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'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. I wonder if the group that does this will be viewed as lesser, e.g. work on less interesting projects, be less likely to be

'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. I wonder if the group that does this will be viewed as lesser, e.g. work on less interesting projects, be less likely to be promoted, than the "40" hour employees.

andrewguenther 10y ago
The pilot is a team-wide thing. You won't have a 30-hour employee on a 40-hour team. 30-hour employees will work with 30-hour employees under a 30-hour manager. I think that will help offset some of this, but it does put a limit on what projects you could work on. For the pilot, anyway. I'm interested to see how this pans out.
- pjmorris 10y ago
  I recognize that 'You won't have a 30-hour employee on a 40-hour team'... my point is that, unless they segregate them in another building, probably another company, the pilot teams will interact with the non-pilot teams... and, at some point in the hierarchy, will be managed by 40-hour people. As jaded as I sound, I do think there's a place for workplace flexibility. What would really tell me the executives are committed to it: Calculate their actual FTE's - average work week hours divided by 40 - and make sure there are at least that many physical FTE's.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  There's no reason why you cannot do that. Our contractors get fixed hour allocations, and often will strictly work to the hours they are paid for (we won't pay overtime without approval). A few of my folks were angry about this and claimed to be working 50-60 hour weeks. My response was "there's a easy solution to this problem". They cut out the excessive OT, which was mostly unneeded, and not too much changed.
- Encaitar 10y ago
  This might be a team wide thing at Amazon but I have seen mixing the two in a single team. Its called reduced hours and can be very helpful for people coming back from maternity leave (as well as others).
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  We have our 30hour employees and 40 hour employees on the same team. No reason they can't mix. We even have a couple part timers too.
vibrato 10y ago
They are piloting it on internal HR software which I think says a lot. To me this seems like a purely PR driven move after the lambasting their culture has taken lately.
- Bluestrike2 10y ago
  I see that as a good thing. If you're going to experiment on your employees and try to change your workplace culture, low-profile projects that--while important--often aren't 100% mission critical are a good place to do so. A major problem in HR or payroll software or something similar might cause some massive headaches for your employees, but it won't be as noticeable outside the company as a major outage or problem affecting customer data.
  - vibrato 10y ago
    I agree it's absolutely the smart way to go about testing this out. I only doubt that there's a real motive to change.
- mabbo 10y ago
  I'm biased as I'm an Amazon SDE. That aside... Amazon experiments. It's not about bold PR moves to make waves and attract attention. It's about trying everything, even ideas that might sound bad, and seeing if they actually work. This? This is the same idea. Try it out on something less important (HR software, sure, why not) and see what happens. In the worst case, a bit of internal software is late. That's a low-cost risk to see if you can find a way to reduce developer costs efficiently.
  - crack-the-code 10y ago
    It may be part of the same philosophy of "trying everything," but it would be naive to say that there are no motivations of improving the negative reputation Amazon has built upon itself through its intensive work ethic.
    - 10y ago
grecy 10y ago
> 'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. Great! Let's be honest - most working professionals (especially in Software) earn more money than they need. I think it's much better to have more time - time with you family, time to be outdoors, time to be healthy - than it is to have more money
- daxorid 10y ago
  Indeed. And even if money is your motivator, here is an extra 10-20 hours a week to work on one's side project. Do not see the downside, here.
- gedy 10y ago
  Say that in 20 years when you are looking at how to retire for the next 20-30 years with no pension, and from companies who don't want old people.

'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. I wonder if the group that does this will be viewed as lesser, e.g. work on less interesting projects, be less likely to be promoted, than the "40" hour employees.

andrewguenther 10y ago

The pilot is a team-wide thing. You won't have a 30-hour employee on a 40-hour team. 30-hour employees will work with 30-hour employees under a 30-hour manager. I think that will help offset some of this, but it does put a limit on what projects you could work on. For the pilot, anyway. I'm interested to see how this pans out.

pjmorris 10y ago
I recognize that 'You won't have a 30-hour employee on a 40-hour team'... my point is that, unless they segregate them in another building, probably another company, the pilot teams will interact with the non-pilot teams... and, at some point in the hierarchy, will be managed by 40-hour people. As jaded as I sound, I do think there's a place for workplace flexibility. What would really tell me the executives are committed to it: Calculate their actual FTE's - average work week hours divided by 40 - and make sure there are at least that many physical FTE's.
Spooky23 10y ago
There's no reason why you cannot do that. Our contractors get fixed hour allocations, and often will strictly work to the hours they are paid for (we won't pay overtime without approval). A few of my folks were angry about this and claimed to be working 50-60 hour weeks. My response was "there's a easy solution to this problem". They cut out the excessive OT, which was mostly unneeded, and not too much changed.
Encaitar 10y ago
This might be a team wide thing at Amazon but I have seen mixing the two in a single team. Its called reduced hours and can be very helpful for people coming back from maternity leave (as well as others).
nommm-nommm 10y ago
We have our 30hour employees and 40 hour employees on the same team. No reason they can't mix. We even have a couple part timers too.

vibrato 10y ago

They are piloting it on internal HR software which I think says a lot. To me this seems like a purely PR driven move after the lambasting their culture has taken lately.

Bluestrike2 10y ago
I see that as a good thing. If you're going to experiment on your employees and try to change your workplace culture, low-profile projects that--while important--often aren't 100% mission critical are a good place to do so. A major problem in HR or payroll software or something similar might cause some massive headaches for your employees, but it won't be as noticeable outside the company as a major outage or problem affecting customer data.
- vibrato 10y ago
  I agree it's absolutely the smart way to go about testing this out. I only doubt that there's a real motive to change.
mabbo 10y ago
I'm biased as I'm an Amazon SDE. That aside... Amazon experiments. It's not about bold PR moves to make waves and attract attention. It's about trying everything, even ideas that might sound bad, and seeing if they actually work. This? This is the same idea. Try it out on something less important (HR software, sure, why not) and see what happens. In the worst case, a bit of internal software is late. That's a low-cost risk to see if you can find a way to reduce developer costs efficiently.
- crack-the-code 10y ago
  It may be part of the same philosophy of "trying everything," but it would be naive to say that there are no motivations of improving the negative reputation Amazon has built upon itself through its intensive work ethic.
  - 10y ago

grecy 10y ago

> 'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. Great! Let's be honest - most working professionals (especially in Software) earn more money than they need. I think it's much better to have more time - time with you family, time to be outdoors, time to be healthy - than it is to have more money

daxorid 10y ago
Indeed. And even if money is your motivator, here is an extra 10-20 hours a week to work on one's side project. Do not see the downside, here.
gedy 10y ago
Say that in 20 years when you are looking at how to retire for the next 20-30 years with no pension, and from companies who don't want old people.