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- An Amazon manager said they resisted a directive to put a worker on a performance improvement plan.
- The manager said they faced severe stress and sought FMLA to cope.
- An Amazon spokesperson said the PIP process isn't used to try to reduce the employee base.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with an Amazon employee who sought to go on medical leave because of a stressful situation that developed with their manager. This person spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their career. Business Insider has verified the worker's identity and employment at the company. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The part of the organization I'm in used to be pretty robust. There was a thriving culture of going above and beyond. Managers gave credit when credit was due and took responsibility for mistakes. Initially, it was a good division. But then there have been several rounds of layoffs.
The leadership style has become pretty cutthroat. It seems like they skipped the process of evaluating the impact that the members of the group made and instead focused on tenure or other superficial metrics that were easy to gather.
I had a direct report who was performing extremely well, and I was expected to put them in Focus and then Pivot even though they were performing. I was explicitly told to. This person was passionate and creative with the work that they did. This person would definitely not be on the list of people I would have chosen to get rid of.
We have senior staff meetings monthly. The themes can vary. Oftentimes, when the theme is related to products or related to some specific aspects like security, there are notes. But when it's about HR or quotas on staff members or on URA — unregretted attrition — there aren't notes, and we're told that this is a confidential conversation.
In one staff meeting, my boss said this year's target for unregretted attrition should be doubled. It varies across Amazon but used to be from 5% to 15% at the absolute most. But this time, it doubled. So it now can vary from 10% to 30%.
The fight
When it came to my direct report, I tried to fight back. I tried to convince my manager by providing them with a one-pager about the contributions they had brought in just over a year and some of the bottlenecks that they were able to unclog.
Later on, I believed one of the reasons I was put in Focus was because I resisted doing what I was told instead of actually doing what I thought was the right thing.
My manager asked me to jump on a call, and they basically told me, "Hey, there's no way you can fight this. It's already decided." And they said, "My hands are tied as well. So, you can waste our time and get yourself on the radar, or you can just find a way to make this happen smoothly."
When I finally gave in to my manager's request for my direct report, I was told to put them in Focus for 30 days. The system allows up to 60 days. Then, for Pivot, I was told to pick two weeks.
So, I put in the 30 days, but then I kept extending it. Because if I were to put 60 days, management would have noticed. With the extensions, it came to 90 days. I was able to give the person three months rather than one in Focus.
The reckoning
Eventually, management caught up to it. Amazon can be clueless, but not to that degree.
My manager got pinged by HR about this situation — that I'd been messing with this system. Then I got a message in Slack from my manager saying we had to jump on a call.
That conversation was not great. I got a sense that my manager was potentially going to put me in Focus because of how they were berating me. First, they said that I caused an issue for them with HR, that there was a certain quota that the manager had to meet, and that my direct report was supposed to be gone by now. The fact that I had been able to get away with this was because my manager wasn't checking. My manager said I put a target on their back by doing this. And they said they trusted me with this task, and I fucked it up for them.
It was a short conversation — like 10 minutes. As soon as I got off the call, I filed for a leave of absence. During the conversation, my boss didn't say anything regarding whether they were going to do anything to me. But their expression made it clear that they were openly pissed.
Amazon's Disability & Leave Services department provided me with a document and gave me 30 days to get it filled out by a medical provider. The entire FMLA process was a hurdle for me. I didn't even know, initially, that I could obtain medical leave based on my mental state.
Before I got FMLA, I was extremely distressed. I went to my physician. They were interested in helping me out, but when I told them that I might want to take FMLA, they said we should refer you to this specialist and then that specialist.
I spent almost a month — every freaking day — going from appointment to appointment. I wasted like $3,000 in copays for all of the appointments. That's insane. Especially at a time when I was not getting paid. It took me almost the entire month to complete the FMLA form. I was really stressed. Once the approval came through, I got 60% of my base pay.
I had to call my insurance company about mental health benefits. I was having panic attacks every 20 minutes. I was in a state of mental collapse — spiritual and mental collapse — at that point. The company suggested I call 988, the mental health hotline. I didn't call because they would take me to the ER or something. They also referred me to a counselor. This counselor saw the state I was in, and they clearly knew that I needed the time that I needed and was willing to provide the documentation for FMLA.
The panic attacks were because of the fear that I actually had to come back to the workplace and then suffer whatever was waiting — on top of the bills that I needed to pay.
I later heard from my manager while I was on FMLA, and they informed me that I had been put on Focus. They tried to entice me to come back. They said some variation of, "I'll get you out of Focus. Just come back now." I didn't believe them. I figured my manager was trying to get me to come back before my leave was over because they were facing their own deadline to get rid of me.
After my manager realized they weren't going to be able to get me to go back early, they revealed that they were tasked with getting me out by a certain date. I think the reason they revealed this was because they appreciated that I'd told them about how I made FMLA work.
Then, my manager made clear that the due date they were facing for pushing me out was before my return from FMLA. That was one of the objectives they had to meet to get themselves out of Focus. As a result of my decision not to come back early, my manager said they would not be able to meet one of the requirements of their Focus plan. So, they were going to go on FMLA to avoid getting put in Pivot.
I was shocked that the manager, as part of a plan for them to get out of Focus, was tasked with pushing me out of the organization by enticing me back before my FMLA expired. That way, they could put me in Pivot to ensure I would leave and save themselves from Pivot. It was like a diabolical game of musical chairs.
Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokesperson, told BI via email:
Business Insider declined to give us any information to review this individual employee's experience, and based on the questions we were asked, there appear to be a number of inaccuracies about our performance management process in their report. Like most companies, we have a performance management process that helps our managers identify who on their teams are performing well and who needs more support. The vast majority of our colleagues regularly meet or exceed expectations, but for the small number of employees who don't, we provide coaching and opportunities to help them improve. If they're unable to do that, then we may have to discuss them leaving the company. To suggest we use our performance management process to drive any other outcome, such as reducing our employee base, is wrong.
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