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Amazon India Chief Tells Employees To Maintain 'Work-Life Harmony', No Emails and Phone Calls After Office Hours (indiatimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon gets trashed on the international stage pretty often for its inhumane work conditions in its warehouses. However, it seems the Indian arm of the company is trying to do better, at least according to the latest announcement from Country Head Amit Agarwal. According to Business Standard, in an email to senior staff members this week, Agarwal has reportedly asked employees to leave themselves enough time to spend at home, and maintain a healthy "work-life harmony." He's told employees to stop taking calls and emails after hours, and specifically that, "No business decision should be made between 6 pm and 8 am." It's still unclear whether this decision comes from Agarwal or from the company's global leadership. Likely the latter, considering there's been no such chatter for US employees. It'll also be interesting to see how long this plan will hold, given the sheer size of the e-commerce portal. In the email, Agarwal also said that responding to emails while on vacation is "not cool."
That's for damn sure.
"Responding to emails while on vacation is not cool."
Sent from my sun lounger in Cancun.
Summation 2
I assume that this could not be universal, as they must have some people working at 'night' which would be the daytime state side.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
They have labour law there and can't fire some for just saying to no do an 80 hour day also working on holidays = X2 pay.
the US really needs more of the EU labor laws / OT
I guess that means that all of the burden of evening/early-hour meetings with them goes to the people in other hemispheres.
That is all.
That's communist talk.
I work 5 jobs and have a shit home life, that makes me morally superior to the Euro-weenies who spend most of their time with their families/friends and get to spend waaaayyyy too much time enjoying their lives. And don't get me started on the Frenchies. They raise their kids IN PERSON not via text message. Pure laziness. They should be at work all day long!!!
That would be laws for the people, by the people and thus socialist/communist. That would be unchristian to do. So not happening.
(Yeah, this logic has more holes than a Swiss cheese, but Switserland is not in the EU, so no probnlems there.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's still unclear whether this decision comes from Agarwal or from the company's global leadership. Likely the former, considering there's been no such chatter for US employees.
"Former" refers to the first of two earlier mentioned list items (Agarwal, in this case), while "latter" refers to the second (global leadership, in this case). If it were the latter, that would suggest there would be "chatter for US employees".
Well, then reality hits. (Almost) every software developer in Amazon is in an oncall rotation, and even if yo're not oncall you can still be called in if you're the expert on whatever's broken. This sounds more like "managers can have better work-life balance, engineers still have the pager go off at 3AM every night.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
What we have in the US are powerful business groups who "nominate" our legislators for re-election through private campaign donations. Until all elections are financed by public funds, none of this will change: employment-at-will, binding arbitration, noncompete clauses, and reform of overtime for exempt employees.
Reminds me of a meeting I was in where a manager asked why it was taking a long time for me to finish a project. I replied with my meeting-heavy schedule for the next two weeks.
Their expression was priceless. Awe and confusion followed by three minutes of struggling between extending their (aggressive) deadline or freeing me up from those meetings.
The latter won over. Interestingly those meetings went well without me...
Hmm. 80 hour day. Could you direct me to the person that has accomplished this? I'd really like to know how to increase my daily productivity even further. 24 hours simply isn't enough!
an 80 hour day is when you work four jobs at the same time for 20 hours a day.
Just another second banana
really? you expect your employees not to drink when not at work? you're a fucking asshole. glad I don't work for you. you wouldn't last a day at my current employer for treating people so shitty. you're part of the problem, not the solution.
The next day Amit Agarwal announced that he was voluntarily leaving Amazon "to spend more time with his family".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
You have no idea how India is changing, some of the new metro areas are world class. India will keep getting better, the US keeps getting worse , and there will always be shitty comments on Slashdot
A couple of points I'd like to bring up about this
While in general, I do agree that this should be the ideal, at the very least, if the company has clients overseas, there's a pretty good chance that the clients' business hours aren't going to always coincide with the company's. Practical business sense demands more flexibility than some hard-and-fast rule like like "no business decisions after 6pm" .
Secondly, it can come to pass from time to time that things need to be taken care of... immediately, to prevent potentially even permanently damaging issues. While this is more likely to be an issue for employees who function in a manager or supervisor role, it's very easy for me to imagine cases arising where if an employee decides that they've clocked out for the day and feel they aren't responsible for anything more, they might not get to clock in tomorrow because there's not going to be a company left to clock in to.
Now ideally, situations where an employee but it's stupidly naive to throw some kind of absolute rule around about when you will conduct your business without making any allowances for exceptions... and of course, an employee should also be justly compensated for their extra time on the occasions where it has been needed.
Finally, speaking for myself and from my own personal experience, I cannot stand to leave work when I have not yet felt like I've accomplished something constructive that day... I do not ask for compensation from my employer for this, because it is voluntary and not demanded of me, but if when I'm in the middle of some large programming task, I'd rather get it to some sort of point where I feel like I could leave it and pick up tomorrow instead of just dropping everything the minute the clock hits 5:30, where it can spell the difference between taking a couple of minutes to get myself back up to speed with where I was because I was at a point where a logical break is possible and having to take a an hour or more to basically completely mentally reinvent everything I did yesterday so that I can be on the same page that I was when I left the work at a point where no logical breakpoint can be found. Usually, this does not amount to staying too much longer, so I don't find it hinders my life balance in any way..
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is just one of 100 smart city projects going on in India right now. Yes 100.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j1zPLR6DPKk
No wonder the world thinks that Americans are morons. Please educate yourself , I know it costs a fortune in your country
"Definitely don't check work email from home, but if your emails for the day aren't answered (because you are 120% utilized) then you'll have to stay until they are."
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
That's the problem... It's nice for an employer to tell you not to work on your personal time, but are they willing to utilize their staff appropriately so there is a hope in hell of staying ahead with a day's work.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I worked a 32 hour day once.
8 at a client's location in Sydney, 18 travelling (over the dateline), 6 in Sacramento. The accountants wanted to argue.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Says the guy with a country in massive poverty, practically indentured corruption, sexual inequality, a wealth gap that is shocking with people having bones sticking out of their rotting flesh being passed on the street without a blink because that shits just tuesday there, people crapping all over the place due to lack of basic infrastructure, 64 babies dying due to the hospital not being able to afford oxygen...like the list just never ends.
Wait...are we talking about India of the U.S.?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
You are a horrible boss. Work performance should be evaluated on what people do on work time, what they do on their free time it's their own fucking bussiness, not yours.
Of course, the real reason why the US keeps getting worse is that we've shipped all of our wealth generating industry out of the country.
A work ethic doesn't mean unbridled attention for eight hours during traditional office hours.
It means getting things done, delivering strong outcomes for the company.
That could be done in office hours. It could be done at home. Most programmers are fucking awesome at fixing bugs while having a shit; they don't claim overtime for this, but in return they don't expect their manager to get upset when they check their email.
I'll work from 7.30am to 2pm, go home, cuddle the cats, call a colleague in another timezone, maybe do some more work, eat dinner, maybe do some more work, play computer games, go to bed. The next day I may get up, play computer games, have lunch, consider doing some work.
I get commended on my work ethic. I lead, facilitate, personally deliver and don't let idiotic things like working hours get in the way. Sometimes that means I do nothing for 2-3 days (and then enjoy the weekend). Sometimes it means I work 70 hours without a break, because I'm in the flow, I have a deadline to hit, I just feel like getting something done.
So no, there is nothing wrong with expecting your employees to have a work ethic. It just has fuck all to do with the hours they work, and whether they use social media or not.
I vote for no emails or phone calls DURING office hours!