What made Amazon's grocery head 'angry' during internal meeting: We are ...
's grocery division head
Jason Buechel
erupted during an internal staff meeting last week, calling the company's multilayered approval processes "ridiculous" and declaring they were "wasting time" on administrative red tape that's holding back business initiatives.
The Whole Foods CEO and Amazon VP of Worldwide Grocery was responding to an employee who complained about "multiple levels of approval" slowing down decision-making across the grocery business, according to a recording obtained by Business Insider.
"The feedback I've gotten from team members and employees is that ultimately, we're wasting time," Buechel said during the meeting. "It's taking too long for decisions and approvals to take place, and it's actually holding back some of our initiatives."
'One Grocery' push drives restructuring
Buechel's frustration comes as Amazon undergoes a major grocery business overhaul under his "One Grocery" initiative, which aims to integrate teams from Whole Foods,
Amazon Fresh
, and
Amazon Go
. The restructuring has already led to at least 125 job cuts in the Fresh division this week, though Amazon attributed those to a Seattle-area store closure.
The company has identified slow-moving procedures in spending and transaction policies as key targets for streamlining, with different policies between Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods creating administrative bottlenecks.
Bureaucracy concerns nothing new at Amazon
This isn't the first time Amazon's grocery division has faced internal criticism over bureaucratic inefficiencies. In 2021, company leaders had to address concerns about the grocery business's underperformance and deteriorating workplace culture, as previously reported by Business Insider.
Since then, the division has seen significant leadership changes, including Buechel's predecessor Tony Hoggett leaving after three years. Amazon has also downsized its cashierless
Just Walk Out technology
business and slowed Fresh store expansion.
The restructuring aligns with CEO
Andy Jassy
's company-wide mandate to eliminate bureaucracy and remove inefficient processes, encouraging employees to flag rules that slow operations.
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