Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the health and safety of our employees, our customers, and our partners has been our top priority. We have made close to 100 changes in our on-ground operations to maintain social distancing in our buildings and keep our associates safe. We adjusted practices within all our operations sites including fulfilment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations through new formats of communications, process changes, new training methods and several policy changes. It is all about Safety first.
Now, we’re using what we learned from earlier on-site vaccination events for people above 45 years to bring COVID-19 vaccines to our frontline teams. Over the coming weeks, we are beginning to host on-site vaccination events administered by licensed health care providers, at an initial set of Amazon operations buildings in Delhi. Every employee is our priority. We have started the vaccine event with those on the frontline, delivering to our customers and will continue to expand when vaccines become more available.
This initiative is in line with Government of India’s relentless effort to vaccinate every individual to curb the spread of the virus. This is an important initiative not only for the health and safety of Amazon employees, but for the communities where our teams live and work. Our events will protect Amazon employees while also helping ease the burden on community-run vaccination clinics.
At Amazon India, we are encouraging all our employees to get vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity. It is our endeavor to make vaccination a ready choice for our employees.
“At Amazon India, we are encouraging all our employees to get vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity. It is our endeavor to make vaccination a ready choice for our employees and we are working on several channels – reimbursement of vaccination costs, facilitating easy access to hospitals and on-site vaccination events to name a few.“ – Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Manager, Amazon India
Amazon is working hard to access COVID-19 vaccine supplies for all of our frontline teams at the earliest appropriate time. We recognize that not every such person will have access to on-site vaccination events right away and hence we are offering up to INR 750 to frontline employees who can get vaccinated off-site. Additionally we have put together COVID-19 specific benefits and support system to help our frontline workers and their eligible dependents. These include salary advance, COVID-19 special leave, and isolation facility support, to name a few. These benefits are on top of the $2.5 billion we have invested in special bonuses and incentives for our teams worldwide over the last year and the $11.5 billion we have invested in COVID-19-related measures overall.
Employees working in Amazon fulfillment centers, sort centres, delivery stations and AWS data centers, in India have been helping customers stay safe and receive vital products and services at home. The services are especially critical for people with underlying medical conditions and those susceptible to complications from COVID-19. We are proud of our employees who help keep customers stay safe, and we’ll continue investing in processes and changes to protect our employees and communities around the world.
