Why Amazon’s CEO Wants Employees to Share Their Achievements

From running his company with a startup-mindset for constant innovation to cutting 14,000 jobs for simplification, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy has his own unique way of driving the multi-billion dollar business.

To kick start 2026, Andy has asked his corporate workforce a very simple question: What did you do last year?

In recent internal documents seen by Business Insider, and according to people familiar with the matter, Amazon is asking its workers to list three to five accomplishments that show the best things they achieved at the company in 2025.

The internal guideline said: “Accomplishments are specific projects, goals, initiatives or process improvements that show the impact of your work.

“Consider situations where you took risks or innovated, even if it didn’t lead to the results you hoped for.”

This is part of this year’s performance review, known within Amazon as Forte.

Work culture at Amazon

Employees are asked to provide “specific examples” of what they delivered throughout 2025, adding actions they are going to take. This allows Amazon to see how its employees will continue to grow within the company.

According to people familiar with the matter, this is the first time that Amazon has used Forte to talk about individual accomplishments.

Amazon has around 350,000 corporate employees out of a total workforce of over 1.5 million, with most of its corporate workforce being subject to completing this annual review.

What Amazon describes as a 360-degree performance review system has previously included broader questions about “super powers” and areas of interest.

This drives employee compensation with managers considering feedback, how the employee adhered to Amazon’s Leadership Principles and skills to give them an “Overall Value”. This determines annual pay.

Return to the office

Andy has been making moves to make employees more engaged with the company and their performance, including enforcing a full return-to-office policy.

In late 2024, he issued a memo to employees at the ecommerce giant that told them to operate like a startup, It said Amazon would “end its previous hybrid work policy” and require corporate staff to return to office full-time.

The move aimed to “increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers, improve innovation and deepen collaboration” by flattening the organisation and “empowering faster decision making”.

He explained that to function like a startup requires “a mix of constant innovation, high ownership, strong urgency and shared commitment”.

Leading by example

Although Andy is increasingly verbal about how employees should conduct themselves, the CEO has also spoken about how he reflects on his path to leadership.

Speaking to employees in December 2025, he said he hasn’t regretted a lot of decisions he’s made, but that the regrets he does have are all based around things he didn’t see through.

“I feel like you make the best decisions you can with the information you have at the time, and you don’t have perfect information,” he said. “But the ones I’ve looked back on and felt a little bit of remorse about have been the decisions where I left something where I felt like I didn’t see it through.”

Andy added that the prospect of regret does not mean you could stay in everything you do, saying: “If you can hang in there, if you can just stay in your boat, you may find that you build something remarkable with a group of people.”

This echoes the recent development in Forte, encouraging employees to see innovation and dedication as an achievement, even if the end result wasn’t the intended outcome.