Amazon’s Pivot Process and its Impact on Collecting Unemployment Benefits
While you would be hard pressed to find someone in Seattle who is unfamiliar with Amazon, few are aware of Amazon’s Pivot Program and how it may prevent workers from collecting unemployment benefits. When an Amazon employee is not meeting the expectations of their role, they may be placed on Amazon’s Pivot Program. The Pivot Program provides employees with three options:
Improve Performance
Voluntarily leave Amazon with severance
Appeal their manager’s decision to place them in Pivot.
The specific details of the Pivot may differ per employee; but, in general, if an employee chooses options 1 or 3, employees are not entitled to severance. Therefore, if an employee is unable to improve their performance or they lose the appeal, they risk losing the opportunity to receive severance. However, if an employee chooses the second option and voluntarily leaves Amazon, then they are entitled to severance immediately. The Pivot plan seemingly incentivizes employees to leave immediately rather than continue working and trying to improve their performance.
It may be tempting to take severance and resign and start fresh at another job; however, Amazon employees should be aware that if they voluntarily resign, it is unlikely, they will qualify for unemployment benefits, which have the potential to be more valuable than severance depending on the circumstances. Washington’s Employment Security Act was enacted to provide compensation to those who become involuntarily unemployed through no fault of their own. RCW 50.01.010. Under most circumstances, an employee quitting a job disqualifies them from receiving unemployment benefits and the law is meant to provide benefits to employees who have either been laid off or fired. There are exceptions; however, eligibility to collect unemployment benefits if an employee quits their job will often be barred unless an exception applies.
Of course, there are often factors that may impact the above and the specific details of the Pivot may vary, but employees should be aware of how the choices they make with respect to Pivot impact their eligibility to collect benefits.