This week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced in his shareholder letter that Amazon Inc. is offering $5,000 to their fulfillment center employees to quit their jobs, the “Pay to Quit” program. This news comes weeks after Amazon announced its annual membership fee increase to $99.

Amazon’s $5,000 offer is an attempt to purge of employees who are unhappy with their work environment. As unhappy employees produce a poorer work quality, Amazon wants to ensure its productivity will remain high with employees who actually want to work for the online retail guru. As mentioned in the shareholder letter, “in the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company.”

However, Amazon does not want to lose all its employees. The headline of the offer is “Please Don’t Take This Offer.” As Bezos mentioned, “We hope they don’t take the offer, we want them to stay.”

How Does It Work?

“Pay to Quit” is “simple” says Bezos. Once a year, it offers employees an opportunity to quit for $2,000. The offer will increase $1,000 a year up to a total of $5,000. For the time being, the $5,000 bonus is only offered to employees in the fulfillment centers. That is, the warehouse where customer orders are packaged and shipped.

Deja Vu

“Pay to Quit” was first adopted by Zappos, an Amazon owned company. When Zappos first created the idea, it offered new hires a $2,000 bonus to quit. Zappos standards are set in their customer care service. They understand that the company character is the most difficult lead to create and preserve. The “Pay to Quit” program was created to produce happy and successful employees who would in turn provide great costumer service.

Why Only Fulfillment Center Employees?

Only 2% to 3% of Zappos employees who were offered the stipend actually took it. The 97% success rate said something to Amazon, the online retail giant. This approach works! But why limit the offer to employees at the fulfillment centers? Some believe the reason is Amazon’s relationship with the fulfillment center employees.

For starters, fulfillment center employees must move, stock, and manage heavy merchandise and inventory on a daily basis. A fulfillment center employee may walk up to fifteen miles a day back and forth fulfilling orders, and moving and restocking merchandise.

An employee sued Amazon in 2009 claiming he and other employees were ripped off on overtime pay. In 2010, employees sued Amazon for pay for the time they spent going through security screenings during their shifts. Claiming, the thirty-minute daily process added up and reduced their pay.

Other reasons fulfillment center employees are being offered the $5,000 “pay to quit” bonus may be for the general working conditions in the warehouse. Employees have complained about the unpleasant temperatures and stressful working environment in the warehouses. Employees have complained about the summer heat and the winter chill.

In 2011, some fulfillment center workers were hospitalized for heat-related injuries caused by the heat generated in the warehouse.

Career Choice

In addition to the “Pay to Quit” program, Amazon offers fulfillment center employees an educational program, Career Choice. Amazon will pre-pay 95% of an employee’s tuition to take a course in “in-demand” fields such as nursing or airplane mechanics, regardless of the relevancy to a career at Amazon. The goal, says Bezos in his shareholder letter, is to “enable choice.”

“We know that for some of our fulfillment center employees, Amazon will be a career. For others, Amazon might be a stepping stone on the way to a job somewhere else – a job that may require new skills. If the right training can make the difference, we want to help”

The reason behind the “Pay to Quit” program is irrelevant. Aberdeen group VP Mollie Lombardi said, “It’s kind of like no-fault divorce.”

Topics: Amazon