Amazon’s Deals and Injuries, SHRM Drops Equity and a More Sustainable Olympics: What I’m Reading This Week

This week, I’m slowly starting to fill up my cup.

After running on too much caffeine and too little food lately, I had daily reminders to remind myself to eat breakfast and lunch. Turns out, it’s a lot easier to write and in general function on a full stomach.

I’ve also been reminded this month of what blessings friendships are. I’m making more of an effort to reach out to so many people I’m lucky to have in my life. It’s surprising how a brunch and even a few texts can raise the spirits.

I’m scheduling time for fun and relaxing this weekend. I hope you’re doing the same.

Until next time, stay safe and be well!

Amazon’s Deals and Injuries

Amazon’s Prime Day sale is two days chock full of discounts for consumers and billions in sales for the company—and serious injuries for employees.

On the eve of Prime Day, a group of former and current Amazon workers paid a visit to the company’s New York office to request a meeting with the vice president of Amazon’s Global Workplace Health and Safety.

Luke Cianciotto, an Amazon delivery driver in the northern Chicago area, told Vox that the company hires new drivers leading up to the sale, then makes veteran drivers train them.

“What ends up happening is you put these drivers on the road, setting them up for failure,” Cianciotto said to Vox. “They do a bad job. And they don’t deserve that.”

Amazon employees say that it’s common for the company to schedule mandatory extra time in addition to an already demanding schedule—and the summer heat just adds to it.

The company already has higher than average injury rates and aggressively monitored employee performance metrics. The Washington Post published an update from Sen. Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is in investigating Amazon’s labor practices. According to an interim report, nearly 45 out of 100 employees were injured during the week of Prime Day in 2019; injuries also peaked during other holiday sales.

A More Sustainable Olympics

There are plenty of news coming out in the lead up to the Summer Olympics. But there’s one aspect that has intrigued me: the sustainability aspect.

I’ve read a few stories about how Paris is trying to lessen the environmental impact of the games. One way they’re doing that is through the Olympic Village, the temporary home for athletes. Which, fittingly (or perhaps ironically) was first conceived when Paris last hosted the Summer Olympics 100 years ago.

Once the Paralympics wrap up in September, the village will be converted into office space for 6,000 workers and apartments for 6,000 workers.

“This village was thought up as a neighborhood, a neighborhood that is going to have a life,” said Georgina Grenon, the Paris 2024 director of sustainability to CNN. “Paris 2024 is renting it for a few months.”

Paris is experiencing its own housing crisis, and the site for the Olympic Village was chosen in the hopes it would revitalize that part of town. And, in keeping with the sustainable mindset, the organizers retrofitted some buildings for the Olympic Village. Any new building was done with wood and recycled materials, which Grenon estimates reduced the project’s carbon footprint by 30% per square meter.

Only time will tell how the housing experiment will go, but one thing is for sure: sustainability will be front and center at Paris 2024. Indeed, organizers say the games will run on 100% renewable energy. Go Team USA and go Mother Earth!

Read one story about the Olympic Village here.

SHRM Drops Equity

The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, continues, this time from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

A few years ago, SHRM stopped using the DEI acronym and instead used inclusion, equity and diversity (IE&D).

SHRM made the announcement on a LinkedIn post: Effective immediately, SHRM will be adopting the acronym ‘I&D’ instead of ‘IE&D.’ This strategic decision underscores our commitment to leading with Inclusion as the catalyst for holistic change in workplaces and society.

The post went on to say that “While we shift to I&D, our commitment to advancing Equity remains steadfast. Equity will be integrated under the broader Inclusion framework, continuing to be a priority in our strategy and leadership decisions.

As you may imagine, many have been vocal about SHRM’s decision, both positive and negative. But perhaps the best summary comes from Emily Peck at Axios: “Four years after the business world went all in on DEI, It’s having second thoughts.”