RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – So would you want to apply for a job at Amazon if the company builds a campus in the Triangle?
Employee satisfaction at Amazon is soaring as the company continues its search for the site where a second headquarters will be built and 50,000 jobs added, according to a new survey.
Kununu, which focuses on workplace data and touts itself as “the place to find company reviews from those who know best: employees and applicants,” says Amazon’s satisfaction score has risen more than 27 percent over the last year to 3.87 out of a possible 5. The update reflects attitudes over the past three quarters.
Amazon is considering the Triangle as one of 20 possible sites for the HQ2 project.
The report, which was released Wednesday, assigns Amazon a rating similar to those from other review sites.
Tracking Amazon employee satisfaction. Kununu graphic
Glassdoor’s score for Amazon is 3.8.
Indeed scores Amazon at 3.7.
Overall, companies studied by Kununu received a 3.54 score. [Apple, which is considering building a campus in RTP, and Raleigh-based Red Hat each received 4.0 scores at current Kununu rankings.]
Kununu says the score reflects Amazon’s efforts to improve its workplace.
“Amazon has long had a reputation of being a difficult place to work with a ‘bruising’ and ‘relentless’ company culture. But if you take a close look at more recent employee feedback, it seems that Amazon has changed. According to the company’s reviews on our platform, Amazon has taken responsibility and fixed a number of internal problems,” says Johannes Prüller, director of global communications at Kununu.
A cumulative rating over the last 12 months for Amazon is 3.59.
Yet Amazon takes criticism at times in the press for workplace conditions, such as:
- Amazon warehouse workers, fearful of wasting time, relieved themselves in bottles: undercover investigator
- Amazon workers reveal brutal conditions in pre-Christmas rush
Kununu studies 18 different measures in the workplace – what it calls “dimensions” – such as gender equality, career development, company culture, diversity and social awareness. Amazon improved in 13 of those.
The ratings were based on responses from 1,045 employees over the past two years.
“Amazon has the goal to be the Earth’s most customer-centric company,” Pruller says. “What some describe as a fast-paced environment, is the very way CEO Jeff Bezos and other company leaders focus on defining clear goals and helping their managers meet them. The thing that stands out at Amazon is that their obsession with customer satisfaction can be seen across all company levels.”
