[allritenow]

I left Amazon just over a year ago, but have just over two years as a manager across three of their large fulfillment centers. I can offer some perspective: -- Yes, the ratio of temp associates to "blue badge" Amazon associates can be 50/50 at best during off-peak (though trending worse as Amazon expands) and during peak season temps will be 80% of the workforce. And yes, temps get absolutely nothing from Amazon as far as benefits. This is in stark contrast to a company they own - Zappos.

-- Very few tier 1 associates made it three years. Very, very few. On my last shift of about 50 associates, I can only think of about 5, and this was one of the older fulfillment centers.

-- Maybe it has changed, but there was no option to work part-time. Standard shifts are 10 hours. Mandatory OT can be frequent off-peak and is every week during peak. I had plenty of associates that took college classes during the day (I managed on nights). They did it, but were really dragging ass at night. They got maybe two or three hours of sleep a day. Many just couldn't make their productivity goals and would eventually quit before being fired.

This initiative is what I would call a good start, and better than nothing. But as some have mentioned, the ability to move to a part-time schedule would be nice. As would a higher reimbursement amount. But maybe that will come in the future.

[pnathan]

"Standard shifts are 10 hours. Mandatory OT can be frequent off-peak and is every week during peak" That's pretty rough. What's the benefit to Amazon of doing 10-hour shifts instead of, say, 8?

[allritenow]

10 hours shifts are actually 10.5 hours as there is a .5 hour lunch in the middle. So you have a night shift and a day shift that total 21 hours of work in the warehouse. This leaves three hours of down time for maintenance (both mechanical and software) that is very much needed to keep things rolling. In order to fill customer orders, they NEED the labor to be as constant as possible. The difference between 17 hours and 21 hours of filling orders would be quite drastic. During peak, especially the three weeks prior to Christmas, the shifts are actually 12 hours. This leads to massive amounts of frustration as night and day shifts step on each other trying to get the hell in/out. And parking, long lines at security, crowded break room, etc add to the frustrations. Maintenance has to fix things on the fly while we try to work and software pushes gone bad (they limit them as much as possible during this time) can just kill a facility.

[kingnothing]

I would have assumed Amazon operates three eight-hour shifts per day.

[michaelt]

If you need four hours of downtime, either the three 8 hour shifts would have to overlap (meaning for the overlap periods you'd need twice as many workstations, i.e. a warehouse twice as big) or the third shift would have employees standing idle for 4 hours.

Downtime is useful because you can get in and perform preventative maintenance and software deployments, and if there's a problem (like a machine breakdown) that delays picking by an hour or two, you can complete the day's work instead of having the problems spill over into the next day.

Why they don't offer an option to do three 7-hour shifts I don't know.

[allritenow]

Simple really - productivity. On every shift you lose time starting up and getting everyone to work. This happens twice a shift (start of shift, coming back after lunch). There is a gap in time from when everyone clocks in to when they actually start producing. This time is referred to as "stand-up" and is when the manager covers safety, quality, admin messages, announcements, etc and also performs stretches. Multiply the time spent doing this by the number of minutes your shift is producing absolutely zero and you start each shift in the hole. You also lose some towards the end of a shift (everyone stops just a bit early until you start dropping the hammer). Knowing this, the fewer the shifts, the less "lost" productivity.

[pnathan]

Thank you for providing your thoughts here.

It does seem to me that these shifts are - however useful for Amazon - really harsh on the people on the floor.