Amazon has grown into one of the world biggest companies with a market capitalization touching $1 trillion in a matter of around two decades, and it has managed to achieve such hyper growth due to the sort of innovation it brought into a new industry. For a company to grow at such a breakneck pace, it requires a lot of innovation, and at the end of the day, all of that comes from the people who work at the company. Nowadays, it is quite common for companies to retrain their employees in order to ensure that they are well versed in the upcoming challenges in their industries and e-commerce giant Amazon has planned a massive retraining initiative for its employees.
Yesterday, the company announced that it was going to retrain as many as 100,000 of its employees in order to keep them in pace with the changes that have come up in the industry. 100,000 employees reflect around 33% of the company’s workforce in the United States. The retraining program will help employees in being able to adapt to new technology and make themselves far more skillful. The program is voluntary in nature and the company going to spend $700 million towards it until 2025.
Additionally, it is important to add that the initiative does not stipulate that the employee has to work for Amazon for a period after the program is over. The employee can upgrade his skills through the “Upskilling 2025” program and can choose to work elsewhere as well if he so wishes. Beth Galetti, who is the head of Human Resources at the e-commerce behemoth released a statement and said,
While many of our employees want to build their careers here, for others it might be a stepping stone to different aspirations. We think it’s important to invest in our employees and to help them gain new skills and create more professional options for themselves.
It is a hugely bold move by the company and one that is not only going to prove to be highly beneficial for employees in their current role but also helps in advancing their careers.
