23 Mar IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR AT AMAZON IN TILBURY
The team working at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Tilbury is often described as a family, but for some of the team at the site, it really is family.
Julie Mathurin, who works at Amazon in Tilbury as an instructor, is preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend with one of her colleagues, who is also her son.
Julie, who has worked at Amazon for the last two years, is one of dozens of mothers working at Amazon across the UK who work alongside their children. Julie’s husband Jason Mathurin also works at Amazon in Tilbury.
As Mother’s Day 2022 approaches, the Mathurin family have spoken about how their family bond ties them together both inside and outside work.
Julie works alongside her son Shaquille, who joined Amazon the week after his mum in 2020. Shaquille works at Amazon part-time while he’s studying a master’s degree in International Relations.
Shaquille was living in Hong Kong as part of his studies before returning home during the pandemic to continue his studies and work part-time at Amazon in Tilbury alongside his mum and dad. Although Julie was the first member of the family to join Amazon, she says it was her son who inspired her to apply for the job.
“Even though I started before my son, I actually have him to thank for my job at Amazon,” says Julie. “I was a stay-at-home mum and then looked after my elderly parents, so I’d been out of the working world for quite a while before the opportunity at Amazon came up. It was Shaquille who encouraged me to go for the job and he even came with me to my interview. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have this job that I love!”
Julie goes on to explain that working with Shaquille is something her and Jason really enjoy. “It’s great, it really is”, she explains. “I love the days when we’re working closely in the same team because it’s so much fun.” Jason added: “It’s a lot of fun working together and people on site say it’s nice to see our family working together, which is lovely.”
Shaquille echoes his mum’s thoughts when it comes to working together. “At the start, it was a little bit weird seeing my mum and dad at work every day, because most people are not used to seeing their parents during the working day. However, after a few weeks it felt a lot more normal and now I really enjoy it. It’s great having my parents close by if I ever need anything and I enjoy our working life together.”
Julie and Shaquille work together to process packages for customers in Tilbury and across the UK, but what’s the one thing Julie always delivers for Shaquille?
“Great dinners!” he jokes. “On a serious note, closeness. I can talk to my mum about anything, and she always delivers support in everything I do.”
For any family members who work together, or are thinking about working together, Jason has some advice. “I would recommend working with family members because it brings you closer together. You see each other every day and you’re helping each other, and it works very well.”
A family feeling is something that encapsulates not just Julie, Jason and Shaquille, but the whole team at Amazon in Tilbury. Julie added: “We are such a close team here and I’ve made so many friends since I joined Amazon. We do lots of things together outside work as a team and that’s one of the best parts of working at Amazon – that closeness.”
Finally, speaking ahead of Mother’s Day, Shaquille reveals some of his plans for Julie. “I’m working on that now with my brothers and sister. We’ve not decided on a final plan, but we’ll definitely be doing something nice for our mum.”
Amazon Tilbury General Manager, Carlos Guijarro Benito, added: “Julie is a valued member of our team at Amazon in Tilbury and it’s great that she gets to work alongside her son. I hope Shaquille has some special plans for Mother’s Day and Julie enjoys her day.”
The Mathurins are among Amazon’s 70,000 employees in the UK. Amazon provides competitive pay, comprehensive benefits and a modern, safe and engaging work environment for its employees. The roles pay a minimum of £10.00 or £11.10 per hour depending on location, and Amazon employees can also take advantage of Amazon’s pioneering Career Choice programme, which pre-pays 95% of tuition 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.
Amazon also provides opportunities to improve existing skills or learn new ones through internal career progression opportunities such as cross-training, transferring to a different department and promotion into a managerial role.
Amazon has invested over £32 billion in the UK since 2010 to provide convenience, selection and value to UK consumers, while supporting tens of thousands of businesses and creative professionals including small businesses selling on Amazon’s online stores, Amazon Web Services developers and Kindle Direct Publishing authors.
