SMALL TEAMS, BIG IDEAS
Through its pursuit of innovative initiatives, Amazon India has created a happier and more fulfilling workplace
two pizzas. that’s all it takes to feed a team at Amazon. But it’s not just about the food, it’s about the philosophy that guides its success. Amazon’s ‘Two Pizza Team’ approach is one of the key drivers of its innovation, collaboration and nimbleness. By keeping teams small, the retail giant fosters a start-up-like culture, where experimentation and creativity thrive.
“When you look at our history, it’s all been about builders innovating on behalf of customers, doing things that had never been done before. That’s allowed us to invent everything from Kindle to Alexa to AWS. Because we have so much innovation and experimentation going on at any one time, it feels like we’re a network of a thousand start-ups,” says Deepti Varma, VP of People Experience and Technology at Amazon Stores, India & Emerging Markets.
This ‘start-up-like culture’ is built around empowering employees to continuously improve their skills and innovate on behalf of their customers. The ‘Single Threaded Leaders’ concept is an example of it, which offers leaders the autonomy to assess product problems, determine teams and divide responsibilities. This approach, Varma says, has led to sharper focus, creativity, innovation and accountability across operations. Also,
Amazon’s ‘Talent flywheel’ enables employees to continuously improve their skills, break free from self-imposed limitations and make high-judgement decisions at scale.
The commitment to empower its employees extends to its leadership development programmes such as Amazon Future Builders Program that immerses premier B-school students in a variety of upskilling sessions and social activities, while programmes like Pinnacle and Catapult offer leadership development opportunities, specifically for women. Programmes such as Amazon Research Days provides a forum for machine learning experts to connect and share ideas, while Amazon WoW supports women in engineering colleges and helps them build long-term careers in technology.
Amazon understands that a happy employee is a productive employee and therefore, fostering employee happiness should be more than just a lofty ideal; it’s a smart business strategy that cultivates a culture of productivity, innovation and success. The company offers f lexible work arrangements to accommodate personal needs. Its ‘Ramp Back’ programme allows new parents to return to work gradually after parental leave. ‘Svasthya’, a wellness initiative, offers multiple choices to support physical, mental/emotional and financial well-being. It also offers support to
employees caring for a child with a developmental disability and has piloted various programmes to expand focus on employee well-being, including sensitising and training leaders to have a higher emotional quotient. Other initiatives such as ‘hush-hours’ for personal and professional tasks, curated content for employees coping with grief and a dedicated line for additional support are being piloted as well.
Amazon is also working towards providing opportunities to underrepresented groups like women, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans, and persons with disabilities. It has the ‘Maternity Buddy’ programme and work flexibility for new mothers; internal mentoring programmes such as Sunshine—that connects and supports women employees— and AmVoice, which addresses the concerns and queries of women employees and improves their experience. Its ‘Rekindle’ programme aims to help women who have taken a career break, while the global ‘WiFi’ programme focusses on recruiting, retaining, and advancing women in finance. Amazon also operates women-operated delivery partner service stations and an AllWomen virtual customer service centre that provides opportunities for women to work from home.
It has also set up a silent delivery station in Mumbai run by individuals with speech and hearing impairment and developed a dedicated hiring website for military veterans and transitioning service personnel. To ensure that the LGBTQ+ community feels supported and valued, the company has taken several steps, including providing gender-neutral facilities and designing policies that are inclusive for samegender partners. The company has also established ‘Glamazon’ affinity groups to support the LGBTQ+ community to foster healthy discussions at the workplace.
“When we talk about diversity at Amazon we include gender, disability, military status, sexual orientation and life experience, among others. Amazon’s culture of inclusion is reinforced by our leadership principles, which remind team members to seek diverse perspectives, learn and be curious and lead with empathy. We take an intersectional approach to the policies, programmes and strategies we create for our employees to build inclusion into our culture,” says Varma. Backed by these people initiatives, Amazon India has emerged as one of the top companies in the BT-Taggd Best Companies to Work For in India ranking this year.
To measure the success of various upskilling and well-being programmes, Amazon relies on metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), and How’s My Driving (HMD), as well as qualitative anecdotes from programme participants. Its realtime feedback platform ‘Connections’ allows employees to share their experiences in a confidential manner. The leadership team then reviews the data to design and execute interventions and address feedback. “At Amazon, we strive to cultivate a forward thinking, affirmative and empathy-led workplace. This, coupled with our deep focus on building a diverse and inclusive work culture, has helped us build mechanisms over the years to create a safer, more productive, higher performing and diverse work environment,” says Varma.
The HR team at Amazon strives to stay true to its new moniker—the people experience and technology solutions team— through its relentless pursuit of innovative initiatives that create a happier and more fulfilling workplace for employees.