Amazon HR Practices and Processes

Organization Overview

Amazon Inc. is an online business retailing organization. It is also a successful retail business that inspires, informs and educates the consumers about the goods they offer to various companies. Amazon was founded as an online bookstore by Jeff Bezos in 1995 but has grown substantially into the leading e-commerce organization with 224,000 employees globally (Rossman, 2016). The business has founded many stores in various major nations, including the U.S., Germany, France, Canada and Japan. The organization works online; thus, it is free to sell a wide range of items comprising of music titles, books and amongst others.

HR policies, Practices and Strategies

Management of human resources plays a significant role in any organization’s growth. Amazon recognizes the value of finding the talents who will fulfil the organization’s specific duties and obligations for its success (Noe et al., 2015). The HR policies and practices at the firm align the business’s strategic objectives with HR’s goals. Moreover, the company recognizes that the biggest contributing factor to its performance is the employees. In this case, the HRM is committed to enhancing its staff’s skills through successful employee learning and development programs. This will increase employee fulfilment and self-actualization.

The company’s key HR responsibilities include recruiting and selection, salary administration, training and development, ensuring regulatory enforcement, and managing employee relations. These roles foster a positive atmosphere in the workplace where workers can accomplish assigned tasks to their ability. The HR practices at the organization enable workers within the organization to uphold good moral standards. HRM’s aim at Amazon is to foster working relations. The HR administrators work by creating a harmonious working atmosphere to meet the employee individual needs. The organizational climate should encourage the success of both individuals and groups within the company.

Workforce Planning HR Competencies

Workforce planning applies to the collection of processes that the Human Resource Management uses to handle and extract the best from the workers. The company’s main aim in employee planning is to guarantee the organization’s long-term sustainability and make full gains from its activities. According to Noe et al. (2015). the company uses workforce planning to attain both its short-term and long-term goals. Strategic workplace planning enables the corporation to predict and plan for its workers and guarantee that they recruit the best resources at the best time to implement the right organizational objectives and priorities. The business uses proactive workforce planning to adapt to future labor force changes. It also allows the organization to adapt to international human resource requirements and offer a suitable replacement for ageing workers. Strategic workplace preparation addresses the organization’s existing and potential employment needs.

The organization can recruit the best skills to resolve the organization’s existing operational problems. Good preparation of the workforce has helped Amazon to control its corporate culture and predict potential administrative risks. Also, the company’s workforce planning has enabled it to implement different procedures that address its core business undertakings. The organization, however, has not yet done anything to counter future international requirements. The organization has its main offices in the world’s most developed nations.

Recruitment and Selection of HR Theories

The process of employee recruitment and selection can be described as the procedure by which the best people are chosen for specific job responsibilities from a pool of applicants. The selection process of employees is critical for each organization. When an organization makes the wrong decision on hiring, it will employ a person who does not meet the standards of an entrant at the level of the organization. Selection and assessment are primarily concerned with job performance prediction, and prediction inherently implies the presence of predictors. Hiring process involves interviewing different applicants to determine their qualification for the job. Amazon uses HR interviewing experts during hiring to ensure people with the best qualifications are selected.

Existing HR Processes and Systems

The corporate strategy of Amazon is to achieve competitive advantage in the long term by sacrificing short-term gains. Amazon is a company that has a versatile and diverse framework. The organization has developed a distinctive “two pizza rule” to help Amazon’s corporate strategy. Having small teams guarantees high awareness and high participation. Amazon offers a full training program for workers. The organization perceives every employee as developing talent and considers employee preparation a vital means of improving employee personality and skills. For example, Bezos also emphasized that through training, the personality of the employees should be viewed equally with Amazon’s group character (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015).

To a large extent, Amazon’s HR practices are aligned with the seven best practices. Specifically, the company organizes small teams to minimize status gaps, promotes employee self-management and invests extensively in employee training and growth. The organization’s management also promotes departmental and in-group collaboration to stimulate innovation. The “best fit” SHRM model describes how decisions at the senior management level match with employee activities in order to make the company a profitable e-commerce giant. Consequently, as employees appreciate the organizational culture and operate in a collaborative team-based manner, they will be inspired to bring forward new ideas and enhance the efficiency of organizations.

Compensation, Performance Management, and career Development Practices

Amazon has a complicated program for delivering and managing performance and rewards. For instance, the compensation scheme for Amazon consists of the base pay, bonus and share units. The company also offers workers with other social benefits, including medical insurance, family support network, Leave Sharing and Ramp Home, discount for staff and paid leave. Matthews et al. (2018) assert that Amazon offers minimal opportunities for new employees, but provides more benefits for those who have represented the business for two years and above. This has helped the company minimize costs and maintain highly committed talent within the organization.

The company incorporates an integrated performance management framework. There is no clear measurement of team success since team member results calculate it. Performance evaluation allows employees to give self-assessment and peer review based on the 14 principles of leadership; thus, the workload at the company is intense. The organization will enable workers to educate one another while the management may provide immediate input (Kantor and Streitfeld, 2015). Amazon’s people management approach has both pros and cons. It is recommended that Amazon should change its management system of performance and reward to reduce unfairness, tension and excessive internal competition.

Health and Safety Practices in the Organization

Implementing the new ideas in all areas of Amazon help the business grow every day and health at the workplace is no exception. The spirit of creativity is driving Amazon’s customer service and it important that everybody enjoys a safe, clean atmosphere while they are at work. Amazon stays ahead of safety concerns by engaging with employees across various channels, including daily stand-up meetings and feedback programs, in addition to the basics one would expect; providing health instruction for all fulfilment center employees and monitoring workplace injuries. For example, an online resource called the Safety Leadership Index periodically tests the attitudes of employees across activities within the organization.

HR managers at Amazon Company should make good use of their tools to establish and sustain an organization’s health and safety standards. To all staff that will provide emergency action plan preparation and how to handle themselves when being injured, it is a must-have appropriate safety training program. Holding fire and emergency drills from now and then ensures that workers are well effective at the time of danger. Moreover, it is highly recommended that HR managers encourage staff to be accountable when they are sick and take leaves without rebuke. With safety measures in place, an organization can recognize all possible hazards and keep its workers safe and sound.

Ethical Approaches to HR Management Recommendation

Ethics is an integral aspect of HRM Amazon management should take into account ethical concerns related to workplace health and safety. The workplaces have undergone a vibrant change and growth. Workplace shifts make the employee sick as a result of increased work pressure, less protected job and more obligations. The main causes of stress are lack of contact, more workload, lack of respect, lack of autonomy. Organizations are proactively dealing with these sources to alleviate uncertainty, but further changes are still needed. The company should have appropriate health and wellness initiatives so that they can reduce workplace stress and promote health and safety, as well as good contact with their workers so that they can provide a better understanding of each other. Subsequently, more efficiency would yield more employee satisfaction.

Reference List

Kantor, J. and Streitfeld, D. (2015) ‘Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace’, New York Times, 15, pp. 74-80. Web.

Rossman, J. (2016) The Amazon way: 14 leadership principles behind the world’s most disruptive company (Vol. 1). Clyde Hill Publishing.

Matthews, B.L., Harbin, J. and Daigle, J. (2018) ‘The New York Times Versus Amazon: Is Jeff Bezos’ head still in the clouds?’, Journal of Organizational Psychology, 18(3).

Noe, R.A. et al. (2015) Human resource management. McGraw-Hill Education.