Editor note (that’s me, Tim) – The Amazon stuff in this episode truly made me laugh out loud!
On episode 59 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss the fact that Amazon AWS has branded performance improvement plan programs called “FOCUS” and “PIVOT.” They alternate between being impressed, horrified, and entertained by this branding.
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Show Highlights
3:30 – Gary V recently did a post about the impending doom of meetings in a hybrid world and KD wrote about it on the HR Capitalist. Tim doesn’t care if people want to be remote for the team meeting, but he’s going to be there in person.
6:15 – JLee thinks there will be some proximity bias in meetings to those who are actually there at the meeting.
7:00 – Congrats to the newest Girl Scout troop leader on the pod, Jessica Lee!
9:30 – KD thinks that teams will have to choose to do either all Zoom or all in-person (with people dialing in and being second -lass citizens), or the manager/facilitator of the meeting is going to have to be really, really good to manage it.
12:45 – Next topic: Amazon. KD wrote another post, this time about the Amazon union issues. KD brings up Jeff Bezos’ shareholder letter.
13:30 – Bezos has a mentality that every employee should start the job like it’s “Day 1”. Tim is a big fan of the mentality.
15:45 – JLee points out that Bezos says he needs to create a “better vision” for his employees.
18:30 – KD pulls out one more thing he likes from Bezos’ letter. The message is consistent with the “Day 1” mentality and talks to “not being typical.”
21:00 – Tim’s son’s friend works at Amazon in supply chain. This friend was led to believe when he was interviewing that he would be working at the Amazon plant in Detroit, but he found out after accepting the offer that the job was in Gary, Ind.
22:30 – A leaked Amazon AWS memo shows program details related to performance improvement plans. KD breaks down the branding programs, called “Focus” and “Pivot,” as reported in Business Insider.
26:40 – JLee says that getting rid of 6% of employees is nothing and people are a little sensitive about 6%.
29:00 – The crew can’t stop making jokes about the different career-help programs at Amazon.