Mental Health Is Central to a Healthy Work Environment, says Amazon's Shantanu Chakraborty

At Amazon, we recognize the importance of mental well-being in fostering a healthy work environment and employee experience. Amid the growing need for mental health support exacerbated by the pandemic and stigma surrounding mental health that prevents individuals from discussing their illness(es) even with the people they are close to, Amazon remains resolute in its commitment to the well-being of employees and their family members. We strive to create a culture where mental health can be talked about openly, invest in mental health benefits, and communicate any resources available to employees. We are steadfastly dedicated to crafting effective tools and practices to bolster the mental and emotional health of our workforce, recognising the pivotal role mental health plays within the workplace.

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In pursuit of this, we have introduced several industry-leading initiatives to support our employees and their families. Among these is Twill Therapeutics—a revolutionary AI-powered, self-guided digital platform designed for emotional health and well-being. It provides employees access to scientifically validated tools that enhance emotional health, combat stress, enhance self-confidence, and nurture their overall emotional well-being. Available around the clock, Twill is a confidential and user-friendly resource that empowers employees to take charge of their emotional health in their own time and at their own pace. In addition to Twill Therapeutics, our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) helps employees and their family members to navigate through work-life experiences, and provide them with the resources to support their mental health and well-being leveraging free, confidential mental health support for from professional counsellors available 24/7. This program ensures that employees have access to support in managing stress, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. 

 We also introduced the Pediatric Care Program, a free mental health service providing direct access to personalized and confidential care for children and teens. The service builds on our existing mental health benefits and is delivered in partnership with our EAP partner. The Pediatric Care Program is designed to help families and households of our employees navigate challenging times by offering counselling or coaching and practical support for everyday life. This specialised support addresses a wide range of behavioural health needs, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), anxiety, depression, trauma, and more, and is intended to support employees in navigating such challenges more effectively.  

Fostering a positive work environment requires collaboration between employers and employees. Organisations can enhance mental well-being by encouraging open dialogue about mental health, which reduces stigma and helps employees feel safe seeking support. Providing access to mental health resources, such as counselling services and digital platforms, equips employees with essential tools for managing stress. Prioritising work-life harmony, offering flexibility, and empowering employees with choices that contribute to their well-being. By implementing these strategies, organisations can create a workplace that values and supports the mental well-being of employees. 

Amazon is a company of builders who bring varying backgrounds, ideas, and point of views to invent on behalf of our customers. Our diverse perspectives come from our diverse employee cohorts including gender, race, age, national origin, sexual orientation, culture, education, and professional and life experience. By bringing individuals from different backgrounds into our teams, we aim to build an inclusive environment that reflects and understands the needs of our diverse customer base.

While Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are good for business, our commitment is based on something more fundamental than that - it is simply right. When employees feel valued and respected for who they are and what they bring to the table, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated to bring their most authentic self at work and perform to their best potential. With this in mind, we continue to focus on providing individuals from different backgrounds, demographics, and social strata with equal access to opportunities and resources, enabling them with a level playing field to expand their horizons. We have many programs under the umbrella of ‘Together at Amazon’ initiative to enable this. 

To address the gender gap and create a more inclusive environment for women in the workforce, it is crucial to implement a holistic strategy that ensures equal access to opportunities, career development, and tailored support. At Amazon, we are committed to increasing the representation of women at every level of the organisation, from entry-level positions to leadership. We recognise that fostering gender diversity requires targeted initiatives that provide women with opportunities to grow, develop, and thrive in their careers. 

One of our cornerstone initiatives is ‘rekindle’, which offers women who have taken a career break the chance to re-enter the workforce. ‘rekindle’ provides structured interventions, including focused mentoring, flexible work options, and on-the-job learning, to help women regain their professional momentum. In the last year alone, over 200 women have joined Amazon India through this program, contributing to a more diverse and inclusive workforce. To further assist women in managing both their personal and professional lives, we have introduced the Ramp Back program, which supports new mothers as they transition back to work by offering flexible schedules and reduced workloads. This ensures that women can balance their personal commitments while continuing to grow their careers. We also provide flexible working options to support lifecycle needs of employees. 

Amazon offers several mentoring programs for women, such as the ‘Power of 10’. In this program, once a group of 10 women graduates, they support the next cohort of 10 women, with mentee becoming mentors. This initiative mentorship and knowledge exchange among women and senior leaders supporting their professional growth of women, and creating a pipeline of future female leaders. The ‘Pinnacle’ program aims to develop women for senior roles through a blend of learning, mentorship, and hands-on experience, contributing to an internal pipeline of diverse leadership.  

Our learning programs for women include ‘Catapult’, a curated initiative launched in partnership with Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, aimed at mid-level women managers. It comprises curricular elements such as expressing leadership voice, leading with an enterprise mindset, and strengthening networks. We also provide the Women’s Leadership Program (WLP), which is designed for women in mid-management.  

Additionally, Amazon also has multiple networking platforms, such as affinity groups, allowing women employees across the company to come together and learn from one another as a community. Another noteworthy program is the ‘I am Remarkable’ sessions, designed to empower women and other represented groups to share and celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.  

These initiatives reflect Amazon’s broader commitment to building a workplace that not only embraces gender diversity but actively supports the career advancement of women across all levels. For us, it’s an on-going journey where we continue to seek inputs and find new avenues to make Amazon a more inclusive place to work.   

Closing the gender gap and creating a more inclusive environment for women in the workforce requires a multi-faceted approach. There are many challenges that over the years have contributed to the gender gap. These challenges include the underrepresentation of women in certain industries and leadership positions, as well as lack of access to mentorship, which hinders fostering a more equitable and inclusive environment. Additionally, unconscious bias - rooted in subtle and often unintentional assumptions about gender, race, or age - creates barriers to gender equity in the workplace and limits opportunities for career growth. Balancing work and caregiving responsibilities also poses a significant challenge for women, often forcing difficult choices between career and family. To advance gender equity, organizations must address these issues through education, policy changes, and cultural shifts, fostering more inclusive workplaces.  

At Amazon, we work towards building fair opportunities for everyone and have mechanisms in place ensuring we hire for the skill and capability without any bias and prejudice offering parity of opportunities for all employee cohorts. We regularly inspect our job descriptions to ensure they do not inadvertently favor one gender or employee demographic over another. Our hiring panels are diverse to ensure thorough and objective candidate assessment. We focus on conducting sensitization workshops for our leaders and all employees to guide them on an adoptive approach on inclusive interviewing practice and eliminate the usage of non-inclusive terms and behaviours, which in turn helps build a more positive and inclusive recruitment process and workplace environment. 

We encourage networking through employee-led resource groups or affinity groups such as ‘Women at Amazon’, ‘Amazon Women in Engineering’, ‘Momazonians’ and ‘Families at Amazon’ to foster connections among fellow women and seek guidance and resources from the members of the affinity groups. By connecting with peers and mentors who understand their experiences, mothers can cultivate community connections, share knowledge, gain valuable insights, encouragement, and advices to navigate challenges and overcome self-doubt.  

Amazon also enables robust childcare support for women employees through a specialized childcare benefit management partner and ensuring right spread of creche facilities across cities at a subsidized fee, whereby women employees have options supporting flexibility for them between managing work and child(ren). We also have ‘ParentEx’ program which aims to enhance the experience of employees in their parental journey by enabling affinity and peer group support, providing expert consultations on parental topics, and extending organization support during moments that matter. Our ‘Maternity Buddy’ program helps new mother’s transition back to work with resilience and empathy and gain insights, through engaging conversations with experienced colleagues. 

We also have a networking platform ‘Amazon WoW’ which provides a space for women in engineering to connect with Amazon leaders, recruiters, and the broader Amazon community. It offers opportunities to participate in skill-building sessions, access available resources, engage with alumni about their career experiences, and gain insights into the Amazon culture. Since its inception, Amazon WoW has garnered over 298,000 subscribers on its platform. Over 900 women have secured internships or full-time opportunities at Amazon, a testament to the program's effectiveness. 

The importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace cannot be overstated. There is a sea of qualified talent available, and it is crucial to tap into these diverse pools to enhance our array of skills, experiences, and perspectives. We remain dedicated to providing individuals from various backgrounds, demographics, and social strata with equitable access to opportunities and resources, empowering them to broaden their horizons. While the benefits of DEI are clear in terms of business performance, our commitment to these values is rooted in a more fundamental principle: it is simply the right thing to do. 

In recent years, Amazon India has introduced numerous initiatives aimed at fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within our workforce. For our LGBTQIA+ employees, we offer a Same Gender Partner Coverage Program, which enables employees to enroll their same-gender partners in their health insurance plans. Additionally, employees can access health insurance benefits for gender reassignment surgery and infertility treatment. We prioritize conducting sensitisation workshops for our leaders and employees to eliminate the use of non-inclusive language and behaviors, contributing to a more positive and inclusive workplace atmosphere. Furthermore, Amazon provides LGBTQIA+ employees with resources and access to counselors through our Employee Assistance Program. This program offers support, guidance, and counseling for those who wish to discuss their sexuality with family, friends, or colleagues. 

Our dedication to equality has strengthened through our Glamazon affinity group, which aims to support the LGBTQIA+ community at Amazon while providing a platform for networking, socializing, and personal development. This group serves as an essential resource for our employees and the broader LGBTQIA+ community in the regions where we operate. Additionally, we have invested in infrastructure improvements, such as ‘Everyone Washrooms,’ to ensure the comfort and well-being of employees from the community. At Amazon, we continue to look for ways to scale our impact as we grow by providing opportunities to diverse cohorts. 

Diversity, in our perspective, goes beyond gender to encompass various underrepresented cohorts. We want Amazon to be the most inclusive and accessible employer on the planet, and that means working to normalize disabilities across all its spectrums, so that people with disabilities have every opportunity to be accepted and as successful as their peers. Our focus extends to ensuring diverse employee cohorts are well-represented and supported with tailored programs for success. Embracing neurodiversity is not only a commitment to equity but also a source of competitive advantages, including enhanced productivity, innovation, cultural richness, and improved talent retention.  

In our continued effort to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, in 2023, we launched ‘Aurora’, a program designed to leverage the unique talents of individuals with learning disabilities and provide meaningful, sustained employment to them. We partnered with Sol’s Arc, a non-profit organisation that conducts vocational training for autistic and intellectual disability cohorts, in harnessing the talent of a batch of young adults in our delivery station in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad. We have over 50 associates working now at the fulfilment center, sortation center and delivery Station area.  

Our strategic focus is on expanding the inclusion of neurodiverse cohorts into a broader range of roles and business lines. Achieving this requires continuous improvement in our learning and development processes and creating accommodations or adjustments tailored to these new roles. We strive to prioritize the inclusion of neurodiverse individuals by providing ample opportunities, support, and specific training to ensure they have an equitable playing field alongside their colleagues. We focus on increasing awareness, development support, and education for managers and teams. These initiatives include creating interest groups, organizing specific sessions during Neurodiversity Autism Acceptance Month (NAAM), hosting confidential listening sessions, providing mentorship circles, and conducting bias training. These efforts aim to attract neurodivergent individuals to Amazon and create a supportive environment for their inclusion.  

At Amazon, we recognize that fostering an inclusive environment requires more than just policies—it demands a culture of awareness, understanding, and empathy. All employees undergo inclusive and unconscious bias training to be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to create and sustain an inclusive environment. To encourage participation in sensitivity and inclusivity training, we have embedded these principles into various stages of employee development and daily operations. By integrating inclusivity training into onboarding, performance reviews, and day-to-day workflows, we make learning a seamless part of the employee experience, rather than an isolated task. We also tailor our training to be directly relevant to employees' roles, ensuring that they see the immediate value in how inclusivity impacts their work and team dynamics. Our training programs are delivered in interactive formats, such as workshops and simulations, which make the content engaging and practical for real-world application. In addition to training, we have a byte sized programs which are short modules called “Together at Amazon Huddles” that centre discussions around inclusion, mental health and wellness that can be led by Amazonians at any time, and in any location.  

Additionally, we prioritise creating a safe space where employees feel comfortable asking questions and expressing concerns, fostering open dialogue around sensitive topics. To reinforce the importance of inclusivity, we recognize and celebrate employees who demonstrate inclusive behavior, creating a culture that rewards engagement. Leadership also plays a critical role in driving participation, as Amazon’s leaders actively champion inclusivity and participate in training themselves, signaling its importance to their teams. Through these efforts, we ensure that employees not only participate in training but also understand that inclusivity is a core value essential to both their individual success and the company’s collective growth.  

To enhance diversity in the workspace, organizations must adopt a multifaceted approach that prioritises inclusivity at every level. This begins with diversity, equity and inclusion being driven by business leaders. Since customers are diverse and the organizations’ ability to serve them is strengthened when the team designing products and managing operations reflects this diversity. This not only enriches the decision-making process but also creates an environment where employees feel valued and empowered to contribute. Ensuring that DEI is tracked as a goal across all processes - from hiring and performance reviews to development and growth - reinforces accountability and commitment at every level. Furthermore, organizations should implement inclusive recruitment practices that actively seek diverse talent pools, making sure hiring panels reflect a variety of perspectives. Establishing Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) provides vital support and community for underrepresented employees, fostering a sense of belonging while empowering them to influence decision-making processes.  

Mentorship and sponsorship programs are essential for connecting emerging talent with organizational leaders and promoting professional growth and visibility. Continuous education and training on diversity, equity, and inclusion cultivate a culture of respect and understanding, while flexible work policies accommodate the diverse needs of employees, supporting their unique circumstances. Organisations should also leverage data-driven insights to assess their diversity landscape, identify gaps, and measure the effectiveness of initiatives, ensuring informed decision-making. By fostering an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity through events and initiatives, organizations can create an environment where all employees feel valued and empowered. Ultimately, these innovative approaches not only enhance diversity but also drive creativity, improve employee satisfaction, and boost overall business performance.