Amazon: The Plan to Get 30,000 People Into Work

0:00And we're live on match day as Doug reaches for a Buffalo wing. He's got it! Oh and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too! What a finish! There's no doubt about it, it just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi.

0:50John, great to be with you again at yet another fulfillment centre, another new state-of-the-art one. You've announced quite a lot on jobs today and upskilling. Can you talk us through some of that? Sure. So on upskilling, we have a program called Career Choice, where we will pay for our employees to get nationally recognized qualifications worth up to three grand a year in the UK. We've trained about 30 ,000 people in the UK alone, 300 ,000 globally. We've said between now and 2030, we're going to invest a billion dollars and that means half a million extra people and that means that we will double the number of people we've trained in the UK as well.

1:32So that's another 30 ,000 then or so so that's almost half the workforce right? What are these people retraining in? How much kind of guidance do you give on that in terms of you know are they moving up and out of Amazon or were they moving up in Amazon? Most people choose to move into, take skills that help them move up within Amazon. We do also offer some areas that are in high demand. A good example is HGV driving, where we in the past, where we don't offer it today, it's one of our popular courses. If you remember, probably three or four years ago, there was a real gap in the market for HGV drivers.

2:14And we offer that as a course. and some people choose to take that. The majority, though, of people will take the courses that help them progress at Amazon. And what we're always looking to do is to tailor the offering, get the exact number, 20 or something courses that are the ones that often we find hardest to hire for. So a good example is Guy, I don't know if you met him, Anvesh? Yes. Right, so he did a course in mechatronics. As we move into more robotics warehouses, robotics fulfillment centers, we need lots more what are called mechatronics engineers. So if you imagine the combination of mechanics and electronics, we need people to manage the conveyor belts, to manage the robots, all those systems.

2:56And Vesh is a great example. He's kind of interested, so he did a course on career choice on mechatronics. That enabled him to then go into an apprenticeship, just finished year one, he's got two more years to go, and that's going to give him a real boost in pay into an area that we find it hard to hire for. Yeah, we're still struggling to hire, right? Because there is a bit of a paradox at the moment in terms of we have a million people in the UK under 24th, not in education training. And yet one of the biggest employers, Amazon, still can't find people. How's that happening? Yeah, look, I just think that that really shows you that the system isn't working.

3:33A million people, a million needs, and we can't find enough people to fill the skilled jobs that we've got. And the conclusion we came to was that if we can't find people to come and maintain the robots, to be robotics technicians, to be fleet maintenance engineers, we're going to have to train people ourselves. Now, part of that is because those jobs I've just mentioned probably didn't exist 10 years ago. Yes. And so it takes a while for the education system to catch up. But, you know, I think because we have such a large workforce, one of the top 10 private sector employers, actually we've got a brilliant opportunity to train people and help give them a boost that's going to help them into a higher skilled, higher paid job.

4:18But one of the things that I sort of observed, and you may correct me on this if I'm wrong, but the number of employees at Amazon is 75 ,000. That, for the last two years, has actually remained static. And that is about the first time that's happened in 15 years. And today you've announced job increases across Europe, but not so much in the UK. Is that because of government policy over the last couple of years? No. So we announced 25 ,000 jobs coming to Europe. We're currently recruiting for thousands of roles actually in the UK. Okay, so we're opening a new fulfillment center in Northampton. Just this morning we announced one, it's going to be in Peterborough.

5:04And last year, you'll be aware Jimmy, we announced a£40 billion investment in the UK, which is a mix of fulfillment centers, delivery stations, data centers, new office buildings in both London and in Swansea. So we're continuing to do that. We are going to make an investment announcement, a jobs announcement in the UK, probably later in the year. But the UK is part of that 25 ,000. Okay. All right. So that's encouraging. Because it is worth saying, you've gone from pre-COVID, you had 10 fulfillment centers, to now you've got 30 plus. Yeah, I don't know exactly what the number was in COVID. But if you think, go back to 2020, what I do know is from the start of 2020 to the end of 2021, 2021, we doubled our fulfillment center network globally.

5:50And bear in mind that had taken us almost 25 years to build. So it was this crazy level of growth. And I think we had about 30 ,000 people at the start of 2020. And that's grown pretty quickly as well as we expanded out the network. But we are continuing to hire and the roles we're hiring into tend to be now more skilled. The starting salaries have gone up quite a lot, partly national minimum wage mix increases and so on as well. So what are you looking for when you're hiring now? Yeah, well, I would say all businesses have faced increasing costs because of the minimum wage, because of the national insurance contributions.

6:28And we've chosen to also invest in salaries ourselves. So we now pay almost£30 ,000 outside of London,£32 ,000 within London. and look the things we're looking for haven't really changed we're looking for people who are going to come in who are going to work well as part of a team we're looking for people who are good at communicating you know that listen well that can communicate well and who can problem solve they're sort of universal truths that i think most employers are looking for we can't always find people who do that that's something i've talked about in the past that i'm not sure that the system is necessarily creating young people who've got those skills but I do think that having work experience is the most transformative thing that I've seen that gets you those you know towards those sorts of things.

7:18But like how do we get more of those people because you're right every employer wants those I don't think anyone sort of disagree with them so how do we get more people with those skills? Well I think that there's a couple of things I think number one is I think increasing the amount of work experience because that's the thing when you bring a young person into the world of work their default might be kind of head down looking at a phone you know their idea of being part of a community is something on social media and when they realize actually it's phones away you've got to engage with Jimmy here you know you're now part of the team we need you to show up a bit differently than you might be used to doing so that's sort of number one.

7:57I also think that when you realise how you communicate, how you listen, that has to change. And any type of work experience, even coming in for a day when you're 14 years old, just gives you a little bit more of a sense of what work might be about. If you're a T-level and you come in for nine weeks, we see this remarkable transformation. I talked about it this morning though, one of my favourite programmes, Supported Internships, where we bring in young people with learning disabilities and autism. On day one, you know, these are people with educational health and care plans. Like 95 % of them are unemployed.

8:33A lot of people have written them off. And they come in on day one, they're looking at the floor. If they're in a meeting, they might be interrupting all the time. Nine months later, really structured programme. Nine months later, they're giving presentations like the transformation is amazing. One of the things that really struck me in your speech this morning was you saying about how it was genuinely moving was how parents can feel more relaxed about dying because they know their kids will be safe. That sounds almost very strange to kind of speak those words out loud, but it clearly meant a huge amount to mention that.

9:13Talk us through those stories. Well look, the reason we do the programme isn't because of that. We do that programme supporting internships because of the business benefits and you've got great employees, it makes our managers better because our managers now realise their job isn't about managing this metric or that metric, they now have an opportunity to improve a young person's life outcomes, they become much better managers. And then lastly the culture becomes more empathetic more supportive. But what is amazing about that program is that these young people before they start work they come and do a tour with their family and it might be a mum, it might be a dad, it might be a grandparent or a carer and they'll walk around and there's a lot of anxiety amongst the parents or the grandparents, what's it really going to be like?

10:00And they know, these people know that 95 % of young people with those sorts of learning disabilities or autism they're not likely to get a job. And so, you know, when you meet with these, particularly with the parents, and they tell you, I could not be more proud about what's happened to my son or my daughter, I never thought they could do that. And they genuinely will say, I now no longer worry about dying. Because it is so emotional, so much of their life is invested in, you know, what's going to happen to their son or daughter when they pass on because they need so much support and yet they come here they're part of a team they're valued they build independence i said this morning it is a life-changing program and the fact that we've with heart we've supported about 300 people for it so far we're going to be adding more than a thousand more supported interns over the next four years since we've chatted a number of times and put episodes out i often get LinkedIn messages being like, I'm about to go for an interview with John.

11:05Have you got any sort of tips, insight or whatever? And I just thought, well, this time, actually, why don't I just ask him himself about what do you look for when you're hiring for kind of like senior execs, I suppose, at the other end of the scale? Well, look, it will depend on what that particular role is. But there's a few things in general that I look for. I think, particularly if they're going to be a people manager, I want someone who has got a really good track record of not only hiring great talent or taking a team and making sure that team gets upgraded. I also want someone who's going to invest in that talent, who's going to develop it.

11:40And what I want to hear is about, give me an example of a time when you have. There are different ways you can interview people. You can ask them hypothetical questions. Here's a problem. How would you solve it? Don't ask those type of questions. We ask questions which start, can you give me an example of a time when? So people is one of them. But what I also think is, I love to ask people, what is the thing you're most proud of? And that often, their answer that someone will give you to that question often tells you a lot about the type of, you know, things that motivate a person. It might be a really good business outcome.

12:16It might be something they've done from a team perspective. But what you always want to do is to dig in a little bit further and a question I often ask someone is if you had your chance if you had the chance again your time again what would you do differently and if someone turns around and says actually nothing I was perfect then that's a signal to you you want someone who's always reflecting on what is it they've done what they proud about what would they do differently because I think this idea of always reflecting on what you've done reflecting on how you can make things better. I always look for people who are doing that.

12:55Yeah, no, no, that's great. And I think it goes to that point about, right at the beginning, about being willing to learn as well. Right? Like, you know, you've talked about how half the jobs, more than half the jobs are changing here at Amazon, right? Like people have got to be willing to kind of that lifelong learning point. Yeah, that is a huge point. Somebody who thinks they're done learning is probably not going do very well at Amazon. Exactly. John, thanks so much. You've been brilliant as always. Thanks, Jimmy. Great to see you.