Pros
The job in a delivery station is fairly easy. We do not send rockets to the moon, we just send packages. - Chances for promotion. I started as a temporary associate part-time with a one month contract. I was not the only one promoted from the inside. - If you got computer skills (basic excel) and if you got a vision and act as a leader despite your level or contract, you will get noticed and given more responsabilities and chances. - If you are a born leader you will built for yourself a nice shift and you will find the means and power to make the associates enjoy their work and time on shift. - It is up to you to find your own path, and there is always a path if you got a vision and the ambition and balls to back it up. - You can decide a lot of things for your shift and associates. - Background does not matter as long as you prove yourself on the job. - Making a difference in associates lives really makes you feel good as long as you are in it for the people and not the money. - You learn a lot and get learnt a lot if you know what you want to learn and ask for it. - During peak (November - December) L1 associates can receive a 2 months contract as Temporary Operations Supervisors. This means they get paid better, benefit from the experience and stand a better chance for a future step-up promotion. If nothing else they can enjoy the money and the experience (looks good on CV). - You get to decide along with your Shift Manager who deserves a direct amazon working contract. - Don't hold it against me but having most of the associates hired through Job Agencies makes life easier as some associates really have no desire to work no matter how hard you try to motivate them. This means that it is easy to fire people that bring down others. I know, it sounds cruel but on the long term goals it's perfect. This means you can keep all the good, motivated, eager to learn and friendly associates and make a true team and build up team spirit. Associates are very sensible because they do a hard job (depending on shift) and nobody wants to work more than someone else for the same money. This way they say that you do your best to have everybody sharing the same work load/volume. - Stress only occurs if you are incapable of structuring your shift and your tasks, if you are used to always receive commands then you should not be in command and leading people. You figure out the best approach. - If you are lucky and good at being a leader, you can have a blast at work and have fun without concerning about metrics and targets since they will be met if you trained your work force correctly. - Once the core tasks are finished you have a lot of time to train your associates and engage with them and develop talent and find talented individuals. Its up to you. - Most of your associates (as it is in my shift) know each other outside of work, as most of them either study together or came together to Germany. If you treat them well, they will bring their friends and that creates an even more team culture as people will help each other without you ordering them to do so. - A good place to improve your leadership skills and to learn how to communicate to people. - In Germany associates work 7 hours with 30 minutes break. 5 days a week. As Supervisor if your shift is not understaffed, you work 5 days a week, in a good team you can decide your own free day and each one of us gets a Saturday off every two weeks. - Work life balance is good. On my shift we did the whole Peak with only me and a L4 and 70 L1. One of the best Peaks in the network. None of us worked 6 days a week. - All in all, a good place to work. The salary is good based on your actual work volume and number of hours. Prime and Peak periods are easy to deal with if you are confident in you and your team. Things in a delivery station are constant for months, things do change but it easy to adapt to the changes and you will not face them alone. Come join us.
Cons
- 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.