Bezos: 'We need a better vision' for employees

in his final letter to shareholders as Amazon Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Bezos Thursday said Amazon needs to do better at taking care of its employees.

His comments come just days after Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama voted against forming a union by a more than 2-to-1 margin - a major win for the company that has fiercely resisted unionization for decades.

Bezos, in his letter wrote (quote):

"While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it's clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees."

Amazon, the second-largest private employer in America, has been criticized by some of its 800,000 employees for having harsh working conditions.

But, the world's richest man pushed back on the criticism that the company’s workers were treated "as robots," writing (quote):

"We don't set unreasonable performance goals. We set achievable performance goals that take into account tenure and actual employee performance data.”

Bezos, who is stepping down as CEO of the company he founded 27 years ago later in 2021, said he planned to work on how to make Amazon's workhouses safer in his new role as executive chairman.

Andy Jassy, head of the company's cloud division Amazon Web Services, will take over as CEO.