Amazon, an online retail giant, launched its pilot program wherein full-time employees will only have to work 30 hours per week without any cuts in their pay. The employees will continue to receive the same salary and benefits as their 40-hour coworkers and are expected to have the same level of performance.
Amazon is banking that this program will help increase the employees’ productivity and creativity. In a statement, Amazon said that they want to build a work setting that is tailored to reduce time yet still fosters career growth and success. This initiative was created with the company’s diverse workforce in mind and its understanding that the customary 40-hour schedule may not a one-size-fits-all model.
The Post’s Karen Turner reported that the president of Families and Work Institute, Ellen Galinsky, said that “for a very long time, there has been a stigma against reduced hours work or working part time. Even the name by itself, part time or reduced, sounds like a deviation from the standard. It is like you are doing less.”
This initiative was initially announced at the “Reinventing the Work Life Ratio for Tech Talent” seminar. It is a clear reference to the devastating expose made by the The New York Times about the company’s work culture.