(CNN Business) – Amazon announced Tuesday that it supports federal legalization of marijuana and that the company is reviewing a controversial labor policy that critics say has been used to keep employees working at a breakneck pace.
The two ads, Amazon said, are intended to reiterate the company’s commitment to being an attractive employer.
In a blog post, Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s global consumer division, said changes to state marijuana laws mean that Amazon (AMZN) will no longer include the substance in drug tests conducted to get hired. in the company and that the substance will now be treated in the same way as alcohol.
Positions subject to regulation by the US Department of Transportation will continue to include marijuana testing, Clark said, adding that the company will “continue to do impairment checks on the job and test for all drugs and alcohol afterward. of any incident.
Clark went on to say that Amazon supports a federal marijuana legalization bill, the Marijuana Opportunity Elimination and Reinvestment Act. “We hope that other employers will join us and that legislators move quickly to pass this law.”
Change of time off policy
Amazon will also review its Time Off policy, which automatically tracks worker productivity by analyzing the time they spend on breaks. Critics have said that such a policy contributes to a stressful work environment that treats workers like cogs in a machine rather than people.
On Tuesday, Clark appeared to acknowledge the criticism even as he claimed the policy is easily “misunderstood.”
“The primary goal of the free time metric is to understand whether there are problems with the tools people use to be productive and only second to identify underperforming employees,” he wrote. “Starting today, we will averaging the Free Time policy over a longer period to ensure there is more signal and less noise, reinforcing the original intent of the show and focusing the Free Time conversations on how we can help. The goal is to refocus conversations on instances where there are likely to be real operational problems to resolve. We believe this change will help ensure that the Time Off policy is used as intended. “