Why UPS CEO Carol Tomé is not worried about competing with Amazon - Fast Company
You could think of Amazon as UPS’s classic frenemy.
When the pandemic erupted last spring, few businesses were more essential than the United Parcel Service. As the world’s largest small-package delivery company, UPS and its iconic brown trucks kept the world spinning by materializing fresh groceries, trendy exercise bikes, webcams and microphones, and hand-stitched face masks on the doorsteps of the home-bound billions. In a recent conversation for the Fast Company Innovation Festival, editor-in-chief Stephanie Mehta sat down with Carol Tomé, who joined UPS as CEO in June 2020, to discuss how the 114-year-old company was able to stay nimble during the COVID-19 crisis, and how the historic challenges of the past year could usher in an era of change for the legacy courier.
On culture and getting hip
UPS made headlines last year for a 21st-century policy shakeup that relaxed rules prohibiting beards, long hair on men, facial piercings, and tattoos, a move overseen by Tomé. “To be an employer of choice,” says Tomé, “we want UPSers to bring their real, authentic selves to work. They should be able to bring facial hair or natural hair.” The former tattoo rule, Tomé adds, was “more restrictive than the U.S. Army . . . In the summertime, it gets hot, and our UPSers still had to cover up their tats! Way too uncomfortable, so we took care of that.”
You could think of Amazon as UPS’s classic frenemy.
When the pandemic erupted last spring, few businesses were more essential than the United Parcel Service. As the world’s largest small-package delivery company, UPS and its iconic brown trucks kept the world spinning by materializing fresh groceries, trendy exercise bikes, webcams and microphones, and hand-stitched face masks on the doorsteps of the home-bound billions. In a recent conversation for the Fast Company Innovation Festival, editor-in-chief Stephanie Mehta sat down with Carol Tomé, who joined UPS as CEO in June 2020, to discuss how the 114-year-old company was able to stay nimble during the COVID-19 crisis, and how the historic challenges of the past year could usher in an era of change for the legacy courier.
On culture and getting hip
UPS made headlines last year for a 21st-century policy shakeup that relaxed rules prohibiting beards, long hair on men, facial piercings, and tattoos, a move overseen by Tomé. “To be an employer of choice,” says Tomé, “we want UPSers to bring their real, authentic selves to work. They should be able to bring facial hair or natural hair.” The former tattoo rule, Tomé adds, was “more restrictive than the U.S. Army . . . In the summertime, it gets hot, and our UPSers still had to cover up their tats! Way too uncomfortable, so we took care of that.”
