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Presumably they've identified that under performance is spread uniformly amongst managers with a large enough number of indirect reports. Presumably the target URA is arrived at via other independent measurements. Presumably they control for negative feedback loops like hiring people just to preserve your team by stratifying the URA target, or subjecting new hires to other measures too. Etc.

Its cut-throat no doubt, but if its also well rewarded, why shouldn't there be a place for this kind of practice?

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> why shouldn't there be a place for this kind of practice

Here's an article that explains why - https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/amazons-controversial-hire-to...

Where does it explain it? There's a lot of words in this op-ed with almost zero actual substance. It's a pure play on emotions, without even the effort to talk to past or present employees potentially affected. Just more lazy "journalism".

Taking the article at face value (a risky move when journalists get warmed up against business) - Amazon is effectively lying - they are claiming that they have work for someone to do and that they think the person can do it.

In reality - the hiring manager doesn't have work for the person and doesn't care about their qualifications. So Amazon is misrepresenting the situation to their hires. People make big life decisions based on their employment - doing that is very unethical and disruptive.

If you want the conversation to be about legality then that is one thing. It seems like a practice that should be legal to me. But it is objectionable.

The OP article, the referenced Insider article, and most of the comments here are all pure speculation... based on a single memo. The Insider quotes are laughable, themselves speculative "it could happen" comments rather than "it did happen" examples. "Some say that leads to stack ranking" isn't actual valid criticism or journalism, it's a comment on a possibility.

It fuels the anti-Amazon rhetoric and so everyone just runs with it, assuming every worst case scenario is true and extrapolating every rumor to the extreme to validate their disdain for the company. It's exhausting.

Strangely the vaunted leadership principles of Amazon dont include one for ethics

That’s a lot of presumptions. It may be as simple as noticing that teams with a higher attrition rate are more productive on average and faithfully treating that observation as a causal link.

It may be successful in the short run, but that doesn’t make it a good long term strategy. It may be a good long term strategy but that doesn’t make it ethical.

To the thought police: notice how I engaged the parent in a thoughtful argument instead of moronically hitting the downvote button.

I tried to make my assumptions clear. I suppose I'm saying that Amazon's massive success should give us reason to think about its HR processes in a constructive light. I feel that many posts in this thread take the view that Amazon management is stupid and/or short-sighted. That stack ranking is somehow flawed at conception and will doubtless fail. It builds a strawman out of one of the worlds biggest employers which is a bit silly.

I guess this is a political issue for many. If you view this discussion through the prism of fundamental rights, fairness and so on then its bound to cause a down-voting orgy. If ever HN was a place one could discuss alternatives with political implications, it no longer seems to be.

>> I suppose I'm saying that Amazon's massive success should give us reason to think about its HR processes in a constructive light.

Business success does not justify employee exploitation.

Amazon can afford to make mistakes because it’s cash cow has already been bred, so I wouldn’t presume that their macro success is evidence that their micro strategies are also successful. It’s more likely that the micro failures can become invisible.

But playing the devil’s advocate, one could make the case that having a quick fire culture keeps employees on their toes and maybe keeps wages suppressed. Maybe that’s worth the cost of hiring poor performers?

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