Amazon Tests Wearable Trackers to Monitor 'Indirect' Warehouse Staff in New Efficiency Push
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Amazon is launching a new initiative to boost warehouse efficiency by turning its attention to roles that have traditionally been difficult to track. According to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider, the e-commerce giant is piloting a wearable-device program called "Right Station Link" aimed at monitoring "indirect" support staff.
Unlike warehouse employees stationed at packing or picking stations, indirect workers—such as equipment maintenance crews, safety coordinators, and floor managers—constantly move between tasks. Historically, this mobility made it hard to capture precise operational data for these roles. However, internal analyses indicate that these indirect positions account for approximately 85 million labor hours and $2.8 billion in labor spending annually.
The Right Station Link system is designed to automatically capture check-in times and labor hours for these employees. According to internal memos, the initiative aims to "improve labor tracking accuracy," ensure workers adhere to their staffing assignments, and ultimately "reduce non-productive labor hours" and idle time.
Wearable Scanners and Automated Alerts
During the pilot phase, Amazon planned to equip workers with Zebra WS501 wearable scanners, which are typically worn on the back of the hand. These devices do more than just track time; they deliver work assignments and break notifications directly to the employee. If a worker misses a check-in, the system automatically alerts management.
Before this program, managers had to manually log station changes on digital platforms. Amazon grew concerned that some managers were overstaffing indirect roles beyond recommended models and relying on manual time edits, which made labor allocation inconsistent. To combat this, the company previously banned manual time editing, requiring all labor hours to be coded through its internal staffing system—a move that internal data suggested boosted productivity.
Expansion Plans and Hardware Delays
Amazon is eyeing a massive rollout, with internal documents indicating plans to expand Right Station Link to all North American warehouses ahead of the busy holiday peak season.
However, the timeline faces potential roadblocks. Company leaders noted that delivery delays for the Zebra devices could pose a "significant risk" to the deployment schedule and diminish the expected financial returns. In response, Amazon is adapting its software to be compatible with other hardware, including scanners already in use at its facilities. An Amazon spokesperson clarified that the program is not tied to a specific hardware model and noted that while employees prefer wearables, the company is also testing handheld devices.
Amazon Pushes Back on "Tracking" Concerns.
Amazon strongly disputed the premise that the program is about solving "visibility" issues or cracking down on waste. A company spokesperson stated that the $2.8 billion figure represents a "theoretically modeled opportunity" for integrating untapped data into their staffing platform, rather than identifying excess or wasted spending.
The company emphasized that Right Station Link does not track workers' real-time movements or measure individual productivity. Instead, Amazon described the tool as a "natural extension" of standard workforce management, likening it to a hotel maintenance worker using a handheld device to receive service requests and log completed tasks.
"As is industry standard, we digitally track employee hours to ensure we're appropriately staffing our facilities to safely deliver on our customer promises," the spokesperson said, adding that the current pilot is limited to a small number of sites and future expansion remains speculative.
The Challenge of Measuring Indirect Labor
Industry experts note that tracking indirect roles has long been a pain point for warehouse operators. Steve Tracey, a supply chain management professor at Penn State University, explained that, unlike pickers and packers whose output can be easily measured by units processed, support functions are much harder to quantify. Consequently, operators typically rely on outcome-based metrics—such as equipment uptime or safety records—alongside general labor tracking to evaluate these roles.
While Amazon maintains that capturing this data isn't inherently difficult, the Right Station Link program represents a significant technological push to bring automated oversight to the millions of dollars spent on the warehouse workforce's support staff.