Jeff Bezos started a programme that offered Amazon employees over Rs 4 lakh to quit

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said, 'Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit.'

Jeff Bezos is known for his unorthodox leadership strategies and in 2014 he introduced a unique programme at Amazon designed to retain loyal employees who wanted to build their careers at the tech giant. The billionaire offered employees up to $5,000 (about Rs 4.1 lakh) to quit the company. The 'Pay to Quit' offer was made to ensure that they maintained a workforce that was dedicated and enthusiastic.

"Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit," Bezos wrote in his letter to shareholders. "The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is 'Please Don’t Take This Offer.' We hope they don’t take the offer; we want them to stay."

But, explaining why he chose to offer the temptation, the Amazon founder said, "The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company."

The idea was originally introduced by Zappos, an online retailer based in Los Angeles, before it was adopted by Jeff Bezos. The "offer" was usually made once a year after peak seasons like the Christmas holidays also as a way to rein in its workforce for the slowdown that follows.

Behavioural economist Uri Gneezy found the strategy to be "remarkably effective." "In many organizations, dissatisfied employees have no reason to disclose their true sentiments, but you can incentivize them to do so by offering them money to resign, making it costly for them to be dishonest," he wrote in the Harvard Business Review. 

"One outcome of this strategy is that those who stay are more motivated, of course. But an additional benefit is that those who stay feel the need to justify that decision to themselves -- which they typically do by working harder toward longer-term objectives," he said, adding that if they turn the offer down, they in turn invest it in their future with the company. "This boosts their productivity and commitment."

Last year, however, due to labour shortages amid global e-commerce surge prompted by the Covid pandemic, the tech giant suspended the programme and now offers it only to graduates of its Career Choice upskilling programme. Speaking to The Information, Amazon representative Karen Riley Sawyer said the 'Pay to Quit' offer is available "to graduates of Career Choice to support their transition to a new career should they choose to leverage their new certifications."

Read more: Amazon employee quits refusing to return to office, loses stocks worth Rs 1.7 crore