AMAZON EDUCATION PLAN: TRAINING WORKERS TO LEAVE
“Career Choice” education stresses job improvement
When staff members walk into Amazon’s Thornton warehouse after it opens next year, one of the first things they’ll see is a classroom.
The space, replicated in every Amazon facility of at least 1,000 staff, eventually will host classes employees can put toward technical or vocational certificates or associate’s degrees. The tech giant will not only pick up 95 percent of the tab, it also will offer any employee who reaches a new educational plateau a few thousand dollars to quit Amazon.
“We build them with glass walls, fishbowl style,” Juan Garcia, Amazon’s global director of associate career development, told a collection of Colorado business leaders Monday. “What we’re trying to do is remove every barrier and inhibitor from our associates going back into the classroom.”
Garcia’s presentation was the centerpiece of a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment-organized summit focused on workforce programs. CDLE executive director Ellen Golombek started things off with a dose of cold water: “This morning is not an announcement Amazon is locating its new headquarters here,” she said, referring to the online retail giant’s plans to open a second HQ in an as-yet-undecided location outside its home base of Seattle.
But the summit included a unique offer from Garcia on behalf of his boss, Jeff Bezos. Amazon will share data on how its “Career Choice” workforce education program operates with any company interested in replicating it for free.
“We think this is the future,” Garcia said. “And if some variation of this could work for your company … we want to share our playbook with you.”
Amazon’s program, good for up to four years of classes at $3,000 per year, is open to any hourly staff member who has been with the company for a year. Relying on regular market research to shape it, Amazon offers classes only in industries of need in specific communities in which it is operating.
For Colorado, where the unemployment rate is 2.4 percent, those fields are likely to include aerospace, information technology, computer science, health care and construction, company officials say. As soon as an employee achieves the certificate or degree they are seeking, Amazon will offer them a financial incentive to leave, Garcia said, a more immediate version of the “pay to quit” program open to all Amazon warehouse employees each January.
He noted that by giving employees the means to move to more lucrative jobs outside the company, Amazon is banking on the creation of a business “ecosystem” that in turn brings fresh crops of qualified, engaged employees back to it.
“What we know is for a lot of folks at Amazon, this is only a stop on their personal and professional journey,” Garcia said. “And if we can help them ensure that each one of those stops is on an upward trajectory, we think it’s the right thing to do. We think there is a business case for it.”
Intertech Plastics CEO Noel Ginsburg addressed business leaders after Garcia’s presentation, highlighting progress being made by CareerWise Colorado, a state-created nonprofit working with the governor’s office to place high school students in apprenticeships with local companies. As of June, CareerWise had placed 116 apprentices and signed up 40 businesses in the manufacturing, technology business operations and financial services fields.
Attendees also heard from Michael Muszynski, recently hired as the head of CDLE’s workplace learning unit, the gov-
ernment complement to private businesses such as Amazon that are seeking to offer educational opportunities to their workers. He outlined the unit’s role in the state, which in- cludes administering grants, promoting best practices and providing technical assistance to companies.
By the time Amazon’s Thornton center opens late next summer, the ecommerce company will have roughly 3,000 warehouse employees in the state. The first batch hired at the Aurora sorting center hit their year of service time in June, making them eligible for the Career Choice program.
“I think it’s a very altruistic program,” CDLE’s Golombek said of Amazon’s approach. “It really does set a model for companies.”