In his most recent letter to his shareholders Jeff Bezos outlined a number of bold and innovative measures that Amazon is taking to continue to drive their customer centric business model. In the letter there was also mentioned an initiative called Pay To Quit.
The Pay To Quit program offers all of their fulfillment center employees one-time payments to leave the company. Each employee gets an offer once a year starting from $2,000 (Year One) and increasing by $1,000 each year to a maximum payout of $5,000.
This program was originated at Zappos - who Amazon acquired in 2009.
This program is gathering a lot of attention in the Human Resources community. Bill Taylor has a great blog - see link below - that summarizes what the major impact is for a program like this. Each year the employee base essentially provides a performance review on the company. By choosing not to take the payout (which is a meaningful amount for someone earning fulfillment wages) the employees are stating that they want to stay engaged and that they agree with where the direction of the company.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/why-amazon-is-copying-zappos-and-paying-employees-to-quit
Is this a trend that will grow in the workplace? I believe that it will. The program will allow organizations to better plan for their voluntary turnover and they will also get an annual report card on employee engagement.
