Amazon Learns The Downside To Empowering Employees
Written by Evan SchumanApril 14th, 2009
This seems to be the week for large retailers to appreciate—and fear—the power of the employee and to know when to limit it. Domino's Pizza learned that lesson when two employees decided to do a little Web video and social networking on their own and Amazon learned it when a slice of its public database was rewritten courtesy of a one-keystroke error from one employee in France.
How was it that one employee was able to make that change and have it populate globally? No supervisor had to approve? No software to check for a radical shift of titles? Not even a pair of employees checking each other's work?
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3 Comments | Read Amazon Learns The Downside To Empowering Employees
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-Christine
April 16th, 2009 at 6:24 am
The more things change, the more they remain the same. I am reminded of the adage: “for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost” (For those that have not heard that expression, it dates back to the day when communications depended on horse and rider, and horses depended on shoes,which needed nails)
April 17th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I think in both cases, although not the same, that these displays of lunacy or error are getting blown out of proportion. In fact, I think because of today’s technology and internet-crazed world, stories like this can get disclosed quickly and virally, so that companies like Dominos can deal with it immediately. Only because of youtube could this have been so widely viewed and dealt with. Dominos did what they had to do – fire the boneheads!! Dominos did make a youtube apology, but personally I don’t even think that was really necessary. In my mind this unique case is not a reflection of the company, but simply a couple of yahoos making a stupid video and probably not even smart enough to realize it was going to cost them their jobs. Dominos fired them, done! Move on.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:37 am
The idea that there would be a ‘supervisor approval’ or ‘second employee to check the other’s work’ is in complete violation of the LEAN business philosophies. Companies are downsizing — there are no extra employees anymore to check each other’s work. Those days are long gone. As for incorporating new software rules, this is more likely — but how many of these scenarios are still waiting to be defined and written (by the fewer emplyees)? For now we only can expect, “Are you sure you want to change 50,000 records?” > Yes / No