Amazon is back in the news, this time for bringing back it’s policy of screening their warehouse employees for theft at the end of shifts. You can check out the details here:
Any competitors out there in the Warehousing biz, thank Amazon for delivering this gift of disrespect to their associates. Every time I think we have graduated from the early days of the industrial evolution, along comes an enlightened company to prove me wrong! While no where near any of the horrors described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, I think we can agree that going through metal detectors and registering your phone to prove its not stolen are not exactly sterling examples of modern empowerment.
Years ago I had an HR leadership role in the distribution wing of Nestle where we were always compared against low cost 3rd party distribution centers who paid minimal wages and accepted 100% workforce turnover as part of doing business . We would often debate how far we wanted to go in imitation of these companies. In the end, we decided we did not want to be in that kind of business. It might have been legal but it wasn’t reflective of our values. We found more value added ways to compete.
Leaders must make decisions about how they will be known, how their companies will be known and what kind of reputation they will have. While it may be tempting to institute a system of zero possibility of theft, the price for that system goes far beyond capital expense. Keep in mind Amazon is a company that does not want to be unionized; a key currency of any union worth its salt is the word “dignity”. Unions have made hay with management not recognizing the dignity of workers since their inception. Disrespectful managers and policies will get a company organized faster than low pay and crappy benefits. At the heart of most successful union campaigns are lousy supervisors tolerated by the targeted company. Throw in the requirement to prove you are not stealing on a daily basis? What a gift to the Teamsters, SEIU, and other unions adept at using stupid company actions in their campaigns
My take here is that leaders in all sectors can learn from Amazon’s mistakes. Don’t be tempted by lowest common denominator policies. For many years it was possible to drug test employees randomly in the US, but most employers embraced “reasonable suspicion” as a basis for any tests, sparing the majority of employees from being bothered. There are always alternatives to the most draconian approach. Smart HR Executives and Operations Managers know that they must stand up to the hard headed Theory X Managers that only see things one way. (Remember theory X? McGregor’s theory X was about managers who assumed employees were inherently lazy and untrustworthy, needing to be watched. Douglas McGregor was an early pioneer in management thinking, an MIT Professor and author.)
Amazon will learn, but probably not any time soon. That saying that there is nothing new under the sun also applies to mistakes; despite all that tech and capital money, it seems Amazon hasn’t found a way to overcome suspicion with great design thinking. Competitors will do so. Amazon – your commercials espousing great benefits and perqs are lovely, but they can’t overcome having TSA checks at your exits. Get some sense folks!
Finally a word to the wise from Mr Mc Gregor that Amazon leadership may want to consider: “The ingenuity of the average worker is sufficient to outwit any system of controls devised by management.” That dignity thing – if you don’t get it right, those pesky human beings may find a way to mess with you……
One Response
Asking for a friend, are their Managers also being watched and have the same rules, restrictions and guidelines, that they must adhere to? They should if they don’t as a lot of corruption would be uncovered!