A warehouse worker suffered a concussion and received medical instructions to work at a slower pace and on restricted duty. Despite documentation requiring accommodations, she waited more than a month to receive the needed workplace adjustments because she could not obtain the correct medical form through an internal AI assistant and had difficulty reaching HR. During the delay, she was flagged for errors and required to attend a documented coaching session with her manager. Shortly afterward, she was reprimanded again for working too slowly, even though the slower pace was medically required. A survey of retail and warehouse workers found widespread anxiety about AI job loss and a notable concern that HR decisions are increasingly handled by automated systems.
"In February, April Watson hit her head while stowing products at an Amazon warehouse outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The injury gave her a concussion, and she was told by a neurologist that she would have to go on restricted duty and work at a slower pace than was typically expected of her. Despite having paperwork from the doctor that clearly stated that she had to work more slowly, however, it took Watson over a month to get the necessary accommodations on the job-all because she couldn't get the correct medical form from Amazon's internal AI assistant or easily connect with an HR employee."
"In the meantime, Watson was flagged for making errors on the job, and had to sit down with her manager for what Amazon calls a "documented coaching session." Just weeks later, she was reprimanded again-but this time for working too slowly, which her doctor had said was necessary after her injury. "I told my operations manager: This doesn't make any sense," Watson recounted. "I thought that everyone thought I should go more slowly because I'm recovering. And he was like, this is not our choice. This is Amazon.""
"Out of over 200 respondents, 60% said they were worried about AI eliminating their jobs within the next year or two, and 49% cited losing their job to a robot as one of their top three fears amid growing AI usage in the workplace. But a surprising number of workers-62%-were most concerned with how HR decisions were increasingly being outsourced to automated syste"
#workplace-ai #hr-automation #concussions-and-workplace-accommodations #warehouse-labor #worker-surveys
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