Amazon employees are entitled to a number of benefits, such as parental leave, medical coverage, personal time off, vacation time, and a variety of other staff benefits.
However, potential staff members may wonder what Amazon’s UPT policy is and how it works. If you’re wondering the same thing, keep reading this article to see what information I gathered on this topic!
Amazon UPT Policy In 2022
Amazon disperses 20 hours of UPT (unpaid personal time) on the first day of every quarter to their employees as of 2022. Additionally, staff members can take UPT at any time during the year. However, if an employee falls below 0 hours of UPT banked, they may face dismissal from their supervisor or manager.
If you’d like to learn more about how UPT works at Amazon, what the difference is between UPT and PTO, and more, keep reading through this article for more facts, tips, and information!
How Does UPT Work at Amazon?
Amazon disperses 20 hours of UPT for each tier-one employee at Amazon at the start of every quarter, adding up to 80 total hours of unpaid personal time per year.
Staff members at Amazon are allowed to take UPT at any time during the year, including peak sale seasons such as the holidays.
However, staff members can only bank 80 hours of UPT. If a staff member attempts to bank more than 80 hours of UPT, they will usually be terminated from their position.
Additionally, Amazon employees have to pay VCP (Variable Compensation Pay) to Amazon everytime they use unpaid personal time.
Therefore, staff members who abuse their UPT will not only miss paid work hours, but the time will also be extracted from their wage.
How Often is UPT Given at Amazon?
Amazon disperses UPT to their employees four times per year, at the beginning of every quarter. Employees have the option to use their UPT as it’s given, or they can save it up and use the time at the end of the year.
Amazon gives 80 hours of UPT to tier-one employees, though the amount of UPT dispersed may increase as Amazon employees move up in their position in the company.
Can I Use UPT Anytime at Amazon?
According to Amazon’s UPT policy, staff members are allowed to use UPT at any time during the year. However, some individual supervisors may be wary to grant UPT to their staff members who wish to take it all at the same time.
Therefore, staff members are urged to disperse their UPT through the year with their PTO (paid time off), as some Amazon supervisors may not be as lenient about taking UPT for a long period of time.
Nevertheless, staff members at Amazon can use their UPT at any point, including peak sale times for the company, such as the holiday season or Prime Day.
Can You Get in Trouble for Using UPT at Amazon?
While staff members cannot get in trouble for using their allotted UPT hours, they can be written up for going over their UPT amount, which is recorded in Amazon’s clock out system.
Amazon may go so far as to fire staff members who bank more UPT hours than they are given each year, though some supervisors may choose to let their staff members off with a warning.
Nevertheless, Amazon employees should be wary of taking more time off than they are allotted, in order to avoid being written up by their manager or facing unemployment.
Do Sick Days Fall Under UPT at Amazon?
UPT and sick days are separate entities for Amazon employees. Amazon staff are entitled to 80 hours of UPT, as well as 80 hours for sick days per year.
Some Amazon employees may use their UPT in addition to their sick days if they are ill for a long period of time. However, in order to use sick days, employees are required to call-in to work 24 hours in advance.
Additionally, Amazon staff are not recommended to use sick days like their allotted UPT, even if they’ve banked more sick days, as using such time requires more advanced notice.
What’s the Difference Between UPT and PTO at Amazon?
Amazon staff members are granted both UPT (unpaid time off) and PTO (paid time off). The major difference between these two benefits is that UPT is not compensated time off, whereas staff members will still receive payment for their regular shifts when taking PTO.
As well, Amazon grants their staff members 80 hours of UPT per year, while they only grant 40 hours for PTO. Therefore, employees are entitled to more unpaid time off than they are paid time off.
However, unlike PTO, staff members do have to pay a small amount from VCP when taking unpaid time off.
Therefore, while staff members are granted more hours for UPT, it’s more advisable for them to take PTO more often than UPT in order to prevent the time off coming out of their wage.
To find out more about Amazon’s policy, you can also see our posts on Amazon’s termination policy, Amazon vacation policy, and the Amazon bereavement policy.
Conclusion
Amazon’s UPT policy states that employees are entitled to 20 hours of UPT per quarter, totaling 80 hours of unpaid time off per year.
Employees can take UPT at any point during the year, but must not bank more than 80 hours by the end of the year. Staff members are also entitled to 40 hours of paid time off in addition to UPT, which they can take at once or spread out throughout the year.
"If an associate does run into a negative UPT balance, in each case we have a seek-to-understandconversation to recognize the associate's situation and any mitigating circumstances."Others described Amazon's ruthlessness, particularly related to seasonal workers. Amazon hired nearly130,000 temporary workers across the US and Europe last year, and multiple sources told BusinessInsider they had seen some dismissed by text when work dried up. Their accounts corroborate aGuardian op-ed article by an anonymous Amazon worker in December.In a statement about the Guardian op-ed article last year, Amazon said that firing people by text is "notcompany practice" and that it could find "no evidence this actually occurred." Amazon said it hadnothing further to add.Continuing in treacherous weatherAccording to three former employees, fulfillment centers often don't want employees missing workeven during dangerous weather conditions. Like Oates, who was asked to report for duty during a stormin Kansas, Ahmed said she was asked to work at her Minnesota warehouse in severely snowyconditions."They say they will give a day off if the weather is really bad, but they never did, actually," Ahmedsaid. "There was one day that I called in and I said that I could not see the road. For my safety, I toldthem that I am not going to come in today. So they took hours from my UPT."Norris said of his warehouse: "The building's not going to shut down. If enough employees come towork late because of weather, they'll excuse time. But Amazon doesn't stop.""The safety of our associates is our top priority and we closely monitor weather conditions to assess ifAmazon facilities should temporarily close in areas affected by freezing temperatures and other adverseconditions," a spokeswoman said.One way Amazon workers can get time off during peak is by getting sent home. If there's not enoughwork to go around, managers will sometimes offer unpaid voluntary time off, or VTO.
Amazon Warehouse Employees Speak Out6"There never seems to be a problem in getting enough people to take voluntary time off. That in itselfspeaks a lot, that people are willing to leave early and not get paid," a warehouse worker told BusinessInsider in mid-December, adding that the previous day they'd seen management give people VTO threetimes during a day shift.Amazon emphasized to Business Insider that VTO is entirely voluntary. "We offer associates voluntarytime off to provide additional flexibility and associates choose whether to take this time off, or to worktheir regular schedule," a spokeswoman said.Injuries and electrolyte popsiclesTwo Amazon warehouse workers told Business Insider that the rate of injuries goes up during peak.Five more said they thought physical exhaustion, plus the chaos of peak season, was bound to affectinjury rates. Others said they noticed no real difference between peak and the rest of the year.
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