Bezos Releases Annual Shareholder Letter. What Changed the Nature of This Must-read Letter for the Business World?

The epidemic situation in the United States is still not optimistic. As a technology giant, Amazon's actions will always cause some trouble. Recently, Bezos released his annual shareholder letter, which emphasized Amazon's employee protection measures. However, Amazon has also caused a lot of controversy recently due to its poor protection.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently released his annual shareholder letter.

Bezos has personally written a shareholder letter every year since 1997. The letter will provide a relatively detailed summary and review of the past year, talk about his thoughts on the business, and also put forward expectations and predictions for the company's situation in the new year.

Unlike other companies' annual report summaries that are like formalities, Bezos' annual shareholder letter is sincere and solid in content, and has always been listed as a must-read by major business schools around the world.

As of April 2020, Bezos has published 23 shareholder letters. A few years ago, it was merged and published by a publishing house and became a best-selling high-quality business reference book.

Shareholder letter is issued every year, but this year it is a little watery

In this special year of 2020, this shareholder letter is bound to be very different.

In previous shareholder letters, reflections and reviews on business generally took up the longest space. However, this year's letter is almost entirely about personnel arrangements related to the epidemic, which is more like a display of Amazon's employer culture and its contribution to the epidemic.

Key points: 1. Our branches are excellent in epidemic prevention

Protective measures against the epidemic are a key theme in the letter.

As travel was restricted during the epidemic, Amazon's online orders surged, so they prioritized the stockpiling and delivery of household necessities, medical supplies, and other key products, and closed transactions for some non-essential items.

In order to make the entire logistics process run smoothly, Amazon claims that it has provided comprehensive protection for its employees, and has consulted with medical experts and health authorities to carry out more than 150 major process reforms.

Specifically, they are implementing standardized disinfection measures, including distributing masks at various outlets, implementing temperature checks, regularly disinfecting door handles, stair railings, lockers, elevator buttons and touch screens, and providing disinfection products such as disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizers.

Bezos also said in the letter that in the face of the current epidemic crisis, if the economy is to get back on track as soon as possible, it is necessary to test the new coronavirus on a global scale. The next step is to conduct regular new coronavirus tests on all employees.

Key points: 2. We are the best at using technology to fight the epidemic

In addition to reporting on service levels and employee protection, using technology to fight the epidemic was also a prominent topic. In Bezos' letter, he emphasized that Amazon has made a lot of efforts in proactively fighting the epidemic.

To combat counterfeiting and price fraud brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has blocked more than 500,000 improper transactions in its stores and suspended more than 6,000 sales accounts worldwide that violated its fair pricing policies.

In addition, they also share information with 42 state attorney general offices to strengthen protection of the stability and security of the trading market from an information security perspective.

Platforms such as AWS, which are being built with emphasis, are helping organizations such as the World Health Organization to create intelligent solutions to track the virus, understand the epidemic, and better curb its spread, including the establishment of a data resource library, the development of an assisted diagnosis platform, the development of intelligent agent robots, and so on.

Key points: 3. Our humanistic care for employees is top-notch

In addition, in the shareholder letter, Bezos also emphasized that as the largest technology company, it takes good care of its employees and provides better employment opportunities and treatment.

As of December 31 last year, Amazon had 798,000 full-time and part-time employees. Despite the economic downturn during the epidemic, Amazon hired 100,000 new employees last month and announced an increase of 75,000 jobs in early April.

Bezos also mentioned in the letter that he would provide certain salary increases to employees for their work during the epidemic, such as doubling overtime pay.

Compared to Amazon, Facebook is much more generous. As early as March, it offered subsidies to all employees. In addition, contract workers such as cafeteria workers and security guards will not be suspended from work. All employees will receive a special allowance of $1,000 to help them transform their home office environment. (For details, see "Zuckerberg Throws Money: Each Employee Will Receive $1,000 Pandemic Allowance")

It sounds good, but why are employees still protesting?

Although employee benefits occupy a large part of the shareholder letter, in reality, Amazon has seen a number of employee protests recently.

For example, Amazon’s largest warehouse in New York, JKF8, has maintained high-load operation during the epidemic.

After an employee at the JKF8 warehouse was confirmed to have been infected with the new coronavirus in March, Amazon did not take clear measures to stop work, which made many employees feel anxious and disheartened.

About 100 employees of the warehouse planned to strike, demanding that the warehouse with confirmed cases be closed for two weeks and fully disinfected. However, the proposal was not adopted, and even the two organizers who led the strike were dismissed for other reasons.

In addition, employees in other warehouses also pointed out multiple loopholes in protection, such as employees washing their hands during work but being punished for leaving their posts. Others pointed out that employees could not maintain an effective distance from each other, etc.

But this did not lead to any improvements from Amazon, and instead resulted in being banned or fired.

On March 31, an employee of the warehouse was confirmed to have died of COVID-19. So far, there have been confirmed cases in 55 Amazon branches across the United States.

Amazon: How can we stay true to our original aspiration?

Bezos concluded his shareholder letter by writing:

Even in the current situation,
Let’s keep the mindset of Day 1.

Just like previous shareholder letters, a copy of the 1997 shareholder letter was attached to add a sense of ceremony.

Keeping the original intention is the concept that Amazon or Bezos has always advocated, and the importance of employees has been mentioned since the first letter to shareholders.

This letter seems to cover all aspects, but when faced with many problems that still exist, words are not the solution, actions are.

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