From Teacher to HR: Amazon Employee Shares Her Career Journey and Tips for Learning at Work Week 2024

An HR associate partner from Chesterfield is sharing her career story during Learning at Work Week 2024 (13^th-19^th May) to celebrate the career progress they’ve made thanks to the lifelong learning programmes at Amazon.

Learning at Work Week is an annual programme run by the charity Campaign for Learning. The charity works with organisations around the UK to create activities and fun challenges in the workplace to help employees learn and grow.

This year’s theme, Learning power, explores how lifelong and continual learning gives people power to change, grow and achieve individual, team and organisational goals.

Anna Cooper, who works at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Chesterfield, has used Amazon’s development and training opportunities to shape her professional career.

One of the programmes Anna has taken part in at Amazon is Amazon Career Choice. The programme, which has been running at Amazon for the past decade, pre-pays up to 95% of tuition and fees for courses in high-demand fields, up to £8,000 over four years, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.

Courses available include accountancy, HGV driving and software development, and are designed to help employees build careers at Amazon or elsewhere. It means that eligible employees are given the opportunity to gain the skills and qualifications needed to follow their career aspirations.

Anna, who used the programme to help secure their role as a HR business partner, has shared their story to encourage others to take their career to the next level using the Amazon Career Choice programme.

Anna is an HR associate partner at Amazon in Chesterfield. She joined the company during the COVID-19 pandemic in a temporary role.

Before joining Amazon, Anna worked as a primary school teacher for four years. She said:

“I joined Amazon because I wanted a change from teaching, so I worked in a temporary role in the Inventory Control and Quality Assurance department. I ended up enjoying working at Amazon so much that I never left. I spent a bit of time in recruiting before moving across into HR.”

Anna completed the CIPD Level 3 HR qualification through Amazon Career Choice. She added:

“When I first joined the HR team, I knew I wanted to complete the CIPD course as it’s an industry standard for HR. I loved that I was able to continue working full time and study at my own pace. I did the course through Avado, which gave me clear deadlines and the support I needed.”

“Career Choice has given me a much broader understanding of my role in HR,” Anna continued. “I now understand our policies better and why Amazon is so unique in its culture. I’m now doing an apprenticeship, working to become an HR partner. I wouldn’t have been able to work towards this without Amazon supporting me through Career Choice and the apprenticeship programme.”

Anna has some advice for anyone considering furthering their careers through learning and development programmes.

“There are so many opportunities out there to develop your career, so make sure you seize them! Programmes like Amazon Career Choice offer such a wide variety of support for your career journey, so if you have the opportunity to take part in further learning through your job, then go for it.”

Amazon also provides opportunities to improve existing skills or learn new ones through internal career progression opportunities such as apprenticeships, transferring to a different department and promotion to a managerial role.

Amazon Chesterfield Site Leader, Kris Hammond, added: “We are proud of Anna’s success through the Amazon Career Choice programme. Career development is at the core of our culture at Amazon, where lifelong learning is promoted at every turn. Many of our team members have taken part in Career Choice and are now fulfilling their potential on Amazon teams all over the UK, Ireland and further afield. Others have gone on to successful careers elsewhere, and we are proud to have supported them in their professional development by giving them extra tools for success in their new roles. We look forward to offering employees even more choices in the future as Amazon Career Choice evolves and grows.”

Amazon employees receive competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Pay starts at a minimum of £12.30 per hour in Chesterfield and employees are offered a comprehensive benefits package, including private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection and an employee discount as well as a company pension plan.

Amazon has been named as a ‘Top Employer UK 2024’ by the Top Employer Institute, one of the world’s most prestigious certifications in the field of human resources management. This award recognises Amazon’s commitment to the development and well-being of its employees. In addition to the UK accolade, Amazon has also been certified as one of the Top Employers in Europe for a second consecutive year.

In 2023, Amazon ranked in second place on LinkedIn’s Top Companies list — an annual list that identifies the most sought-after places to work and grow your career in the UK. Using data from LinkedIn’s 900 million members, LinkedIn’s Top Companies list is designed to help professionals identify the best companies to grow their careers.

To find out more about a career with Amazon, visit Amazon Jobs.