- There is no Level2 position. L1 is associate and L3 is Supervisor. Every shift has a lot of L1 that show more potential than the rest but sadly you can not reward that with a better pay. You can give them Ambasador/Instructor role and make their life easier and make them feel respected and rewarded with knowledge. The shifts mostly have the following structure: Shift manager L4, 2 or 3 Operations Supervisors L3 and then between 30 and 100 L1 Associates. That means that some associates never get a chance due to no availability and you lose them to other jobs, but it is what it is, you train them, you form them and sometimes you lose them but I am always happy that with what they learnt they can find better jobs.
- Sadly some associates are too shy or the language barrier is a big problem and they leave the station feeling like they never had a chance for more.
- The gap in stocks between L3 and L4.
- Like any work place, not every leader will be a good people leader. As a L3 yourself you can circumvent that and do your job with pride nonetheless but if you are an associate and you have the bad luck of being in a shift that does not have good leaders (for various reasons) then it can be hard as you can not really do much about it. In our station we are lucky that management cares about associate feedback and we always try to improve the safety and needs of associates but I know that not every station is as good as ours. But then again, all workplaces suffer from the same issue when you are part of a collective. Things improve in time if people care.
- Sometimes it feels like you are kept in the dark and that certain things do not get passed to you and that can affect your decission making as you can go against management vision without even knowing it, but there are plenty of opportunities to speak up in meetings or ask questions in 1 on 1 type meetings with management.
- Sometimes it can appear that it is hard to speak L3 to L3 as everybody wants to get promoted and competion starts; but then again, if you got the people skills you can bridge the gap and ensure that your advices do not fall on deaf ears.
- Would love to be able to convert more temporary associates to direct amazon contracts but there is a fixed percentage. The good thing is that it goes up every year and you can reward your crew.
- Lack of annual reviews where your salary increases based on your performance. All Supervisors have the same salary and the increase is a flat percentage to all of them. This only sucks if you are stuck in the same position for a lot of time. But then again, each good L3 sooner rather than later, gets the chance to promote.
- Sometimes it can seem that you get more tasks and responsabilities than your peers, but have faith, you learn, adapt and overcome and rewards will follow.
- Some L3s stress over small things, escalte them and start a blame game between shifts with chains of e-mails but those kind of fires most of the time get stopped by a L4/L5.
