Retaining the leaders who hold our teams together

A pilot recommendation to reduce manager turnover at Amazon fulfillment centers

Situation: Managers & Leads drive every team beneath them, yet receive little structured support.

Complication: This segment shows a 40% negative sentiment rate — nearly 8x the company average.

Root cause: Perceived favoritism in promotions and weak top-down communication erode trust.

Recommendation: Pilot a low-cost, team-led promotion rubric at one location for one quarter.

Manager sentiment is the most severe pain point in our workforce data

40%

of Managers & Leads reviews score negative sentiment

vs. ~6% company-wide average

60% of this segment's feedback centers on management and growth concerns

“

Management always promote their friends, never appreciate hardworking candidates.

— Glassdoor review, Fulfillment Center manager

Why this matters:

• Managers directly shape the experience of every associate on their team.
• A small, high-leverage group carrying this much distrust is easy to miss in company-wide averages.
• Unresolved friction here compounds into burnout, turnover, and destabilized teams beneath them.

Managers & Leads: small in number, outsized in impact

Full-Time Associates

81 reviews

5% negative

Largest segment, lower severity

Pickers & Packers

18 reviews

11% negative

Operationally essential

Managers & Leads

5 reviews

40% negative

Smallest, most severe

Why this segment, not a larger one:

• Highest severity of any segment — 8x the overall negative sentiment rate.
• High strategic leverage: managers influence retention and morale for every team they lead.
• A concentrated, well-understood friction point makes this segment realistic to pilot quickly.

A transparent promotion rubric can directly counter the favoritism perception

Process (primary)

A standardized promotion review checked against written criteria.

Technology (supports)

A short, shared rubric document — no new software required.

People (supports)

Current managers help draft the criteria themselves.

Why this intervention:

Low-cost: Uses existing documentation practices; no new tools or budget.

High-impact: Targets the exact friction point driving the segment's distrust.

Team-led: Managers help shape the rubric, not HR alone.

Measurable: Tracked via pulse survey and sentiment rate against a known baseline.

A one-quarter pilot will validate impact before wider rollout

Owner

HR business partner, working with 2–3 current managers

Where & when

One fulfillment center location, for one full promotion cycle (~1 quarter)

Success metric

Pulse survey on promotion clarity + Managers & Leads negative sentiment rate, tracked against the 40% baseline

If successful, expand the rubric to additional fulfillment centers in the following quarter.