assessment test or tests
• Phone Interview
• Virtual interview or on-site assessment center

The recruitment process is fairly long, but also methodical and predictable. If you prepare yourself at each stage and align yourself with Amazon’s core values throughout the Amazon assessment process, you will boost your chances of success.

Prepare for the Amazon Work Simulation Assessment

The Amazon Work Simulation Assessment is considered one of the hardest Amazon​​ tests. The assessment is unique in the fact that it puts you in the shoes of someone who works at Amazon and asks you to resolve various scenarios that may occur.

There are various practice tests that can help you become familiar with the types of questions asked. You can expect 5 modules, which take 50 minutes to complete.

Each module will test your decision-making skills, reasoning, and alignment with Amazon’s Leadership Principles. 

Taking a couple of practice tests, and familiarizing yourself with these leadership principles, are some of the best ways to prepare for the assessment.

What is Amazon looking for?

Ok, so we have seen Amazon’s recruitment process, but what are they looking for in their candidates? Amazon calls itself ‘earth’s most customer-centric company,’ therefore whatever the role, Amazon always highly rates customer-obsessed workers. Of course, the necessary skills will vary depending on the role, but a good rule of thumb is to become very familiar with Amazon’s leadership principles. Amazon uses these principles as the underlying framework against which they evaluate every new hire.

Amazon’s Leadership Principles are:

• Customer Obsession
• Invent and Simplify
• Are Right, A Lot
• Learn and Be Curious
• Hire and Develop the Best
• Insist on the Highest Standards
• Bias for Action
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
• Deliver Results

Amazon’s Most Common Assessment Tests

Let’s take a look at Amazon’s most popular assessment tests. We will go through what to expect with each one and how best to prepare.

Amazon Work Style Assessment

Amazon’s work style assessment is Amazon’s most common assessment. It is designed to assess the personality of the candidate and judge the way that they work. Amazon uses this test to determine how well the candidate will fit in with the company’s unique workplace culture .

You can expect to see a number of pairs of statements and you will be asked to indicate the one that most represents you. Here’s an example of the kind of statements you might see.

a) I am happy to ask for help as soon as I encounter a problem. b) I am happy to ask for help once I have first attempted all ways of resolving the issue myself.

The work style test is judged entirely against Amazon’s leadership principles. Amazon looks for people that will take on and apply the principles in their work. While you should be honest when answering the questions, it can be very helpful to keep your answers aligned to these principles.

Can you prepare for the personality test? Yes, you can certainly familiarize yourself with the formats of pre-employment personality tests . This will help you feel prepared and answer in line with what employers are looking for. Learn more about pre-employment personality tests from Job Test Prep and get in-depth practice, tips, and analysis.

Take Amazon Assessment Test Now

Amazon SDE Online/Coding Assessment

The Amazon Software Development Engineering online test is the exam you will be given for technology-based and coding roles. These can be for internship positions, new graduates or experienced roles. The test usually includes a technical section on coding as well as behavioral assessments.

For the more junior roles like internships and graduates, the assessment usually includes code debugging, a coding test, a technical problem-solving test that simulates hypothetical role-specific situations, as well as a personality test. More experienced software developers will instead be asked to solve two coding questions, a coding approach questionnaire, as well as a work style personality test.

How to prepare? The best way to be fully prepared is to check out some similar practice questions, prep advice, and tips. Check out this prep guide, tips, and inside info by taking the test below to boost your chances of passing the Amazon coding and behavioral assessments. Make sure to learn Amazon’s leadership principles as these will be used to judge the behavioral tests.

Amazon Area Manager Assessment (Manager In Operations)

The assessment for area managers, also known as the Manager in Operations Virtual Job Tryout, is aimed to determine how well-suited your skills, experience, and personality would be to perform in the role. There are 5 different sections to the test which are the following:

• Work scenarios – this section is a situational judgment test that presents you with hypothetical situations you might face in the role. You will need to indicate what you would be most likely to do in response.
• Manage your day – this section involves prioritizing tasks based on their importance.
• Run your area – specific to the area manager role, you will need to answer questions based on information or reports provided.
• Tell us your story – this section is about getting to know you and your past experience and how relevant it is for the role.
• Describe your approach – this section evaluates your personality where you are asked to indicate which statements represent you the most.

The area manager assessment takes around 45 minutes to complete. Some questions can be tricky, for example, work scenario questions may not always have one clear correct choice.

Make sure to be well versed in Amazon’s leadership principles as they will use these to grade your responses. If you would like to see how a real exam looks and do some practice questions with solutions, check out this sample test .

Amazon Maintenance Technician Test

If you are looking to work in a maintenance role, you will probably be given the Amazon maintenance test. It was developed by the Ramsay Corporation, the creator of two of the industry’s most popular mechanical skills tests .

It covers a range of technical topics such as electrical theory and control circuits, tools and equipment, power transmission, preventative maintenance, and print reading. There are 75 questions that are asked back to back so you need to be ready to work under pressure.

It is a tough test that needs highly specialized knowledge, and from when you receive the test invitation you only have 5 days to prepare. Therefore it is vital to prepare well and become totally familiar with the exam format and question types beforehand.

The best way to do this is by taking some simulation practice exams. The Amazon maintenance test PrepPack from Job Test Prep includes very realistic practice questions, exam time limits, and in-depth solutions and descriptions that can help get you ready in no time.

Amazon Control Systems Tech/Lead Test

The Amazon Control Systems Tech/Lead Test is very similar to the Maintenance Technician Test. This exam, however, has a heavier focus on electricity, electronics, and robotics. It is given to candidates applying to be systems technicians and team leads.

The test is a professional knowledge test conducted by Ramsay Corporation, the world’s top provider for technical exams. It tests the technical skills of candidates in a number of different topics listed here:

• Schematics, Electrical Print, Logic Reading
• Mechanical Elements
• Process Control
• Electrical Theory
• Computers, PLCs, DCS
• Power Distribution
• Automation and Robotics

The test generally lasts around 90 minutes and you have five days to complete it after receiving the actual test invitation. The questions will be multiple choice with 4 options each. Learn more about the test here and check out the free sample questions to make sure you are ready to pass with flying colors.

Amazon Financial Analyst Excel Test

Want to become a financial analyst at Amazon? First, you must pass the Excel assessment. This assessment will be sent to you after the initial resume screening or during the interview phase. You will need to show your skills and prove your competency in different features of excel. These include:

• Macro creation
• Document properties

As well as the excel exam, you will also need to do some behavioral and case study interviews. These can be either virtual or in person. The case study interview involves being presented with a hypothetical, realistic workplace dilemma or task. You will need to think about and suggest a solution while explaining the thought process behind your answer.

How do you prepare for the excel exam? It is a good idea to study the features and areas of excel listed above. Make sure you are well versed in formulas and formatting as well as the layout of the program. You can also get specific practice questions and study guides for the Excel assessment for financial analysts with Job Test Prep’s PrepPack .

Amazon Hiring Simulation

This online assessment is about giving you a realistic look at the actual experience of an Amazon employee. You will be given some context into what your simulation will look like, and then be presented with emails and instant messages from your virtual team.

You will be given the information necessary to solve the problems you are given, such as charts, data or spreadsheets. Using this, along with your skills, you will need to answer questions and solve the issues that arise in the simulation.

The questions you are given will usually come with a set of different responses to choose from. You will be evaluated on your skillset and ability to multitask, prioritize and put Amazon’s leadership principles into action.

Amazon Solutions Architect & Cloud Support Associate Assessment

So this exam is for candidates applying for solution architect roles at Amazon Web Services. You will be evaluated on both specific technical skills as well as on behavioral competencies and preferences. The exam has five different sections which are the following:

• Hiring simulation – this section of the exam includes real-life simulation scenarios in the workplace.
• Amazon work style assessment – covered previously this is the personality test in the exam.
• General technical knowledge – this part is to evaluate your role-specific technical skills.
• Proficiency interest survey – here you show your proficiency in four different areas of technology.
• Technical indicator assessment

How do the technical assessments work? The general text focuses on system design, compute, cloud migration, and cloud design and will assess your proficiency across the areas. Proficiency interest will include multiple-choice questions which are objective and situational-based questions.

While the behavioral tests are graded against Amazon’s leadership principles. The Cloud Support Associate assessment follows almost exactly the same format. The exam takes a total of 75 to 90 minutes.

Amazon MBA Online Assessment

If you are an MBA or masters level graduate applying for a full-time role, you will likely be given the Amazon MBA online assessment. This may also be applicable for some internships. The online MBA assessment is broken down into three different sections, each with different question types. These are:

• Work simulation – this section will present you with simulation business cases that you may face when working at Amazon.
• Work style assessment – this section of the exam is a personality test that measures how well suited your characteristics, attitude, and way of working are for the role.
• Career experience survey – this is a questionnaire where you must give your preferences for the MBA roles available.

As always make sure you know Amazon’s leadership principles inside out as your answers will be measured against these.

Amazon Assessment Test for Warehouse

With more than 175 fulfillment centers worldwide, there are a vast variety of jobs to be found in the Amazon warehouse . If you are applying for one of these roles you will probably be asked to take an online exam called the Amazon Associate Game On Virtual Job Tryout.

This assessment is designed to evaluate how effectively you could perform in one of these roles. It also reviews how much your attitude and approach align to Amazon’s core values. The assessment is usually split into two sections which are the following:

• Tell us your story – this part of the test asks candidates about their past personal and professional experiences. It will dig into your background, work ethic, personality, and workplace approach. It consists of 22 questions, each with multiple choice answers. You will also see statements to which you must choose how far you agree or disagree.
• Stow Pro – if you like games, you might enjoy this part of the test. It focuses on the type of work a warehouse associate might do such as packing, sorting, and stocking. The format is three simulation games within a warehouse.

You might have to virtually pack items on shelves, place items into a shopping bag, or load up the correct packages.

Is it possible to prepare for this test? Make sure you have accurately read the job description so you know what kind of tasks you would be expected to do. Make sure you are familiar with Amazon’s leadership principles and think about how your past experience is relevant to the role.

You can find online practice tests to prepare for behavioral & personality assessments. Job Test Prep is also working on a PrepPack practice test and study guide which is coming soon.

Tips for Preparing for the Amazon Assessment

Luckily, there is plenty you can do to prepare for the Amazon Assessment. Here are some of the best ways to prepare for the test, so that you are confident on the day:

1. Research company values:

Amazon has various company values. Knowing what these are, and how to naturally weave these into your answers, is a great place to start.

Amazon is looking for people who will fit their ethos and will be assessing you to see if you are a good fit.

Company values include:

• Customer obsession rather than competitor focus
• Passion for invention
• Commitment to operational excellence
• Long-term thinking.

2. Practicing Behavioral Questions

One of the most challenging assessment questions in the Amazon hiring process are the behavioral questions.

Behavioral questions are designed to assess how candidates have handled specific situations in the past. These questions are based on the belief that past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior.

Amazon is guided by a set of leadership principles. The questions used in the test often align and reflect them. Practicing these questions in practice tests and learning their guiding Leadership Principles are great things to do in preparation.

3. Time Management

Oftentimes, the Amazon Assessments will have some component of time pressure to them. Taking practice tests is a great way to learn how to manage your time, and know when to skip over a question that is taking too long.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are undoubtedly some commonly made mistakes that can cost securing an interview at Amazon. Luckily, you can learn from the mistakes of others and ensure you do not repeat them!

Some Common Mistakes to Avoid include:

• Not Reading Instructions Thoroughly: One of the most common mistakes is rushing through instructions. Take the time to read and understand each question or task before attempting to answer! Taking practice tests is a great way to know what to expect, and gauge how much time you have.
• Poor Time Management: Amazon assessments often have time constraints.

Failing to manage your time properly during the assessments can leave you with incomplete sections or rushing answers at the end.

Practice time management with timed tests well in advance to avoid this.

• Lack of Preparation: Some candidates underestimate the importance of preparing for Amazon assessments.

Whether it’s a behavioral interview or a technical test, being unprepared can significantly impact your performance. Read up on Amazon’s guiding principles and commonly asked questions, and take practice tests to avoid being underprepared!

• Ignoring Amazon’s Leadership Principles: Amazon emphasizes its Leadership Principles throughout the hiring process.

Failing to align your responses with these principles during written assessments may be a missed opportunity to showcase your fit with Amazon’s culture.

Now we have covered the most popular online Amazon assessment types and you should be feeling more prepared for what awaits. Whatever your skillset and wherever your sights are set in the world of Amazon, stay calm, prepare and go get ‘em.

Related Study Guide – How to Prepare for Amazon TRMS Assessment?

1. Can you fail Amazon assessment test?

Yes, you can fail the Amazon assessment test . However, the majority of people who take the test pass it.

2. How do I crack the Amazon assessment test?

The Amazon assessment tests are difficult tests that measure your skills and abilities. To crack the test, you need to practice and prepare for it. The best way to do this is by using practice tests and studying the material thoroughly.

3. Are Amazon assessments hard?

Amazon assessments can be hard, but they are also a great opportunity to show your skills and strengths. The best way to prepare for an assessment is to practice as many questions as possible and to be familiar with the types of questions that are typically asked.

4. What is the Amazon assessment?

The Amazon assessment is a test that Amazon gives to potential employees. The test is designed to measure cognitive ability, problem-solving skills, and personality traits.

5. What if I miss Amazon online assessment?

If you miss Amazon’s online assessment, you may not be eligible for the role you are interested in. However, there may be other opportunities at Amazon that you may be interested

6. How long does an Amazon assessment take?

Each test varies in the length of time it takes to complete. Tests such as the Work Simulation tests take about 50 minutes to complete, while other tests such as the Work Style Assessment take 15 minutes to complete.

Sarah is an accomplished educator, researcher and author in the field of testing and assessment. She has worked with various educational institutions and organisations to develop innovative evaluation methods and enhance student learning. Sarah has published numerous articles and books on assessment and learning. Her passion for promoting equity and fairness in the education system fuels her commitment to sharing insights and best practices with educators and policymakers around the world.

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What is Amazon?

Amazon (Amazon.com) is the world's largest online retailer and a prominent cloud service provider .

Originally started as an online bookselling company, Amazon has morphed into an internet-based business enterprise that is largely focused on providing e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and artificial intelligence ( AI ) services.

Following an Amazon-to-buyer sales approach, the company offers a monumental product range and inventory, enabling consumers to buy just about anything, including clothing, beauty supplies, gourmet food, jewelry, books, movies, electronics, pet supplies, furniture, toys, garden supplies and household goods.

Headquartered in Seattle, Amazon has individual websites, software development centers, customer service centers, data centers and fulfillment centers around the world.

History and timeline of Amazon

Amazon has come a long way since it was founded by Jeff Bezos in his garage in Bellevue, Wash., on July 5, 1994.

The following is a brief history and timeline of events that have evolved Amazon from its humble beginnings to a multinational business empire.

Amazon officially opened for business as an online bookseller on July 16, 1995. Originally, Bezos had incorporated the company as Cadabra but later changed the name to Amazon. Bezos is said to have browsed a dictionary for a word beginning with A for the value of alphabetic placement. He selected the name Amazon because it was exotic and different and as a reference to his plan for the company's size to reflect that of the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world. Since its inception, the company's motto has always been "get big fast."

In 2005, Amazon Prime This membership-based service for Amazon customers offers free two-day shipping within the contiguous U.S., as well as streaming, shopping and reading benefits. According to Amazon's website, current Amazon Prime membership rates are $14.99 a month or $139 per year.

Amazon Web Services

This comprehensive and evolving cloud computing platform was also born in the 2000s. The first Amazon Web Services ( AWS ) offerings were launched in 2006 to provide online services for websites and client-side applications. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud ( EC2 ) and Simple Storage Service ( S3 ) are the backbones of the company's growing collection of web services. The same year, Amazon also launched a cloud computing and video-on-demand service known at the time as Unbox. By changing the way people bought books, Amazon also shaped how they read them with the launch of its first Kindle e-reader in 2007. This device helps users browse, buy and read e-books, magazines and newspapers from the Kindle Store.

From the 2010s to present

Amazon debuted its first tablet computer, the Kindle Fire, in 2011 and the Amazon Fire TV Stick, which is part of Amazon's extensive line of streaming media devices, in 2014. Amazon also started an online Amazon Art marketplace for fine arts in 2013, which has featured original works by famous artists such as Claude Monet and Norman Rockwell. The popular in-home virtual assistant Amazon Alexa was rolled out to consumers in 2015 and was followed by the Alexa-equipped Echo Dot in 2016. Amazon acquired the organic grocery store Whole Foods in 2017 and launched Amazon Go, a chain of cashierless grocery stores in 2018. The rise of in-home shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic made consumers rely on Amazon even more, and the trend is likely to keep growing.

Notable Amazon products and services

Amazon offers an ever-expanding portfolio of services and products. Following is a list of its noteworthy offerings.

• Amazon Marketplace. Amazon's e-commerce platform enables third-party retailers to showcase and sell their products alongside Amazon items.
• Amazon Fresh. Amazon's grocery pickup and delivery service is currently available in nearly two dozen U.S. cities and a few international locations. A grocery order can be placed through the Amazon Fresh website or the Amazon mobile app. Customers can either get their groceries delivered or visit the store for pickup.
• Amazon Vine. Launched in 2007, Amazon Vine helps manufacturers and publishers get reviews for their products to help shoppers make informed purchases.
• Woot. Acquired by Amazon in 2010, Woot offers limited time offers and special deals that rotate daily. This shop features refurbished items, as well as new items that are low in stock. Prime members get free shipping.
• Zappos. Amazon bought Zappos in 2009. This online retailer of shoes and clothing carries a wide range of brands, including Nike, Sperry, Adidas and Uggs.
• Merch by Amazon. This on-demand T-shirt printing service enables sellers to create and upload their T-shirt designs for free and earn royalties on each sale. Amazon does the rest -- from printing the T-shirts to delivering them to customers.
• Amazon Handmade. This platform enables artisans to sell handcrafted products to customers around the world.

Consumer technology

• Amazon Kindle. Amazon's first e-reader, Kindle, enables users to browse, buy and read e-books, magazines and newspapers from the Kindle Store.
• Amazon Fire tablet. Previously known as Kindle Fire, Amazon's popular and high-profile Fire tablet competes with Apple's iPad.
• Amazon Fire TV. This line of Amazon's streaming media players and digital devices delivers streamed video content over the internet to a paired high-definition television.
• Amazon Alexa. This cloud-based, AI-powered, voice-controlled personal assistant is designed to answer queries, interact with users, and perform other tasks and commands.
• Amazon Echo. This is one of Amazon's smart home devices that comes equipped with a speaker and connects to Alexa. Amazon Echo can perform several functions, including talking about the weather, creating shopping lists and controlling other smart products, such as lights, switches and televisions.
• Amazon Echo Dot. A smaller, puck-shaped version of the original Amazon Echo, an Echo Dot can be placed in any room and can answer questions, play music, and read news and other stories.
• Amazon Echo Show. As part of the Amazon Echo line of speakers, the Amazon Echo Show works similarly through Alexa but also offers a 7-inch touchscreen display to play videos and music and conduct video calls with other Echo users.
• Amazon Astro. This is Amazon's first home monitoring robot that works with Alexa. It is designed to help with various household tasks, such as home monitoring, caring for the elderly through notifications and alerts, and following owners from room to room to play TV shows, music or podcasts.

Subscription services

• Amazon Prime. This subscription service provides members access to exclusive shopping and entertainment services, discounts and more. As an example, all Amazon Prime members enjoy free one-day or two-day shipping on qualifying orders.
• Amazon Prime Video. This is Amazon's on-demand video streaming service that offers a selection of about 24,000 movies and over 2,100 TV shows. This service is included with an Amazon Prime membership.
• Amazon Drive. Previously known as Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Drive is a cloud storage app that offers 5 gigabytes (GB) of free and secure online storage for photos, videos and files for Amazon customers. Amazon Prime members get free, unlimited, full-resolution photo storage, along with 5 GB of video storage.
• Twitch Prime. A monthly subscription service, Twitch Prime is a subsidiary of Amazon Prime. It gives members premium access to Twitch -- a video streaming platform that offers a fun and social way to watch people play games.
• Amazon Music Prime. This is Amazon's music streaming service that is free for Prime members.

Digital content

• Amazon Pay. An online transaction processing platform, Amazon Pay enables Amazon account holders to use their Amazon accounts to pay external online merchants.
• Amazon Music Unlimited. Amazon's premium music service costs $8.99 a month for Prime members and $9.99 for non-Prime members.
• Kindle Store. Part of Amazon's retail website, the Kindle Store can be accessed from any Kindle device to purchase e-books.
• Amazon Appstore for Android. Amazon's app store for the Android operating system enables users to download games and mobile apps to supported devices.
• S3. This is Amazon's scalable, cloud-based object storage. Files are referred to as objects in S3 and are stored in containers called buckets .
• Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). SQS is a pay-per-use web service that is designed to provide access to a waiting message queue where messages can reside until a computer processes them.
• Amazon EC2. This web service interface provides scalability with resizable compute capacity in the AWS cloud. Users can run virtual servers or instances, commonly known as EC2 instances, that can be scaled up or down, depending on the network requirements.
• Amazon S3 Glacier. Amazon S3 Glacier is a low-cost cloud storage service for data that might be associated with longer retrieval times. It also offers data archiving and backup of cold data.
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). IAM provides secure and controlled access to resources.
• Amazon Redshift. This data warehouse in the cloud enables users to query petabytes of both structured and semistructured data using standard Structured Query Language queries. For example, to address the expanding volume of transactions, Nasdaq moved from a legacy on-premises data center to the AWS cloud, which is powered through the Amazon Redshift cluster.

Amazon AI services

• Amazon SageMaker. A fully managed cloud machine learning platform, Amazon SageMaker enables developers and data scientists to build, train and deploy machine learning models for predictive analytics applications.
• Amazon Lex. This service for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text is powered by the same technology as Alexa.
• Amazon Polly. A text-to-speech service, Amazon Polly uses deep learning technology to convert text into spoken audio. It includes 60 voices across 29 languages.
• Amazon Rekognition. This software-as-a-service facial recognition and analysis platform uses a deep learning algorithm to process images and extract information from them.
• AWS DeepLens. This programmable video camera enables developers to easily experiment withmachine learning, AI and the internet of things .
• Alexa Voice Service. This programming interface provides developers with a set of C++ libraries to add Amazon Alexa's speech and other capabilities into their applications and devices.
• Amazon Transcribe. This service converts speech to text quickly and accurately by using a deep learning process called automatic speech recognition .
• Amazon Translate. Amazon Translate is a cloud service that can convert large amounts of text written in one language to another language.
• Alexa Skills Kit. This software development kit enables developers to build skills or conversational applications on Amazon Alexa.

Amazon privately owned brands

• AmazonBasics. This is Amazon's privately labeled, low-budget brand that mainly sells kitchen, tech and household products.
• Amazon Elements. This line of domestic products includes health and personal care items, as well as nutritional supplements.
• Mama Bear. This private label of Amazon sells baby wipes, newborn through size 6 diapers, baby food, diaper pail refills and baby laundry detergent.
• Presto!. This brand started as a laundry detergent in 2016 but has added household paper towels and toilet paper to its product line.
• Amazon Essentials. A Prime-exclusive program, this clothing line offers basic wear for men, women, babies and kids, with additional options for family, big and tall, and athletic activity.
• Happy Belly. This private label of Amazon was introduced in 2016 and sells snack food items. In February 2019, the brand also began offering milk delivery services.
• Goodthreads. This menswear apparel line is available exclusively to Amazon Prime members. The label offers both casual and professional pieces and is deemed a bit higher quality and more stylish than the Amazon Essentials brand.

Notable Amazon subsidiaries and acquisitions

From healthcare to entertainment, Amazon has acquired multiple companies by tapping into a variety of sectors over time.

Following is a list of Amazon's notable acquisitions and subsidiary companies:

• IMDb. The world's most popular database for movies, TV, celebrity, video games and streaming online content was acquired by Amazon in 1998.
• Audible. Audible, a book and spoken audio content provider, was acquired by Amazon in 2008 for $300 million.
• Zappos. Amazon acquired this online shoe and clothing retailer in an all-stock deal worth $1.2 billion in 2009.
• Twitch. A social media and video game streaming platform, Twitch was purchased by Amazon for $970 million in 2014.
• Whole Foods. Food, beverage and organic grocery store chain Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017.
• Ring. Amazon took ownership of this home security and smart home company in 2018 for $1 billion.
• Zoox. An autonomous vehicles , robotics and transportation company was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2020.
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Amazon acquired this film and TV studio for $8.5 billion in March 2022.

Amazon controversies and criticisms

Amazon has suffered a massive backlash over the years from multiple sources. The tech giant is also being held responsible for creating the Amazon effect -- the evolution and disruption of the retail market due to the company exhibiting monopolistic behaviors.

Following are a few concerns and allegations that Amazon has faced over time:

• Monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior. Due to Amazon's size and economies of scale, it has been outpricing local and small shopkeepers and is accused of displacing an open market with a privately controlled one. This is leading to the slow death of the brick-and-mortar store model built by companies such as Sears and J.C. Penney.
• Unfair treatment of workers. Amazon is frequently under the microscope for providing unfair work conditions in its warehouses, including treating workers as robots, providing low wages and creating unsafe work conditions.
• Huge carbon footprint. Over the past two decades, Amazon has been accused by environmental activists of having a staggering carbon footprint . Transport of any merchandise relies on oil, and since Amazon delivers anything everywhere, it leaves a long-lasting carbon footprint that automatically falls on its shoulders.
• E-waste. A recent investigation conducted by British television network ITV uncovered how Amazon is contributing to the world's e-waste crisis by destroying millions of unused or returned products. This also includes millions of electronics, such as phones, computers and TVs that are toxic to soil, water, air and wildlife.
• Counterfeit product listings. Amazon has been under scrutiny by brands, shoppers and lawmakers as counterfeiters have been listing and selling fake products on Amazon through its third-party marketplace. To crack down on counterfeit products on its site, Amazon destroyed 2 million counterfeit products sent to its warehouses and blocked 10 billion fake listings in 2021.
• Avoiding taxation. Edging fast toward a monopoly status, Amazon has been criticized for often avoiding tax payments despite making huge profits. According to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the company avoided around $5.2 billion in corporate federal income taxes in 2021.

Amazon finances

According to a news release posted on Amazon's investor relations website , Amazon experienced a significant increase in net sales but a decrease in operating income in the first quarter of 2022.

Following are some notable statistics from the release:

• Net sales increased 7% to $116.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $108.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Excluding the $1.8 billion unfavorable impacts from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 9% compared with the first quarter of 2021.
• Operating income decreased to $3.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with $8.9 billion in the first quarter of 2021.
• Net loss was $3.8 billion in the first quarter compared with net income of $8.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021.

Besides being recognized as a company with business interests in e-commerce, cloud computing and AI services, Amazon also offers an extensive list of subscription services . Learn about these services and the perks they offer.

Continue Reading About Amazon

• Break down the components of Amazon's retail business
• MSP business trends, from e-waste to virtual warehouse
• Amazon's impact on publishing transforms the book industry
• New Amazon grocery stores run on computer vision, apps
• Twitch confirms data breach following massive leak

Related Terms

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File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol for transmitting files between computers over TCP/IP connections.

A virtual private network (VPN) is a service that creates a safe, encrypted online connection.

Cloud computing requires a security approach that is different than traditional protections. Where does cloud detection and ...

An endpoint protection platform (EPP) is a security technology that safeguards endpoint devices.

Endpoint security is the protection of endpoint devices against cybersecurity threats.

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Executive leadership is the ability of those who manage or direct employees in an organization to influence and guide these ...

Transfer learning is a machine learning (ML) technique where an already developed ML model is reused in another task.

Employee self-service (ESS) is a widely used human resources technology that enables employees to perform many job-related ...

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a term used to describe policies and programs that promote the representation and ...

Payroll software automates the process of paying salaried, hourly and contingent employees.

Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that have similar characteristics ...

Customer experience (CX) is the sum total of customers' perceptions and feelings resulting from interactions with a brand's ...

A buyer persona is a composite representation of a specific type of customer in a market segment.

The Amazon That Customers Don’t See

By Jodi Kantor Karen Weise and Grace Ashford June 15, 2021

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Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers churn through a vast mechanism that hires and monitors, disciplines and fires. Amid the pandemic, the already strained system lurched.

When the coronavirus shut down New York last spring, many residents came to rely on a colossal building they had never heard of: JFK8, Amazon’s only fulfillment center in America’s largest city.

What happened inside shows how Jeff Bezos created the workplace of the future and pulled off the impossible during the pandemic — but also reveals what’s standing in the way of his promise to do better by his employees.

By Jodi Kantor , Karen Weise and Grace Ashford

June 15, 2021

Amessé Photography; Sarah Blesener for The New York Times; Ruth Fremson/The New York Times; Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Are you a current or former Amazon employee? Share your story.

Last September , Ann Castillo saw an email from Amazon that made no sense. Her husband had worked for the company for five years, most recently at the supersize warehouse on Staten Island that served as the retailer’s critical pipeline to New York City. Now it wanted him back on the night shift.

“We notified your manager and H.R. about your return to work on Oct. 1, 2020,” the message said.

Ms. Castillo was incredulous. While working mandatory overtime in the spring, her 42-year-old husband, Alberto, had been among the first wave of employees at the site to test positive for the coronavirus. Ravaged by fevers and infections, he suffered extensive brain damage. On tests of responsiveness, Ms. Castillo said, “his score was almost nothing.”

For months, Ms. Castillo, a polite, get-it-done physical therapist, had been alerting the company that her husband, who had been proud to work for the retail giant, was severely ill. The responses were disjointed and confusing. Emails and calls to Amazon’s automated systems often dead-ended. The company’s benefits were generous, but she had been left panicking as disability payments mysteriously halted. She managed to speak to several human resources workers, one of whom reinstated the payments, but after that, the dialogue mostly reverted to phone trees, auto-replies and voice mail messages on her husband’s phone asking if he was coming back.

The return-to-work summons deepened her suspicion that Amazon didn’t fully register his situation. “Haven’t they kept track of what happened to him?” she said. She wanted to ask the company: “Are your workers disposable? Can you just replace them?”

Mr. Castillo’s workplace, the only Amazon fulfillment center in America’s largest city, was achieving the impossible during the pandemic. With New York’s classic industries suffering mass collapse, the warehouse, called JFK8, absorbed hotel workers, actors, bartenders and dancers, paying nearly $18 an hour. Driven by a new sense of mission to serve customers afraid to shop in person, JFK8 helped Amazon smash shipping records, reach stratospheric sales and book the equivalent of the previous three years’ profits rolled into one.

That success, speed and agility were possible because Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, had pioneered new ways of mass-managing people through technology, relying on a maze of systems that minimized human contact to grow unconstrained.

But the company was faltering in ways outsiders could not see, according to a New York Times examination of JFK8 over the last year.

In contrast to its precise, sophisticated processing of packages, Amazon’s model for managing people — heavily reliant on metrics, apps and chatbots — was uneven and strained even before the coronavirus arrived, with employees often having to act as their own caseworkers, interviews and records show. Amid the pandemic, Amazon’s system burned through workers, resulted in inadvertent firings and stalled benefits, and impeded communication, casting a shadow over a business success story for the ages.

Amazon took steps unprecedented at the company to offer leniency, but then at times contradicted or ended them. Workers like Mr. Castillo at JFK8 were told to take as much unpaid time off as they needed, then hit with mandatory overtime. When Amazon offered employees flexible personal leaves, the system handling them jammed, issuing a blizzard of job-abandonment notices to workers and sending staff scrambling to save them, according to human resources and warehouse employees.

After absences initially soared and disrupted shipping, Amazon left employees mostly in the dark about the toll of the virus. The company did not tell workers at JFK8 or other warehouses the number of cases, causing them to worry whether notifications about “individuals” testing positive meant two or 22. While Amazon said publicly that it was disclosing confirmed cases to health officials, New York City records show no reported cases until November. The company and city officials dispute what happened.

Amazon continued to track every minute of most warehouse workers’ shifts, from how fast they packed merchandise to how long they paused — the kind of monitoring that spurred a failed unionization drive led by frustrated Black employees at an Alabama warehouse this spring. If productivity flagged, Amazon’s computers assumed the worker was to blame. Early in the pandemic, the online retailer paused its firing of employees for low output, but that change was not announced clearly at JFK8, so some workers still feared that moving too slowly would cost them their livelihoods.

“It is very important that area managers understand that associates are more than just numbers,” an employee wrote on JFK8’s internal feedback board last fall, adding: “We are human beings. We are not tools used to make their daily/weekly goals and rates.”

The company touted breathtaking job-creation numbers: From July to October 2020 alone, it scooped up 350,000 new workers, more than the population of St. Louis. Many recruits — hired through a computer screening, with little conversation or vetting — lasted just days or weeks.

Even before the pandemic, previously unreported data shows, Amazon lost about 3 percent of its hourly associates each week, meaning the turnover among its work force was roughly 150 percent a year. That rate, almost double that of the retail and logistics industries , has made some executives worry about running out of workers across America.

In documenting the untold story of how the pandemic exposed the power and peril of Amazon’s employment system, reporters interviewed nearly 200 current and former employees, from new hires at the JFK8 bus stop to back-office workers overseas to managers on Staten Island and in Seattle. The Times also reviewed company documents, legal filings and government records, as well as posts from warehouse feedback boards that served as a real-time ticker of worker concerns.

JFK8 footprint

Most of Times Square could fit inside the footprint of the JFK8 fulfillment center.

Times Square

This April, Mr. Bezos said he was proud of the company’s work culture, the “achievable” productivity goals, the pay and benefits. In interviews, the head of human resources for warehouses and the general manager of JFK8 said that the company prioritized employee welfare, noted that it had expanded its H.R. staff and cited internal surveys showing high worker satisfaction. Some managers from JFK8 and beyond described building deep relationships with their teams.

Amazon acknowledged some issues with inadvertent firings, loss of benefits, job abandonment notices and leaves, but declined to disclose how many people were affected. Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman, suggested that those problems and some others chronicled in this article were outliers.

Ofori Agboka, the H.R. leader, noted that social distancing and masking had made it harder to engage employees in personal ways during the pandemic. Still, he said, “98 percent of everything’s going great — people are having the right experiences,” getting the help they need when they want it.

But several former executives who helped design Amazon’s systems, and still call themselves admirers of the company, said the high turnover, pressure over productivity and consequences of scaling up have become too critical to ignore. The company has not ambitiously addressed those issues, said Paul Stroup, who until recently led corporate teams devoted to understanding warehouse workers.

“Amazon can solve pretty much any problem it puts its mind behind,” he said in an interview. The human resources division, though, had nowhere near the focus, rigor and investment of Amazon’s logistical operations, where he had previously worked. “It felt like I was in a different company,” he said.

David Niekerk, a former Amazon vice president who built the warehouse human resources operations, said that some problems stemmed from ideas the company had developed when it was much smaller. Mr. Bezos did not want an entrenched work force, calling it “a march to mediocrity,” Mr. Niekerk recalled, and saw low-skilled jobs as relatively short-term. As Amazon rapidly grew, Mr. Niekerk said, its policies were harder to implement with fairness and care. “It is just a numbers game in many ways,” he said. “The culture gets lost.”

Even Mr. Bezos, in his final lap as chief executive of the company he created, is now making startling concessions about the system he invented. In a recent letter to shareholders, he said the union effort showed that “we need a better vision for how we create value for employees — a vision for their success.”

“We have always wanted to be Earth’s most customer-centric company,” he wrote. Now, he added, “we are going to be Earth’s best employer and Earth’s safest place to work.”

Amazon is also on pace to become the nation’s largest private employer within a year or two, as it continues expanding. About a million people in the United States, most of them hourly workers, now rely on the company’s wages and benefits. Many describe the job as rewarding. Adama Ndoye had supported her family on her JFK8 pay while attending college remotely. “Lights on, food, clothes, everything,” she said. Dawn George, a chef, said she was grateful to JFK8 for taking her in after hotel kitchen jobs disappeared last spring. “I’m willing to work my socks off just for an hourly income,” she said.

Some admire Amazon’s ambition. “It was like being a pitcher on a team that had a game every night,” said Dan Cavagnaro, who started at JFK8 when it opened in 2018 and worked with Mr. Castillo.

But Mr. Cavagnaro was mistakenly fired in July while trying to return from leave, and could not reach anyone to help.

“Please note the following,” he wrote in his final, unanswered email plea. “I WISH TO REMAIN EMPLOYED WITH AMAZON.”

‘Like a Ghost Town’

In late March 2020, Traci Weishalla walked the length of JFK8, forgoing the fluorescent vest that marked her as a manager. She wanted an unfiltered look at what she would soon be helping to oversee: a warehouse the size of 15 football fields, serving America’s largest metropolis just as it was becoming the national epicenter of the pandemic.

The noise, from conveyor belts whipping around packages, was like the roar of an oncoming subway train. Built to conquer the most lucrative market in the country, the facility ran almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ms. Weishalla had helped open the warehouse a year and a half earlier, and now — as homebound customers across the nation clamored for thermometers, disinfectant and puzzles — she saw opportunity and purpose in her return as assistant general manager. For an organization that dealt in logistical miracles, the coronavirus was just another obstacle to overcome, she said.

“That’s what we do,” Ms. Weishalla, 38, explained later. “We work to figure out the impossible problems.”

Overtime Notifications

Jfk8 announced workers would have mandatory extra time, or m.e.t. in march, a message in direct conflict with its policy of unlimited unpaid time off during this period..

Hello Amazonians This is a reminder that All Departments will be on MET For the week of March 22nd. More than ever our customers are relying on us. Please utilize A to Z to check your schedule. Also don’t forget to report ALL absences, so that we can make sure your time is documented correctly and there are no issues.

But Amazon’s mighty system was lurching. Semi trucks sat at warehouses around the country, without enough workers to unload them. Customers discovered that items the company had deemed nonessential might take a month to arrive — an eternity for a business that had routinely delivered within two days.

One critical reason: Warehouse laborers were not showing up.

Delays Plagued Deliveries to Customers in New York City

With the warehouses short-staffed and the company prioritizing essential items, amazon’s typically fast deliveries took longer to reach customers. in april 2020, 28% of amazon packages took more than a week to arrive..

0–2 days

3–7 days

1–2 weeks

To lure them back, Amazon offered a temporary $2-an-hour raise, double pay for overtime and, for the first time, unlimited unpaid time off. Executives thought that workers should be able to stay home without fear of being fired, and that with greater flexibility, some might still come in for part of a shift, according to two people familiar with the decision. (Like some other senior leaders in this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.)

Across the country, almost a third of Amazon’s 500,000 workers were staying home. Some new hires abandoned jobs before they even began, according to former recruiters. JFK8 “was like a ghost town,” recalled Arthur Turner, a worker who remained.

Even Alberto Castillo considered staying home. The numbers on the news were unfathomable: at least 20,000 New Yorkers already infected, city hospitals jammed, as many as 1.7 million deaths projected nationwide.

But this was no time to go without his income: The Castillos, immigrants from the Philippines, yearned to buy a house. He worked nights, troubleshooting and training with gentle mastery, frequent jokes and “Star Wars” references, colleagues said, and he had just applied for a promotion.

JFK8 was also giving contradictory instructions: Despite Amazon’s promise of unpaid time off, workers were alerted that every department would be on mandatory overtime.

When Mr. Castillo arrived on March 24, he heard the warehouse had its first positive case. He messaged his boss, who replied, “Yes, forgot to bring that up,” and added that everyone who worked with the employee had been notified. Mr. Castillo called his wife to discuss whether to head home. They decided he would finish out his shift.

On the dawn drive back to New Jersey, his throat began itching.

Organized Labor

That morning, two workers drove in the opposite direction, beelined to JFK8’s break room and told dozens of colleagues: The virus had breached the warehouse, Amazon could not be trusted to tell them the truth and the facility should be shut down.

Derrick Palmer and Chris Smalls, Amazon teammates and best friends, weren’t part of any formal effort. Their employer considered unionization a dire threat, and had even backed out of building a second headquarters in New York in part over potential labor-organizing plans . A retail workers’ union had once boldly declared that JFK8 would become the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the country, but the effort had died.

Both men had been at Amazon since 2015 and knew the company from the lowest rungs. Mr. Palmer, then 31, was observant and deliberate, so fit that he often headed to the gym after a 10-hour shift. After dropping out of community college, he worked in a string of warehouses, joined Amazon and was now a “picker” at JFK8, pulling products off robotic shelves. He often produced top numbers on the software that tracked productivity, and had been selected to train others and help open a warehouse in Illinois.

He also felt let down, believing that Amazon’s towering success didn’t accrue to workers like him. Employees felt managed largely by app, algorithm and strict but poorly explained rules, he said. When he met Ms. Weishalla at a 2019 session for workers to share feedback, he said, he requested more human interaction from management and told her he aspired to a job like hers. But he saw no changes. “If we go beyond the requirements, there’s no reward,” he said in an interview.

When Mr. Palmer last sought a promotion, in early 2020, he was among 382 people who applied for the position. Though he didn’t know it, the odds were steep by design, an outgrowth of Mr. Bezos’ management philosophies.

Amazon intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers, said Mr. Niekerk, the former H.R. vice president who retired in 2016 after nearly 17 years at the company. Dave Clark, then head of operations, had shot down his proposal around 2014 to create more leadership roles for hourly employees, similar to noncommissioned officers in the military, he recalled.

Instead, Mr. Clark, who is now chief executive of Amazon’s consumer business, wanted to double down on hiring “wicked smart” frontline managers straight out of college, Mr. Niekerk said. By contrast, more than 75 percent of managers in Walmart’s U.S. stores started as hourly employees. Following a pattern across Amazon, JFK8 promoted 220 people last year among its more than 5,000 employees, a rate that is less than half of Walmart’s.

Amazon’s founder didn’t want hourly workers to stick around for long, viewing “a large, disgruntled” work force as a threat, Mr. Niekerk recalled. Company data showed that most employees became less eager over time, he said, and Mr. Bezos believed that people were inherently lazy. “What he would say is that our nature as humans is to expend as little energy as possible to get what we want or need.” That conviction was embedded throughout the business, from the ease of instant ordering to the pervasive use of data to get the most out of employees.

So guaranteed wage increases stopped after three years, and Amazon provided incentives for low-skilled employees to leave. Every year, Mr. Palmer saw signs go up offering associates thousands of dollars to resign, and as he entered JFK8 each morning, he passed a classroom for free courses to train them in other fields.

Mr. Agboka, the H.R. leader, said while the company offered training and careers at Amazon to those interested, it was proud to also provide people short-term employment for the “seasons and periods of time” they need.

As the virus arrived at JFK8, Mr. Palmer worried about how Amazon would protect and communicate with workers. Notification about the warehouse’s first positive case had been uneven. A colleague working near Mr. Smalls had appeared sick, her eyes bloodshot as she struggled through her shift.

The two men saw only one solution: for JFK8 to pause, clean and reassess, as an Amazon facility in Queens had briefly done. Unpaid leave wasn’t enough, they said — a company run by the richest man on earth shouldn’t force workers to choose between safety and a paycheck.

Mr. Palmer invited dozens of workers to share concerns on an Instagram chat.

“This is why my ass been staying home,” one wrote.

“Health before wealth honestly, kiss your loved ones daily,” another replied.

“Are you guys actually just picking essential items?” one asked, referring to Amazon’s early-pandemic efforts to ship only necessary merchandise.

“Man, I’m stowing dildos,” another responded.

Nearly all the workers in the group were Black, like Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls, or Latino. So were more than 60 percent of associates at JFK8, according to internal Amazon records from 2019. Management, the documents show, was more than 70 percent white or Asian. Black associates at JFK8 were almost 50 percent more likely to be fired — whether for productivity, misconduct, or not showing up for work — than their white peers, the records show. (Amazon said it could not confirm the data without knowing more specifics about its source.)

Workers of Color Fuel Amazon’s Operations

A vast majority of the company’s warehouse workers in the u.s. are included in the first group in the 2018 data below. these employees are largely people of color, while higher levels of the company tend to be majority white..

Laborers and Helpers

235,986 employees

Professionals

First/Mid-Level

Administrative Support

Technicians

Sales Workers

Executive/Senior Level

First/ Mid-Level

Administrative

Senior Level

Laborers and

Executive/ Senior Level

Between the constant monitoring, the assumption that many workers are slackers, and the lack of advancement opportunity, “a lot of minority workers just felt like we were being used,” Mr. Palmer said later.

“We’re the heart and soul of that building,” he wrote in the chat. “Nothing gets done without us.”

The two men continued their break-room warnings for several more days, and confronted JFK8 managers. “If, God forbid, somebody in this building passes away, or somebody’s loved one passes away, that’s going to be on your hands, not mine,” Mr. Smalls, the firecracker of the pair, told the warehouse’s top leader, according to an audio recording of one conversation.

On March 30, they demonstrated in the parking lot with a small group of other employees. Mr. Palmer carried a sign that read, “Treat your workers like your customers.”

In Seattle, executives still grappling with cratering attendance sought to minimize the protest but instead drew more attention to it. Amazon fired Mr. Smalls, saying his demonstration had violated a quarantine order based on his contact with the sick co-worker. (Mr. Palmer received a warning for violating social-distancing rules.) Meeting notes taken the next day by the company’s top lawyer and leaked to Vice News called Mr. Smalls “not smart or articulate.”

Though the lawyer soon said he didn’t know Mr. Smalls’s race, a group of Black corporate employees wrote a letter calling the smear part of “a systemic pattern of racial bias that permeates Amazon.” The New York attorney general’s office and Senator Elizabeth Warren asked if the firing was retaliation, which Amazon denied.

Mr. Palmer chose to stay at JFK8, determined to change it from the inside. Mr. Bezos, who had been holing up at his ranch in West Texas, made a rare visit to an Amazon warehouse near Dallas on April 8, flashing a thumbs-up to employees.

Summoning Workers Back

With so many employees staying home — because of family needs, fear of contracting the coronavirus and reluctance to use public transit — the unthinkable was happening to Amazon: Its customers were turning to competitors.

By mid-April, Walmart, Target and other retailers were clearly gaining ground. To reverse the trend and serve its customers, Amazon would have to find a way to bring back workers. Any decision the company made would affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of employees.

The task of sweating out the scenarios fell to Paul Stroup, who ran data science teams in Seattle. Mr. Stroup had been a veteran of what he described as “the brain” of Amazon operations — a division of thousands of employees finding tiny efficiencies to optimize for cheaper, faster and more predictable deliveries — when, in 2019, he made an unusual switch to Human Resources. Some shocked colleagues teased that joining H.R. would be like going on sabbatical.

But he had once been a low-wage worker himself, unloading trucks part time at a Home Depot store for $9 an hour. Home Depot had also paid half his college tuition. Soon after graduating, he moved to the corporate office.

“If I wanted to help as many people as I could, being at H.R. at Amazon, which is one of the largest employers in the world, has a huge impact,” Mr. Stroup said. He hoped to help improve life not just at Amazon, he said, but for hourly employees at companies that look to its example.

As he evaluated the return-to-work options, he felt confident that Amazon’s warehouses were growing safer, thanks to billions of dollars spent on virus safeguards.

On Staten Island, Ms. Weishalla piloted a process for spraying disinfectant between shifts that was later rolled out across the United States and Europe. Thermal temperature scanners were installed at JFK8 and other warehouses. Colored tape marking one-way paths crisscrossed the floors. Artificial intelligence engineers built a program that projected virtual six-foot circles around employees to help them keep their distance.

“We can’t wait three months,” Ms. Weishalla said. “This is priority No. 1.”

Mr. Stroup also helped data scientists and epidemiologists assemble tools to spot potential outbreaks, creating a centralized source to track cases. While a few Amazon buildings had concerning spikes, he said, the analysis showed that most, including JFK8, had infection rates at or below the known levels — testing was initially limited — in communities where their workers lived. There were no large reported outbreaks in the warehouses like those at meatpacking plants, but Covid deaths around the country were swiftly climbing.

Amazon Lost Market Share Early in the Pandemic

Competitors cut into amazon’s substantial market share in the u.s., in part because the company was showing customers long delivery times..

competitors

Mr. Stroup worried how Amazon would summon workers back. The company needed to know who didn’t intend to return so that it could replace them. But forcing employees too abruptly could result in firing tens of thousands of people. Mr. Stroup knew the work offered a lifeline: “The cleanliness, the procedure, the pay, the benefits — all of that is very competitive,” he said.

He prepared surveys and data for Mr. Clark, the operations chief, who would make the final decision. “I’d heard Dave was saying: ‘Let’s just move faster. This isn’t helping people not knowing if they are coming back to work or not. We’ve created a safe place to work — we’ve proven that people aren’t getting Covid at work — so let’s just find out if they want to come back or not,’” he said.

In a virtual meeting, Mr. Stroup told Mr. Clark that if employees were brought back gradually, over a month or two, only 5 to 10 percent were projected to stay home and lose their jobs. Under the faster plan, many more were likely to be fired for not showing up. “The cold-turkey example was pretty bad,” Mr. Stroup said, “like it was 20 to 30 percent of people would be let go in the month.”

Within days, he heard Mr. Clark had chosen that route. “My team took it hard,” Mr. Stroup said. Even so, he understood Mr. Clark’s predicament. “There’s a lot of pressure when your website normally says one or two days, and now it says 28 days to get something,” he said.

Ms. Nantel, the spokeswoman, said the decision was about supporting customers and communities in a time of need while providing safe jobs for people who wanted them. Amazon declined to make available several of its most senior executives for interviews, including Mr. Clark; Beth Galetti, the head of human resources; and Mr. Bezos.

In late April, Amazon told workers that unlimited unpaid time off would not be extended into May. The company eased requirements for personal leaves; to remain home without penalty, workers had a week left to apply. That decision created chaos.

Human Resources by App

Immediately, leave applications flooded into an Amazon back office in San José, Costa Rica. The system couldn’t keep up.

Dangelo Padilla, a Costa Rican case manager who started at Amazon in 2016, woke up every morning to confront what he described as insurmountable tasks before him and his colleagues. They had already been overwhelmed by a backlog of almost 18,000 cases in early March, emails show, and over the last week in April got 13,500 more requests.

Panicked workers trying to take leaves found phone lines busy and got auto-replies warning of delayed responses. Some who applied for leaves were being penalized for missing work, triggering warning notices and then terminations. When their messages reached Mr. Padilla and his colleagues, workers were distraught.

“This is impacting the employees and impacting us,” Mr. Padilla said he entreated their managers. “You have to fix this.”

The V.O.A. Board

Workers turn to the internal voice of associates (v.o.a.) board with issues large and small, including overtime, which can be mandatory (known as m.e.t.) or voluntary (v.e.t.). employee names have been redacted for privacy reasons..

How can MET be called with no notification, no text, no email nothing. You just put it on our schedule. Once I finish my shift today ill be at 55hrs. I would only be able to work 5hrs tomorrow im not going to travel 3hrs to work 5hrs that makes no sense at all

Hey [name redacted], thank you for reaching out! Based on risk to customer orders this past weekend and limited VET acceptance for Saturday, the decision was made to call MET just for the DC7 cohort to ensure we could meet these customer commitments. The JFK8 team is generally very proactive in calling MET as to give our teams plenty of time to plan ahead, however due to increased customer orders on Prime Week and that impact on the weekend, it was necessary to call at that time. MET notification was sent out prior to lunch on Friday, which is within the allotted time to announce for those on site. A to Z was then adjusted a few hours after that. For instances such as this, our HR team is able to work with those that have extenuating circumstances. Thank you!

The team that vetted leaves had long struggled with rickety technology, according to Mr. Padilla and eight other current and former employees in Costa Rica. Right before the pandemic, they started using a new case-management system called Dali to address the problems and provide flexibility, but it was buggy. Staff members were constantly encountering problems. “We were lost,” Mr. Padilla said. “Not even our managers knew how to handle it.”

Faxes and emails that were supposed to be automatically sorted ended up in a massive inbox that had to be manually triaged. Approved leaves that were supposed to be directly reflected in worker attendance programs instead had to be input by hand at another back office, in Pune, India.

When that wasn’t done on time, warehouse employees with approved leaves got notices warning that they would be fired for abandoning their jobs. “I saw those situations every day — people getting U.P.T. deducted for no reason, people being terminated for no reasons,” Mr. Padilla said.

In interviews, more than 25 current and former Amazon employees who dealt with the disability and leave system — executives, human resources personnel from JFK8 and other warehouses, and back office staff in the United States and abroad — bemoaned its inadequacy, calling it a source of frustration and panic. For years, they said, it had been prone to the kinds of errors Mr. Padilla described. Amazon catches many of the mistakes; some employees fight their own cases and prevail. Others give up and quit.

Ms. Nantel, the spokeswoman, said that the company quickly approved personal leaves during this period, hiring 500 people to help process the increased volume. She said Amazon received more than a million leave requests in the first year of the pandemic, twice its forecast, and worked hard to contact employees before they were fired to see if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Workers turned to H.R. teams in the warehouses for help, though they weren’t primarily responsible for leaves. Even under normal circumstances, they were stretched thin. In interviews, veterans from Staten Island and across the country described long hours trying to fix errors, enforce Amazon’s rules fairly and respond to the problems that plague any low-income work force — transportation breakdowns, lack of child care. At JFK8, some employees said they had spent an entire 30-minute break waiting in line for H.R. without getting to speak to anyone.

In the warehouses, self-service kiosks performed many traditional human resources functions. An app called A to Z handled everything from payroll to schedule changes.

Many workers said they found the app easy to use. It has a 4.7-star rating in Apple’s App Store, but even some of those who praise it see broader problems. “App is awesome, very helpful. BUT!!!!!!!!!” begins one five-star review users have designated as most helpful. “Associates should be able to speak to a person, not a virtual chat bot to get individual help. … Especially when many say they were fired because the chat reps forget sometimes or it doesn’t get through.”

The technology is designed to give workers many ways to communicate and was not meant to replace live interactions, Ms. Nantel said. She added that the H.R. staff for warehouse workers had grown by 60 percent since 2019 — a rise that parallels that of the hourly work force. At JFK8, the human resources team for the more than 5,000 employees has increased from 25 to 34 staff members since the start of the pandemic.

Mr. Padilla resigned from Amazon last summer, but returned this May, grateful to join a team that has nothing to do with managing leaves. “Being there,” he said, “basically destroyed my mental health and my stability.”

Record Profits, Halted Raises

On Staten Island, workers began getting the dreaded warnings.

Mr. Cavagnaro, who had worked with Alberto Castillo, had taken a leave from Amazon. He suggested a June return date on a doctor’s note, but couldn’t reach the company to ask questions or discuss coming back. Amazon’s attendance systems recorded him as a no-show, and he began getting job-abandonment notices. Unable to get a reply, he threw his hands up and allowed himself to be fired.

After The Times asked Amazon about his situation, the company offered him his job back. (His case “should have been handled better,” Ms. Nantel said.)

By the time Mr. Cavagnaro was struggling in late spring to return to JFK8, Mr. Castillo had severely declined. Doctors told his wife that he would never again speak, eat or work. Unable to visit him because of virus restrictions, Ms. Castillo created a mural in their small apartment, showing the family of four celebrating church festivities, doing martial arts and wearing matching Halloween costumes. On Father’s Day, the couple’s two children stood outside the medical center where he was being treated, with posters declaring their devotion.

Health insurance that Amazon provided covered most of the medical bills, but Ms. Castillo discovered that her husband’s short-term disability payments had stopped. “I kept sending in medical forms but couldn’t tell if anyone on the other end was actually receiving them,” she said. The house they had hoped to buy was a vanished dream; now she was counting every penny and accepting donations from friends.

JFK8’s human resources manager apologized and set the 10 weeks of missed payments right. Amazon said the documents Ms. Castillo had submitted never made it to his case manager, a systems issue that had affected others as well.

As workers returned, Amazon informed employees nationwide that it was ending the $2-an-hour raise and double overtime pay. The extra wages had not been “hazard” pay, officials said, but an incentive to show up.

It would be nice if there were more advancement opportunities for jobs inside amazon that are outside the FC. Most jobs at higher level require experience that people don't have and will not get an opportunity to get. Thanks

Hi [name redacted], thank you for your comment. We do have numerous job opportunities posted, which can be found on Jobfinder.com. [name redacted], your manager will be following up with you to discuss in more detail, help you find what you are looking for and answer any questions you may have. Update 3/4/21: Thank you for speaking with [name redacted]. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. Thank you!

The decision to force workers back ushered the company into the most profitable era in its history. By late May, JFK8 was a top-performing warehouse, bringing in 1.68 million items in a single week, Christine Hernandez, who worked in human resources, boasted on Twitter. “Yasss!!!” she cheered.

In July, Amazon announced $5.2 billion in earnings for the quarter — a record, until the next quarter brought $6.3 billion.

Amazon had been “running pretty much full out” since the beginning of May when more people were back at work, Brian Olsavsky, the company’s finance chief, explained on a call with reporters. That let the online retailer meet the enormous demand more efficiently, working at full capacity around the clock. It was like Black Friday every single day.

The Power of the Metrics

For Traci Weishalla and her peers, a key to boosting thousands of employees to that level of performance was setting the pace. Speed was essential, but so was keeping the whole warehouse in rhythm. If new items were unpacked more quickly than they could be prepared for shipping, all of JFK8 could jam. The fulfillment center was one organism in an even bigger ecosystem of warehouses, and to coordinate with them and the fleet of delivery drivers, Ms. Weishalla had to maintain a quick, consistent pulse.

Two measurements dominated most hourly employees’ shifts. Rate gauged how fast they worked, a constantly fluctuating number displayed at their station. Time off task , or T.O.T., tracked every moment they strayed from their assignment — whether trekking to the bathroom, troubleshooting broken machinery or talking to a co-worker. The company pioneered new ways to calculate both metrics in the mid-2000s, when a smaller, scrappier Amazon set out to revolutionize warehouses.

Mr. Niekerk, the former H.R. chief for operations, said the emphasis on productivity tracking, alluring in a company as analytical as Amazon, was debated from the start. He had been skeptical, arguing that “a productivity metric is always a frightening thing,” conveying “One slip-up and I will fall behind.’”

“I lost that battle,” he said. Eventually, he said, promises of firmer, faster delivery created “a multiplying effect on the demand for higher productivity.”

In newer, robotics-driven warehouses like JFK8, those metrics were at the center of Amazon’s operation. A single frontline manager could keep track of 50, 75, even 100 workers by checking a laptop. Auto-generated reports signaled when someone was struggling. A worker whose rate was too slow, or whose time off task climbed too high, risked being disciplined or fired. If a worker was off task, the system assumed the worker was to blame. Managers were told to ask workers what happened, and manually code in what they deemed legitimate excuses, like broken machinery, to override the default.

Internal documents show that managers were instructed to address only the “top offender” for time off task in each department per shift. Less than 1 percent of terminations in 2019 were over rate or time off task, according to Ms. Nantel.

But workers didn’t know that. The goal, JFK8’s internal guidelines state, “is to create an environment not where we are writing everyone up, but that associates know that we are auditing for T.O.T.” Workers could not readily see their T.O.T. totals, increasing anxiety. Word spread that Amazonians couldn’t take bathroom breaks — a misperception rooted in real apprehension. Some employees chronicled their workday down to the minute in a notebook, just in case.

It is very Important that area managers understand that associates are more than just numbers or just our logins but that we are human beings. We are not tools used to reach their daily / weekly goals and rates but that we need their support in becoming better employees.

Hi [name redacted], let's meet in person to discuss your concerns in further detail.

Mr. Agboka said time off task was intended to identify impediments a worker may face. “We don’t want people working with the mind-set of loss of employment versus being productive and being successful,” he said.

Some employees, like Arthur Turner, found the systems fair: “If you come here and do the right thing, you follow all the protocols that they want you to, you can’t get in any trouble.”

Dayana Santos, 32, who started at JFK8 in June 2019, appreciated the metrics. “How can I do my job efficiently if the next person isn’t doing theirs?” asked Ms. Santos, who sometimes raced with colleagues for fun. “Why does everything have to be a competition with you, Santos?” her boss would tease.

After months of praise from her managers, Ms. Santos had one very bad day. She had been working in robotics, but because her bus was late, she was sent to picking. She was offered a different assignment after lunch, but it never came through, and her station in picking was occupied. She traversed the warehouse looking for another one, racking up more time off task. That afternoon, she was stunned to discover that she was being fired.

Stories like that intimidate workers even before their first day, a human resources team at Amazon headquarters found. “Everyone in your community, every third person, has worked at Amazon,” Mr. Stroup said. “You have pieces of information that you’ve been told at the dinner table or with friends.”

Experiments by one of Mr. Stroup’s teams found that prodding workers did not make them productive enough to be worth the anxiety. The team joked that giving a worker $5 “probably would have a better impact than a manager going and telling you, ‘You did a bad job last week.’” Work on the issue stalled when the pandemic created more pressing priorities.

But over the summer, resistance to the policies was rising. With the extra Covid pay gone and Black Lives Matter protests spreading across the nation, a small group of Black workers at a new warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., on the outskirts of Birmingham, were bristling at how Amazon micromanaged their time. Frustrated, one of them in an online search hit upon the retail workers’ union that once had ambitions to organize JFK8.

In New York, Ms. Santos was making her own small stand. Amazon had contested her unemployment benefits, arguing that she had been fired for cause. She fought back, and an administrative court judge sided with her, noting that she had never received a warning and that Amazon hadn’t proved she was off task.

In midsummer, a message from Ms. Weishalla landed in JFK8 workers’ email inboxes and was posted inside bathroom stalls, saying that “productivity feedback” was suspended because of the pandemic. That meant no one would be fired for being too slow. Confusingly, the message, which also noted extra minutes for hand-washing, said the changes had been in effect since March.

Until the notices, many workers had no idea Amazon had relaxed one of its most controversial employment policies. Rates were still displayed at workstations, and initial instructions to managers had been marked “verbal guidance only.” Ms. Nantel said that managers were supposed to tell each worker individually, calling it a high-touch approach. The building-wide notices from Ms. Weishalla had been prompted by a lawsuit — later dismissed — challenging pandemic working conditions at JFK8. The lead plaintiff was Derrick Palmer.

Though workers couldn’t be punished for low rates, managers still encouraged speed. One late summer day, Thalia Morales, then 28, was limiting bathroom trips to improve her productivity. She finally couldn’t wait any longer — and found the nearest ladies room closed. Ms. Morales exploded in anger at a cleaner, who said she couldn’t enter. She was fired for the verbal altercation, she recalled in an interview, and told she could never reapply.

Soon, to her shock, the app pinged her for missing work. She returned to the warehouse with trepidation, completed her shift and still works there today. It turned out her termination hadn’t been processed properly — Amazon had erred in her favor.

By the end of September, word traveled around JFK8 and other warehouses: The reprieve on rate was over. The holiday season was coming, and it was expected to be like none other.

Burning Through the Work Force

On Oct. 13, the bus stop outside JFK8 was flooded with workers hired in a surge without parallel in American corporate history. It was Prime Day, the invented Amazon shopping holiday that kicked off the Christmas season. To meet the moment, the warehouse was absorbing entire friend and family units without job interviews, and in most cases, little to no conversation between employer and applicants.

As dusk settled and trucks rolled by, Tiara Mangroo, a high school student just off her shift, embraced her boyfriend. He worked for Amazon on Staten Island too, as did her father, uncle, cousins and best friend. Keanu Bushell, a college student, worked days, and his father nights, sharing one car that made four daily trips between Brooklyn and JFK8. A mother and daughter organized containers of meals for their middle-of-the-night breaks; others packed Red Bull or Starbucks Frappuccinos in the clear theft-prevention bags that workers carried. Most said they were grateful just to be employed.

Kevin Michelus, 60, and retired after a lifetime of odd jobs, had been drawn in by a postcard advertising work. “No résumé, no job experience required,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a job like that.” He and the other newcomers had been hired after only a quick online screening. Internally, some describe the company’s automated employment process as “lights-out hiring,” with algorithms making decisions, and limited sense on Amazon’s part of whom it is bringing in.

Mr. Niekerk said Mr. Bezos drove the push to remove humans from the hiring process, saying Amazon’s need for workers would be so great, the applications had to be “a check-the-box screen.” Mr. Bezos also saw automated assessments as a consistent, unbiased way to find motivated workers, Mr. Niekerk said.

Amazon boasted about the jobs it created, calling itself a force for growth and sustenance. What the numbers masked was that many workers cycled out of Amazon within months or even days.

Amazon’s Turnover Outpaces Its Peers’

Amazon is so large, and its churn so high, it affects the industry turnover rate where it operates, according to a times analysis. in the two years after amazon opened a new facility, the county turnover rate of warehousing and storage employees rose an average of 30 percentage points compared with two years prior..

Yearly turnover rate for warehousing and storage employees

Multnomah County, Ore.

Quarterly employment in

warehousing and storage

Cuyahoga County, Ohio

In Richmond County, N.Y., home to JFK8, the turnover rate increased to more than 100 percent in the year after the new center opened.

Average in counties with Amazon fulfillment and distribution centers

Warehouse opens

Years before Amazon warehouse

Years after Amazon warehouse

Richmond County, N.Y., home to JFK8

Quarterly employment by county in warehousing and storage

County, Ore.

County, Ohio

Richmond County, N.Y., home of JFK8

Average in counties with Amazon centers

Years before

Amazon warehouse

Years after

As the weeks wore on, hints of trouble were cropping up, according to interviews and posts on JFK8’s internal feedback board viewed by The Times. Several said workers should get more warning about mandatory overtime, that schedules changed “with no call, no text, no email, nothing.” H.R. representatives were “hard to find,” “not trained,” and “not able to handle genuine complaints.” Others wondered why they had to go find an H.R. representative to fix errors in unpaid time off deducted by the A to Z app. “Look at all the technology we have now,” one employee wrote. “I’m sure this can be corrected.”

Some of the workers faltered immediately or just seemed wrong for the job. Ms. Mangroo wasn’t even supposed to be there; Amazon’s hiring policies don’t allow for high schoolers. She was fired for time off task problems, after what Amazon called repeated coaching attempts. Soon her best friend and uncle were gone too. Mr. Michelus, the retiree recruited by postcard, had a low productivity rate. Stressed, he quit 11 days after he began.

Keanu Bushell, half of the father-son commuting tag team, didn’t trust Amazon’s systems to tally his time correctly and resigned. With limited hours on public transit, some newcomers were struggling with 2 or 3 a.m. wake-ups in far corners of the city, three-hour odysseys to the warehouse and nearly 12-hour shifts. Others were washouts — stealing merchandise, playing games on their phones for long stretches in the bathroom, abusing the leave policy.

In 2019, Amazon hired more than 770,000 hourly workers, even though the company, including corporate staff, grew by just 150,000 that year, John Phillips, the former head of mass hiring, wrote on LinkedIn. That meant the equivalent of Amazon’s entire work force — roughly 650,000 people at the start of the year — left and were replaced that year. The company declined to provide numbers for 2020.

For some, the short-term relationship worked. Stephen Ojo, a dancer in Brooklyn, joined JFK8 in the spring. “It was a good way for me to make extra money, it wasn’t clashing with my schedule, it fit with my life at the time,” he said. But he also knew that Amazon wasn’t his future. He was a star dancer in Beyoncé’s film “Black Is King,” which would stream to viewers in the summer. By then, he was done at Amazon.

Others needed the work. Days after Mr. Michelus quit, he was back at the bus stop. “I’ve got to learn to deal with the pressure,” he said. Amazon took him back, and soon he was picking items again.

I don't have any complaints today is just my final day working here. I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It is because of Amazon that i was able to make friends, learn, grow, and pay off my college bill. I thank the incredible stow team and their leaders and everyone that made this place what it is. Thank you amazon for everything.

[name redacted] we wish you all the best and thank you for your service here at JFK8! Although it's a big team it really does feel like a family here and we will miss having you here on the team but all the best in your new endeavors! :)

With the high churn, multiple current and former Amazon executives fear there simply will not be enough workers. In the more remote towns where Amazon based its early U.S. operations, it burned through local labor pools and needed to bus people in.

“Six to seven people who apply equals one person showing up and actually doing work,” Mr. Stroup explained. If Amazon is churning through its entire work force once or twice a year, he said, “You need to have eight, nine, 10 million people apply each year.” That’s about 5 percent of the entire American work force.

Ms. Nantel responded to multiple questions about Amazon’s turnover by repeating, “Attrition is only one data point, which when used alone lacks important context.”

Many newcomers were in impractical situations, whether because of schedules or commutes. “Sometimes, it’s simply not a good fit,” said Ms. Weishalla, the JFK8 manager.

Mr. Stroup says he is forever “an Amazon fanboy.” But over time in human resources there, he became disappointed that he “didn’t hear long-term thinking” about the company’s quick cycling through workers. He likened it to using fossil fuels despite climate change.

“We keep using them,” he said, “even though we know we’re slowly cooking ourselves.”

He left Amazon too. After almost nine years at the company, he joined Shopify, another e-commerce business, where he hoped his insights might have more impact.

Billions, Bonuses, Bananas

Ann Castillo stood outside her New Jersey apartment complex in early December, about to take on the responsibility of a lifetime. She had decided to bring her husband, now on hospice care, home and tend to him herself. Even with Amazon’s long-term disability insurance, she might have to move into low-income housing.

“If he’s going to go, then at least he’s with us,” she said.

She saw no sign that anyone in charge at JFK8 knew what was going on. “They never called and asked to follow up on how he’s doing,” she said.

A moment later, a procession of emergency vehicles flooded the small parking lot, lights flashing in salute. The drivers, town officials who were strangers to Ms. Castillo, told her to call day or night. When the ambulance arrived, it took all of the visitors to maneuver Alberto Castillo into the apartment.

Ms. Castillo’s own employer , a nonprofit home health care provider, overwhelmed her with support, arranging twice as many hospice nurse visits as usual, donating the extra nursing time and giving money from an emergency fund. Nearly everyone else in their lives, and even some strangers, had pitched in too, Ms. Castillo said: teachers, fellow parents, soccer teammates and coaches, church members, and old friends from the Philippines sent groceries, meals, gift cards and checks.

Months later, after inquiries from The Times, an H.R. official and a JFK8 staff member reached out to Ms. Castillo. A spokeswoman expressed regret that Ms. Castillo did not feel properly supported. Mr. Agboka, the H.R. leader, said in a statement, “We have her, her husband, and their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers.”

Inside the warehouse, Ms. Weishalla, who had been promoted to general manager, tracked nearly every conceivable metric about JFK8’s demand, attendance and inventory. But she said she did not keep tabs on how many workers were infected. “It’s not a daily thing I track — it’s hard to quantify that,” she said in an interview. “No one is sending me a number.”

(Ms. Nantel said Ms. Weishalla had access to cases via an online portal and was well informed of JFK8’s case count.)

The holiday-season sprint known as Peak arrived just as a second wave of the virus slammed into the region. The true measure of infection among JFK8 workers was hard to know. Amazon was providing free on-site testing by October. But it did not share with the general work force the names of those infected, for privacy reasons, or offer guidance on where or what shifts they worked.

As a result, many employees learned about positive cases informally, setting the rumor mill running. When Derrick Palmer realized the company never sent a notification about a colleague who told him she was sick, he confronted managers, who could not explain why. (Ms. Nantel said it was an error, adding that the warehouse has since found only one other missing notification.) To him, that lapse, along with the lack of clarity about Covid numbers, underscored his belief since March that Amazon was not being transparent about the virus threat.

For months, Amazon had said publicly that it was reporting confirmed cases at JFK8 and other warehouses to local health authorities, as required of employers. But New York City health department records show no reports until November.

Ms. Nantel said that Amazon had regularly reported cases since March 2020, and attributed the lack of records to the city health department’s being overwhelmed early in the pandemic. A spokesman for the agency, Patrick Gallahue, acknowledged that its reporting system was not set up until July, but said there was no reason that cases reported later would not be documented.

According to city data and records disclosed by Amazon in a lawsuit, the warehouse had at least 700 confirmed cases between March 2020 and March 2021. Given the limited testing in the New York metropolitan area last spring, that may well be an undercount.

As Christmas approached, JFK8 was setting an Amazon record for volume. “Huge congrats to the team hitting over 1 Million units in 24 hours kicking off Peak 2020!” Ms. Weishalla cheered on LinkedIn. The workers “achieved the unachievable,” echoed another manager. Soon Ms. Weishalla was promoted again, supervising multiple warehouses in the Midwest.

JFK8 was just a small part of Amazon’s success. From October through December, Amazon brought in $125.6 billion in sales. In the pandemic year of 2020, it spent $44 billion leasing airplanes, constructing data centers, and opening new warehouses — and still produced more than $21 billion in profit. Globally, it spent $2.5 billion on the extra pandemic pay in spring and seasonal bonuses ; for the holidays, warehouse employees got $300, $150 for part-timers.

Amazon Is Building Warehouses Faster Than Ever

Includes fulfillment and distribution centers that are under construction or planned to open

Includes fulfillment and distribution centers planned and under construction

In Facebook groups, warehouse workers across the country shared photos of the messages their managers sent to motivate and reward them. Some won air fryers or Fire TV Sticks. In Connecticut, a manager messaged employees at their workstations that if they handled 400 items an hour, or about one every 10 seconds, “you WIN CANDY.” At another, a sign went up during the holidays: “Today’s Snack: A Banana *Available 9 a.m. until 7 p.m.*” In Ohio, workers got scratch-off cards to win prizes.

One employee scratched off two with the same message: “Please try again.”

Looking for Signs of Change

A few weeks into the new year, Derrick Palmer took a 16-hour road trip with Mr. Smalls to Bessemer to witness the most serious push workers had ever made to challenge their status at Amazon. The employees galvanizing Amazon’s first-ever unionization vote framed their treatment as an issue of racial justice. Above all, they objected to the time off task system and other productivity monitoring, and called their campaign a quest for respect in the workplace.

Amazon waged a ground war, warning — through posted signs, texts and mandatory meetings — that union negotiations could risk the good jobs and benefits workers already had. In the end, the election was not even close: The retail union lost by more than 2 to 1 .

Back on Staten Island, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls embarked on a new mission anyway. As legal fights continued over whether JFK8 was safe during the virus and how Amazon handled the March 2020 protests, they began collecting hundreds of workers’ signatures in a quest to unionize JFK8. Amazon pulled out its Bessemer playbook and fought back, posting discouraging signs in bathrooms and at the building’s entrance. Mr. Palmer, still packing boxes as the company countered his efforts, felt the pressure on him grow.

But at the same time, the Alabama rout was leading to an unexpected moment of recognition by the company. The complaints heard in Bessemer were echoed by workers at multiple warehouses across the country. A new, labor-friendly president was in the White House. The virus had magnified fundamental questions about Amazon’s relationship with its employees, and the reopening economy presented workers with other options — a potential problem for a business whose growth ambitions are larger than ever.

In the final months of Jeff Bezos’ tenure as chief executive, his high-turnover model looked riskier, and the concerns about how Amazon treated the workers who powered its rise were tarnishing his legacy. During the pandemic, Mr. Bezos’ personal wealth exploded from $110 billion to more than $190 billion. He had also been building a $500 million superyacht , according to the new book “ Amazon Unbound ,” and preparing for his first spaceflight after investing billions in his rocket company, Blue Origin.

Mr. Bezos’ commitment in April to become “Earth’s best employer” raised questions — about what exactly that meant, and how far he and his successors would go.

Amazon soon rolled out more raises. Starting wages at JFK8 went up 50 cents, to $18.25. The company announced safety initiatives and diversity plans , including a goal to “retain employees at statistically similar rates across all demographics” — an implicit admission that the numbers had been uneven across races. Ms. Weishalla’s successors on Staten Island were holding weekly “talent review” meetings to ensure that Black and Latino workers, among others, were finding advancement opportunities.

In an interview, Mr. Agboka, the head of warehouse human resources, acknowledged that the company had relied too heavily on technology to manage workers. “We’re recognizing that in many times, where we thought self-service was good, self-service was not the only — can’t be the only — solution,” he said. “Every experience matters. And when the experiences aren’t right, we’ve got to find a way to fix it.”

But it wasn’t clear how much the company was willing to reconsider the sacrosanct systems of productivity, automation and high turnover that propelled it to dominance. “Are they going to address the issue of an expendable work force?” asked Mr. Cavagnaro, the fired worker who was returning to JFK8. “Are there going to be any changes?”

After repeated inquiries from The Times about the time off task policy and Dayana Santos, the JFK8 worker who challenged her termination, Amazon this month announced an immediate change: No longer could someone be fired for one bad day. All those who had been were now eligible for rehiring. The company said it had been reconsidering the policy for months.

In Seattle, Paul Stroup, whose teams studied Amazon’s hourly work force, watched the recent events and read Mr. Bezos’ letter. He felt caught between skepticism and hope that the company would finally deploy what he considered its best qualities — a penchant for fresh, open-minded thinking and tackling ambiguous, hard problems — in service of its workers.

“It would be an amazing thing for hourly employment across industries,” he wrote in a note on LinkedIn. “Jeff’s comment makes me think things could change, but it may be too late to reverse the damage it has done.”

“Now,” he said, “let’s see if they can innovate their way out of this.”

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Methodology for turnover analysis

The Times analysis of employee turnover shows the rate at which employees leave a company over a yearly period, using data through the first quarter of 2020. The analysis was based on warehousing and storage labor data in counties with newly-opened Amazon fulfillment and distribution centers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators. The annual turnover rate was calculated by county for each quarter by dividing the number of total separations over a four-quarter period by the average employment over a four-quarter period using that quarter and the previous three quarters. The analysis averaged four quarters of data to account for seasonal employment. The average turnover rate across the 83 counties where data was available was weighted by the total number of warehouse and storage workers employed in each county during that quarter. This methodology is based on research by Irene Tung and Deborah Berkowitz for the National Employment Law Project.

Alexander Villegas contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research. Photo editing by Beth Flynn . Graphics by Scott Reinhard . Produced by Rumsey Taylor .

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