Amazon offers employees up to $5,000 to quit

Amazon warehouse workers who hate their job and are eyeing the exit now have a lucrative payout offer.

Online retail giant Amazon.com is offering its employees up to $5,000 if they quit, Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Bezos spoke about a program offered to employees called “Pay to Quit” and credited Zappos, another online retailer known for its progressive human resources style, for the idea. The program is offered once a year to employees at its warehouses. The first year the offer is for $2,000. After that, it rises $1,000 every year until it reaches $5,000.

Crazy? Not so much, some experts say.

The practice has been credited by some companies as a way to boost productivity and morale.

“The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company,” Bezos explained.

It’s a tactic used by other companies, such as Netflix Inc., as the Harvard Business Review noted in an article earlier this year.

At Netflix, the corporate mantra is: “adequate performance gets a generous severance package.” Essentially, the company would rather have less-than-stellar employees leave with money in their pocket and fill their spots with more talented employees.

Though the severance offer by Netflix is only for its corporate employees, not those who work at their sorting facilities, the end result is a more engaged workforce, experts say.