Human Resource Management Analysis

Human Resource Management Analysis

Introduction

Human resource practice in any organization plays an integral part in overall operational strategies. The primary objective of human resource practices is to promote cordial and self- respect working relationships among workers and employees. The social resource management department in any organization work towards the satisfaction of the individual’s needs and requirement of all the employee by providing an enabling environment. Amazon is a company believed to have exceptional human resources practices and leadership where employees are satisfied in their job. It has led to high job competition in the job market as most of the qualified and talented workers look forward to working in the company. This paper focus on Amazon.com. Inc human resource management analysis to provide better alignment of human resource practice with key business initiatives of the company.

Component of the Organization

History

Amazon is a multinational technology company based in the United States that deal with an E-commerce business, digital streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the largest companies in America that is known for its well-established industries in the world through technology innovation, making it one of the world largest online marketplace. Amazon is the world most valuable company and the second-largest private employee in the United States after Walmart’s company due to its human resource practices.

Amazon was established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. The company was started as an online marketplace for books but later expanded its business to include the selection of video, electronics, kitchen gadgets, home furnishing, DVDs, tools, CDs, toys, houseware, apparel, jewellery, and software. The company also ventured into the food market industry to increase its market share. In the late 1990s, rapid advancements in technology and personal computers in most businesses and households set the roots of the Amazon foundation. The increasing popularity and use of the internet and world wide web across the world led to the effective establishment of the Amazon business as most of the households and organizations have the opportunities to access internet providers and web browser software. Most of the company started looking down at the web and internet as a new source of revenues due to increased internet usage and change of consumer social culture that led to the founder of Amazon grading the opportunities.

During the fourth month of operation, Amazon had become the most popular web in the internet raking, making it more admirable to customers. It first concentrated on the five most promising products that could sell on the internet, which include books, computer hardware, compact discs, videos, and computer software. It mostly concentered on the selling of books as a significant product. It experiences a high growth rate as customers increased and reduction of distribution costs since it deals with the customer directly with no intermediaries or warehouse.

In 1997, Amazon became a public company with around three million share stock as an initial public offering. During this time, the company focuses on bettering the company distribution capacities and productive website. In 1998, the company gained numerous customer share, earning up to fifteen per cent for recommending and selling books from their website platform. In 2001, Amazon experience a high growth rate in sales due to the reduction of expenses that led to lay off one thousand and three hundred employees and close of a distribution facility. It changed its marketing strategies that led to an increase in sales and reduction of expenses.

The company has since experienced tremendous growth and expansion of market share. In 2015, Amazon company was named the number one most valuable retailer in the market, surpassing Walmart. In 2017, Amazon ventured fully in the food industry to increase its market shares and as a way of market penetration due to its brand recognition. The company has experienced a high growth rate reporting a net sale of $232.9 billion in 2018. The company is currently employed five hundred and sixty-six thousand employees across the world.

Market Strategy

Amazon’s strategies are based on customer-centric, where the company believes in making the customer happy and satisfied. They employ a direct distribution strategy to ensure customer satisfaction through speedy services. Its main goal is to have faster delivery services to customers hence cutting out any intermediaries involved in the supply chain. It ensures it adding values by improving the efficacy of the delivery system.

It also achieves customer satisfaction by providing competitive prices in the market. It focusses on increasing market share and gaining competitive advantage through porters’ three generic business strategies. First is the cost leadership strategy by ensuring unnecessary cost is not occurring hence able to offer products under low prices in the market. Second is product differentiation in the market to ensure their products are unique and easily identified by customers. Lastly is cost focus strategies where the company uses advanced computing and technologies to minimize cost while pushing for low prices of the product in the market. The use of technology aims to achieve maximum operational efficiency, which translates to effective human resources practices and minimization of the overall cost. The three generic strategies enable Amazon to gain a competitive advantage in the industry by being the leader in cost, thus reducing the threat of new entrants in the market, competitive threat from rivals business.

Market penetration strategy through acquisition and mergers is another primary strategy utilized by Amazon company. The acquisition strategies have been the most effective in gaining new business and increasing its market segment in the world for the past decades. The purpose is to strengthen the core E-commerce operations, increased its technology investment, and open the door to new opportunities and market segments.

The corporate strategy focus on the customer is based in the E-commerce business since most of the people have access to personal computer and smartphones. The change in the social-cultural of society has led to most of the people seeking solutions over their smartphone and internet where Amazon comes in to offer one-button away solutions to the consumer. One of the ways Amazon implement this strategy is through training its employees to understand the customer experience as a way to ensure all employee appreciate their customer. The main aim is to make the customer remain loyal and satisfied with Amazon’s business products. The employee needs to get obsessed with customers’ experiences, prioritize their needs, and desires to improve Amazon’s company toward a customer-centric company. The combination made in the strategies seems to be more difficult in most companies. Still, Amazon company uses its brand image, equity, and introducing its new product to the already existing market.

Amazon utilizes the defender strategy that continues to dominate the e-retailer business. According to Snow discussions, Amazon employee top-level management who are highly expert in their area and have interest and desire in the E-commerce business, enabling them to be more effective and efficient in their operation. Due to the nature of the strategy, Amazon company maximizes the process through advanced technology, functional structure, and cost control. The introduction of new product uses the existing product line and supply to reduce cost during the management emphasis on the high quality of the product and low cost.

The defensive strategy focuses on ensuring efficiency in the internal process and culture thus argues that human resource management should address the administrative problem in the organization. It focuses on promoting human resource management practices with the ability to centrally control all organizational operations. The strategy is consistent with the porter cost leadership strategy utilized in the Amazon organization to have a cost perspective firm. The human resource department delivers strategies that are consisted of the bureaucratic system of the organization in developing a defender business strategy.

Market Position

Amazon is the leading e-retailer in the United States, where most of the company revenues are generated through e-retails of electronics and other company products. According to Clement (2019), Amazon is the most valuable brand worldwide in the industry of e-commerce, where customers cannot afford to ignores it. Amazon’s share of the United State E-commerce industry is currently at forty-nine per cent, with the perception of controlling almost half of the E-commerce market in the future. It currently holds $258.22 billion in the United States e-retails sales. According to clement (2019), nine out of ten customer prices check a product on Amazon before making a decision to purchase any product, making the business more accessible and recommended by most of the people.

Amazon is also ranked second after Walmart as a private employer for having more than five hundred and sixty-six thousand employees. It is one of the most preferred companies in the United States job seeker due to its ability to provide an enabling environment for its employees to accomplish their duties and responsibilities. Its emphasis on employee diversity consisting of sixty-three per cent male and thirty-seven per cent females that are well distributed among diverse ethnic groups.

Specific area of alignment

Vision

Amazon’s vision is to be the world most customer-centric company where customers can find and discover anything they need to purchase online. Position customers at the centre of every operation ensure every goal and strategy developed at the human resource management department aim at improving customers’ satisfaction and experiences. The vision statement also focusses on influencing customers’ experiences in the global market where strategic approaches developed focus to link the progressive expansion of Amazon effort in the worldwide market.

Mission

Amazon mission focus to offer customer affordable possible prices of the best available selection and the utmost convenience. The purpose shows what the amazon employee is contributing to the market and what the customers should expect when shopping with them. The company offers a varied selection of products at affordable prices at the convenience of the customer without compromising on the quality of the product, thus increasing the attractiveness of the brand. The human resource practice must be aligned with a company’s mission to ensure employee goals and job descriptions are toward achieving the company mission.

Principle

Amazon has developed a set of management and leadership principles that ensure effective human resource practice and management. The primary principle aligned with human resource management includes the highest standard, customer obsession, ownership, hire and develop, earn the trust of others, the bias for action, invent and simplify, result-oriented, disagree, and commit. The principle act as core guidance of employee in becoming a part of the teamwork. The core principle represents the Amazon overall organization culture that guide employee interaction among themselves and other stakeholders. The values are highly linked to the employee job satisfaction since they act as motivation in their performance of the duties and how they showcase to the clients. The core values have to push Amazon human resource managers to look for the best talented individual with interest in the E-commerce business to produce the best team of the employee.

Job Pricing and Compensations

Amazon company is one of the admirable companies to work with due to a better compensation rate and a good working environment. The average salaries working at Amazon company ranges from $ 20, 000 per year to approximately $250, 000 per year for managing positions. Some of the top management positions include director of the operation, development director, and development manager who earn higher salaries due to their job description and duties taken in the development of the organization. A director of the operation earner an estimated salary of $ 158,383 per year, development director $ 155,246 per year, and development manager $150,104 per year.

The compensation and benefit ranger from the full-time employee to part-time employee depending on the various position one occupies in the hierarchy level of Amazon company. On top of the minimum salaries offered to full-time management personnel, they receive compensation that includes comprehensive healthcare from the first day, up to twenty weeks of parental leave, leave shared program, and special ramp back program. In association with the financial security of employees, they offer a compensation of 401(k) plan with a fifty per cent match to a full-time employee.

Amazon company offer a range of benefit to management personnel and full-time employee that include healthcare compensation ranging from a medical, prescription drug, vision, and dental coverage that cover eligible family members. Others include Part-time off and holiday pay, mental health, both physical and mental wellbeing of the employee.

Describe and Analyze Current and Targeted Work Processes

Amazon focuses on the bring customer obsession through employee having customer experiences by creating a frustration-free employee experiences when interacting with customers. There are various work processes human resource management is involved in at Amazon organization to ensure effective implementation of operational strategies and achieve organization vision and objectives.

One of the critical processes emphasized by Amazon company management is the recruitment and selection process. Amazon has set the bar high for one qualified to work for the company to maintain high standards. According to the founder of the company Jeff Bezos, the hiring process should always be high and continues to be high since it one of the vital elements to the success of the organization. Human resource plays a crucial role in any business success since it contributes to developing effective strategies as well as implementing the same strategies.

Amazon company has set strict selection and recruitment policies implemented by the human resources manager. The interview process is not just a walk in the park due to the high standard set and hiring philosophy to ensure they have the right candidate for the job. The human resource manager must screen thorough the candidate to ensure they are on the speed since the company focus on ensuring a speedy delivery of the product to the customer on request. A candidate must go through a three-step interview before qualifying for the job that includes a written interview, a technical interview, and a human resource interview.

Human resource management also involved in providing training and developing a process for the employee to ensure they achieve the set objectives. Amazon company has a career choice program aimed at improving low-level employee for a higher paying job in the organization. The program aims to improve employee’s knowledge, skill, and abilities to qualifies for a more senior role in the industry through additional training and education facilitated by the organization.

The human resource management at Amazon company develops a working process aimed at improving the knowledge and skill of employees named Pivot program. The purpose of the program is to enhance the ability of underperforming employees by providing more training and coaching. It is a necessary process of Amazon human resource practices to improve the working condition and opportunities at the company to retain talented employees with the capabilities of delivering quality work. With the pivot programs, the employee takes the opportunities to improve their skills according to the human resource management requirement that later helps to achieve organization objectives.

The human resource manager at Amazon company is both a strategic and hands-on role to provide a full commitment to the human resource management objective and overall organizational goals. The person must have the ability to adapt to the rapid and complex changing work environment, demonstrate passion in human resources as well as an E-commerce business, and strong management skills. Amazon company recommend someone with the ability to understands organization goal, come up with new strategies, develop continues improvement process and ability to provide motivation program to the employee. The ability to identify a problem and provide a solution as well as a good decision-maker.

Relevant Technology

The rapid advance in technology influence the way the organization invests in any technology systems. Amazon human resources should focus on improving their system through investing in cloud technologies services. The system can help human resource pressure up their activities higher than the customer can imagine through technology. In the modern economy, data and information have become a vital thing to the success of any organization. It used its development of critical human sources strategies. For instance, determining employee promotion, performance, retention, reward system, or need for more training. The adoption of cloud technology services will translate the human resource to a software-based department where most of the decision will be based on software interpretations.

Software-based human resources require integration of cloud technology services with a human resources information system used to collect data and analysis to provide a complete report of the daily operation. A combination of the data in cloud technology services offers a new experience to the human resource department through advisory services, cost-saving, speed to implement strategy, and access to innovation.

Labor Market

Amazon company is the second leading company in terms of employment in the United States. An employee in the market finds it difficult to work with Amazon despite the second leading company due to tight and strict hiring procedures and policies implemented. Despite Amazon’s company’s success, it faces challenges in compliance with labour law over the treatment of employees and workers, a great mixture of political and public pressure due to the working condition of Amazon warehouse. Most of the workers in the workshop fear to take time off sick due to the harsh policies of result-oriented workers needed.

Another legal issue affecting Amazon company is healthcare insurance portability and accountability body concerning the health and safety of the employee in the workplace. It also focuses on the healthy environment and condition of worker in their areas of work are significant areas Amazon have failed to comply despite worker complain fully.

Human resource management recommendation

Deliverable accountable people and timeline

Low retention policy human resource manager one year. Focus more of the future of the workplace by encouraging more employee retention and abolishing pay to quit policy. Focus on retention of top talent as it focuses on getting high talent workers in the organization.

Employee motivation, human resource manager, one year. Focus on increasing employee job satisfaction through motivation program. The pivot program acts as a motivation program to the employee, but on the employee side, it may look like an attempt to manage them and their reputation. It should have specific motivation policies to align with setting a performance standard to reduce the source of employee dissatisfactions.

Human Resource Management issues

Major human resource issue affecting the department include disagreements with an employee over work-life balance. This is because Amazon company emphasis more of the resulted oriented worker making employee failure to achieve their life-work balance due to their harsh employee policies. The company faced significant criticism over its employee diversity based on their background areas that affect human resource management as they try to balance between the talent needed and the balance of workers diversity. Other issues include insensitive management, unfair ranking system, the introduction of unhealthy competition among co-workers and unreasonably high standard and expectation.

Conclusion

In conclusion of Amazon, human resource management analysis provides a recommendation that best aligns with company objective and vision will help change and improve the Amazon business in future. It includes the replacement of policies to curb labour retention, increase employee motivation and satisfaction. Amazon human resources need to focus on significant issues facing the employee such as work-life balance need, encourage employee diversity, reduce unnecessary competition among employee while promoting an enabling environment for worker. It faces labour law concerning the health and safety of employee as well as the working condition. Human resource plays an integral part in the organization success, thus the need to align human resource strategies with the organization vision and objective.