Introduction
Zappos is a multinational company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is a company whose primary focus is ensuring customer satisfaction with its services. Zappos is a retail company selling shoes, clothing, handbags, and accessories via online platforms and possesses an easy-to-navigate website where customers access the products and make their orders. The business aims to inspire the world by indicating the ability to deliver happiness to customers, employees, and shareholders, among other stakeholders, in a long-term and sustainable manner. Zappos’s vision is to live and have an excellent technique that satisfies the consumer’s needs hence the extraordinary commitment to providing free delivery and 365 days return period for their customers. The vision statement firmly commits to the business plans and core values. On the other hand, the company’s mission is to deliver the best customer services possible and thus save by providing quality offers for their customers. Zappos is geographically located in the United States but offers shipping services in over 100 countries. It has employed more than 1500 employees in the United States.
Zappos has expanded its operations beyond its website and have upgraded to seek accommodation in Amazon to increase its orders and customer service. Therefore, it is accommodated by Amazon as one of its subsidiaries. The main clients that Zappos targets to serve are people aged 20-40 years, regardless of gender. Most of these target audiences are middle-class families and have a broad experience with online buying, making Zappos a competitive e-commerce business. It targets people seeking high customer service and free delivery and returns, thus providing a competitive advantage for the company since it can deliver on these requirements. The main competitors for Zappos are Justfab and Zalando, where Zalando possesses a higher search engine optimisation than Zappos. However, despite the high search engine optimisation, Zappos beats the two competitors in the level of customer trust. This research aims to provide information about Zappos’s demand and supply of human resources. It also provides recommendations on the company’s strategies to improve its current and future strategic human resource development.
Environment
Different factors affect the level of business existence and sustainability in a market. They are categorisable into internal and external factors, where the internal ones are those the company may control, whereas the external ones are beyond the company’s influence. These conditions that affect the business are generally identifiable as the company environment. Zappos is affected by the presence of the underlying conditions. The microenvironment comprises factors such as the business culture, structure, human resources, finance, and many more. Conversely, the macroenvironment consists of the demography, political, economic, social-cultural, environmental, and legal.
The External Environment
These factors beyond the company’s control or influence may affect the entire industry or an individual business. They may affect the business’s success positively or negatively, and the only thing the firm may do to continue operating is adapt to them. Some of the macroenvironment conditions that Zappos experiences include demography, political, economic, social-cultural factors, and competition. The external environment affects the company’s performance since it has to transform its activities frequently to eliminate adversities that may arise from the external factors by coping with the environment.
Demography
This is the distribution of the population that the company targets across different market regions. It includes the outlay of the crowd based on the age differences and the gender of the entire population. The demography is a critical aspect that one must evaluate before setting up a business. Zappos clearly understands that its target market mainly comprises millennials and generation Z members between the ages of 20 and 40. The company has thus incorporated strategic marketing and management systems to aid in reaching the market and achieving desired sales. The population in Las Vegas is in a manner where youths are more than older people; hence clearly supports the business.
Political
The political environment is critical for businesses since it determines whether a company may succeed in its operations or not. The leadership within the United States comprises the national and state governments, where each plays a critical role in determining the policies that guide business operations within their borders. Politics influences operations since it is responsible for setting the standards and regulations that protect the customers from exploitation by the distributors. In addition, the government creates standards that ensure that the business survives in the underlying conditions of the economy, such as by introducing subsidies and regulating taxes. Political stability is critical since it is involved in the controlling of inflation. Lack of political tolerance creates difficulties for the company by worsening the market conditions. Strong political stability in Las Vegas and the entire United States has helped Zappos to sustain its operations and penetrate the market.
Social Cultural
These cultural beliefs and people’s way of life determine how people relate to and perceive something. It is critical for the business to understand the scope of society and its traditions. The company thus provides products whose consumers are readily available and supported by the organization. Zappos deals with essential products for human consumption hence its continued sustainability over the years. Society agrees that Zappos should be present in the market since the culture advises people to wear clothes. Social-cultural behaviors determine the kind of products that people consume by influencing their preferences. Business managers must identify the appropriate geographical areas to position their company and locate regions with resources used to create their products and customers. Las Vegas provides substantial market opportunities for Zappos since they quickly reach their customers.
Competition
Competition arises when a company faces rivalry from other firms dealing in the same production line. Competition is uncontrollable since many firms make independent decisions that help them to make a profit. Zappos faces competition from prominent firms, Justfab and Zalando, competing to control a broader market share. However, despite Zalando’s better search engine optimisation, Zappos beats the two in having a more efficient website and a better search engine results page. Zappos’s two strongholds equip it with a competitive advantage over its rivals. Identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats helps every business to create strategic plans on how they may outshine their competitors.
The Internal Environment
The internal environment comprises factors the business controls, which can easily alter the conditions for desirable outcomes. The management of a business makes decisions on how it will use internal factors to improve the product and sustain the industry’s long-term development. The internal environment includes factors such as the business culture and structure, ownership, technology, physical resources, labour unions, and human resources. Internal business factors affect the business from within itself, and managers have the power to influence the rate at which they affect the company.
Technological
Technology development in the world has significantly influenced the growth of businesses. Zappos has not been left behind in the use of technology to advance its trading. The main focus of Zappos is to make sales through online platforms and deliver them to customers for free. The company has an online website where customers place orders and list complaints. The website is easy to navigate through. Hence the customers have a great experience making their orders. Zappos utilises other platforms to promote its sales: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Using these sites to advertise their products increases the number of sales since many youths and the target audience spend most of their time on these platforms seeking entertainment and news. Additionally, technological advancement helps improve service delivery by fastening the packaging and delivery processes. Technology aids advertisement and sales promotion hence appropriate for use at Zappos.
Business Structure and Culture
Every business must have an order in which duties and responsibilities flow from the senior offices to their subordinates, ensuring efficiency within the organisation. This form by which the management distributes tasks to all departments within the organisation is what people know as business structure. It is in the form of a hierarchy in most firms meaning that power flows from a small number of leaders to an enormous group of individuals who handle the assignments. On the other hand, the business culture is the standard way that the business uses to fulfil its mission and vision. It involves the activities that the firm conducts daily. Business culture directs how to handle issues in the organisation and how the management distributes the responsibilities among its workers daily. Both business culture and structure create an effective way to manage corporate deals and influence decision-making processes.
Finance
These funds a firm uses to run its operations constitute a significant part of the resources a business requires to ensure continued productivity. An improved financial system within an organisation positively influences business progress and creates reliability since it guarantees a continuous supply of essential resources. Businesses must ensure that they are financially stable to affirm an uninterrupted supply of necessary resources. Zappos has been in the industry for years, hence h sufficient financial resources and capital management. Zappos’s financial stability has maintained a significant difference between itself and its major competitors since it can easily acquire all the items the customer demands and supply them at an affordable cost.
Human resource
A business requires employees to run its programs in an organised manner to serve customers and ensure delivery of the limits, meeting the objectives, mission, and vision. The managers and their subordinates who affect the firm’s productivity are the definitions of human resources. The human resource in an organisation ensures continued customer satisfaction by handling the issues at hand at the appropriate timing and manner. Zappos has for many years understood its role in creating employment. The company has employed more than 1500 employees since its initiation. These workers include managers, delivery team, and packaging team, among others. Zappos uses different means to ensure an adequate flow of labour and consumer satisfaction in the long run. First, it classifies the workers to serve in various departments in the office, ensuring that each employee has enough work at hand. A transparent organisation and assignment of duties within the organisation increase effectiveness in service delivery.
Effects of Globalization on Human Resource Management
Globalization has had significant effects on human resource management over the years. Globalization occurs when a company expands its operations beyond the borders of its initial country. It influences the nature of the organisation’s demand and supply of labour. For instance, Zappos has experienced tremendous transformations in its demand for human resources. Globalization has led to the order for more employees to work for the organisation, from packaging to shipping the final product to the customers. Corporate and cultural differences between the United States and other countries like the United Kingdom, where Zappos supplies its products increase the demand for more employees from the United Kingdom to help serve the new target market. Employing more local employees helps Zappos to easily penetrate the market by bridging the barriers arising from cultural and corporate differences, such as language barriers.
Globalisation additionally helps the company outsource materials to help run its operations. Zappos may utilise globalisation to seek more human resources to control and run its operations. Outsourcing is a process by which companies acquire more affordable and efficient productivity. The process helps eliminate high costs that limit efficiency and prevent the firm from maximising profits. Globalism provides a competitive advantage for the company since they obtain more affordable resources as they increase their sales, making a higher profit. The expansion to international markets leads to a higher demand for globalisation which helps the firm to adapt to the existing conditions in the market. Globalisation enhances company management by providing critical information about consumer demand, resource allocation, acquiring process, and a more coherent legal framework. For example, globalisation helps companies learn about different countries’ tax laws.
Relationship Between Organization’s Strategic Objectives, Organizational Change, and Human Resource Management
Human resource management is a critical issue for many companies since they can determine the demand and supply of labour. It helps the managers decide which departments in an organisation require more employees and which need to transfer some of their employees to other business sections to enhance stability in human resource supply. Organisations set goals and objectives to create a sense of direction and responsibility among workers. A company that uses strategic objectives in its day-to-day operations enjoys higher employee efficiency. Strategic goals and changes are critical in human resource management since they help to inspire innovation and creativity among the employees. The workers generate new ideas that help the company to create new products that increase sales by dealing with the consumer preference to a point where both the employees benefit from the items in place. The presence of strategic objectives helps the management be more precise on what they admire about the company, increasing the benefit of competitive advantage. Organisational change inspires the company to possess more advanced strategies such as improved technology that inspire power and market control.
The organisation’s strategic objectives and changes help the firm obtain flexibility in the market conditions, increasing its sustainability. A firm that has goals and changes in its operation acquires more information that allows it to camouflage before the occurrence that may occur in the future. For example, Zappos may use its objectives to gain more employees informed about technology while reducing uninformed ones to create a more flexible team that offers better online services to the customers. Organisational objectives and goals help the company determine which strategy to use to penetrate the existing market. Additionally, Zappos is more efficient in the recruitment and selection of its human resource since it has a sense of direction guided by the objectives and changes hence selecting only those that are fit to improve its service delivery and consumer satisfaction. Human resource management significantly relies on the organisational strategic goals and changes since the two influence the areas in which the business focuses and at what measure they do.
The Human Resource Plan
Forecasting the demand and supply of human capital is critical for an organisation since it helps the management understand when to employ new workers, dismiss old ones, or transfer some of them into more service departments. Control of the human resource helps the business to save more on the production cost, increase the profit margin or increase the level of production in a department by enhancing accountability and responsibilities (Mousa and Othmanm, 2020). There are different strategies that the managers may use to determine the prospects of the demand and supply of human resources across Zappos. Management judgment, ratio trend analysis, regression analysis, and the Delphin methods are some strategies that a business may use to determine the future progress of the demand and supply of labour.
Managerial Judgement
Managerial judgment occurs when the senior managers receive information from their junior staff demanding an increment or decrease in the number of employees working in their departments. The senior officials may use this information to predict the future demand for employees and their supply (Mousa and Othmanm, 2020). For example, junior managers may inform their leaders that there will be a need to increase the number of employees since a specific group is leaving their positions due to various factors such as retirement. Top-level managers will then announce the vacant roles to attract new potential replacements or prepare some current employees for promotions. Alternatively, the senior staff may order a release of some employees to decrease the number of staff to control the costs associable with having more workers.
Ratio Trend Analysis
The ratio trend analysis is a comparison strategy that businesses use to determine the distribution of employees over the previous years. The system helps the management to use the last period’s demand and supply of labour to determine the future structure. A ratio trend analysis is essential since it allows the direction to know how many employees they need every year and how many they have to distribute to each department to attain the desired results. Ratio trend analysis clearly outlines the flow of labour across every department in the business as years move. Zappos may use the strategy to determine how many employees they need in the customer care unit, the packaging, delivery, and sales promotion departments. A ratio trend analysis is easy to evaluate since it contains much information about the employment trajectory that the business picks. It is easy to manipulate the information to obtain the human resource management data since many software developments aid in the sections.
Regression Analysis
Regression analysis is a statistical method used in determining the relationship between the independent and dependent variables to foresee the outcome of a condition. The regression analysis identifies the trends contained in a specific amount of data. Business professionals use the identified trends to determine the future flow of labour and help maximise the currently available workforce. The dependent factors are those the business is studying to determine their effects on human resource management and gain insights into their impacts. On the other hand, independent variables are factors that do not affect the dependent variables. Regression analysis is a reliable technique whose insights are supported by the information present. Zappos management may use regression analysis to determine human resource management for a long-term basis, such as five to ten years or more.
Work-Study Technique
The work-study technique is one of the most common strategies businesses use to evaluate the supply and demand for labour. The human resource managers must consider resignations, dismissals, strikes, absenteeism, and turnover rate when using this method to determine the labour requirement. The work-study technique is vital for businesses since it critically uses each employee’s working hours and productivity to determine their importance in the company and whether they may continue operating in the industry. Zappos may use this strategy since it is cheap and easy to conduct because it only requires the management’s commitment to link all the information in the organisation closely. It pays attention to the employees’ behaviour. It indicates slight changes in employee behaviour that may affect their performance hence creating the need for a change in the number of employees operating in the business.
Delphin Method
The Delphi method bases its arguments on a theory that more structured research groups are more accurate and reliable than unstructured ones. Therefore, the management selects a group of people from all categories of leadership to research the flow of labour. Zappos may use the Delphi method to analyse the need for human resource management to forecast the demand and supply of delivery based on the current conditions. The Delphi method is more efficient since it obtains data from representatives from all the organisation’s departments. Zappos company may get human resource information from all sectors contributing to its success. Using the Delphi method will help Zappos to use fewer resources to obtain maximum information that aids in critical decision-making concerning the distribution of workers.
Assessment of Manpower Availability
Organisations must scrutinize workforce availability frequently because the process creates a reliable labour supply. A business that assesses the availability of its human resources regularly knows when to rearrange department workers, employ new ones or when to suck some of those without significant influence on its success. Assessing staffing availability involves identifying how workers contribute to the organisation and verifying different ways to encourage and motivate them to work smarter to help the firm obtain its goals. Human resources are readily available for an organisation that assesses its staffing supply since it understands the demand through various seasons of its operation. The process helps the company to grow and diversify its operations since it plans for the upcoming events in advance and finds the appropriate people to push its activities.
Qualitative Approach
Qualitative approaches are one of the many ways Zappos may use to conduct a workforce availability assessment. The method focuses on the quality of work that the already available workforce provides. The company can meet its product and service quality targets with enough labour force. Zappos mainly focuses on consumer satisfaction and understands that the more their customers are satisfied, the better their brand name and image. The company must thus incorporate human resources assessment programs that evaluate the quality of the customer’s services to determine whether its employees possess the right skills that aid them in providing quality skills. The company may then decide whether there is a need for more employees with enough education to meet its desired customer satisfaction levels. A qualitative approach is practical because it helps the organisation determine what areas it needs to apply more effort to improve service and product delivery.
Quantitative Approach
A quantitative approach strategy occurs when the company determines its staffing supply and demand using measures that evaluate the extent to which it meets its goals. For example, Zappos may use the strategy by assessing the number of customers each employee serves per unit time. The company may additionally review the number of items that the employees in the packaging department prepare for delivery in a single day. An analysis of the business’s progress in such a manner helps the managers quickly project the future demand for labour in the industry and how they will bridge the gap that they identify. Quantitative approaches are accurate in their projection and rely on figures that ease the process of determining the change in workforce availability.
Time Series Analysis
A time series analysis is an evaluation method focusing on workload and human resource utilization. It uses four variables: trend, cyclical, seasonal, and random effects. The researcher finds multiple factors to determine the time series outcome and assess staffing availability in the organization. The strategy involves a comparison of data collected in different periods. For instance, Zappos may use the data it contains every year about the availability of the employees to predict the future and see the effects on the employees in service delivery.
Gap Closing strategy
A gap in human resource management may arise when the currently available workers are excess or less than the overall number that the company needs to make its activities more prosperous. In addition, the space may emerge from the failure of the current workforce to possess the appropriate skills to run the programs. The information collected from the data analysis processes helps the company evaluate strategies they may use to bridge the gaps they identify in the availability of the workforce. Employing more workers or firing the unproductive ones are the two main ways a business may close the gap in the operating periods. If Zappos identifies a gap that requires them to employ more workers, it must focus on getting people skilled with the current technical skills to conduct the operations effectively. The employment process in gap closing involves different activities that are recruitment, selection, and international deployments.
Recruitment Process
The recruitment process is one where the management conducts various actions to attract new members for the vacant positions in the workplace. The command runs it in stages, and the first step is to provide a job description that entails all the essential credentials that the applicant for the position must meet. The company recruiting members must give an array of what the business involves, whether it is communication, customer care packaging, or delivery work. Zappos may describe the roles of the vacant position. For example, if it is customer care work, the job description would clearly state that the vacant job involves receiving calls from customers and informing other departments on the areas to correct to meet the consumer satisfaction levels. A job description is necessary since it helps the applicants to apply for places that they are capable of doing.
The second stage is formulating a recruitment plan that guides the human resource manager in knowing the process of recruiting new members. The recruitment plan provides necessary details on how the human resource department will operate to meet the highest standards of equality and openness. The third stage after formulating the plan is announcing and creating awareness to the general public to attract applicants to file for recruitment in the vacant positions.
Selection Process
The selection process is where the human resources managers choose the most qualified candidate for the empty positions from a group of applicants. The activity should be fair to all the applicants and allow each to express what they can offer the company. Human resource managers of Zappos company must ensure that there is a well-experienced committee to handle all the applications and find the appropriate candidates. Selecting new employees involves screening the applicants, conducting interviews, picking the most fitting candidates, and recommending them to the company for employment. Screening is the process by which the committees check whether the applicants have the proper documents, eliminating those that do not meet the job description qualities. Interviews and other tests follow the screening to eliminate the candidates who do not fit the desired qualities and lack specific skills essential for the company plans’ smooth running.
After conducting the various tests and interviews, the committee knows what candidates to pick. The interviews help the panel award marks to each participant, grading them in order of the most preferred candidates. The panel then selects the most fitting candidates and recommends them to the human resource department for further scrutiny and employment if they meet the needed qualifications. The recommendation part must comprise the reasons why the participant was selected and brief the human resource managers on what the new employee needs to make them ideally suited for the position, for example, through further training.
Reward Strategy, Systems, and Pay Policy
The main focus of Zappos company is ensuring that the consumers are maximumly satisfied and get products of the appropriate quality and size. Consumer satisfaction arises when the products they receive from a particular company meet the recommended standards. Additionally, consumers are more satisfied when the company they purchase products offers quality customer care services through its employees. A robust ethical customer care unit helps the business to obtain more customers and increase its sales within a specific timeline. Zappos may offer quality consumer concern services by encouraging its employees to provide better services and treat them most professionally. Consumer satisfaction goes simultaneously with employee contentment since employee motivation significantly influences their mood towards their work. Zappos may maintain a high employee spirit by conducting more effective strategies that reward the employees for their contribution to organisational success.
Zappos currently uses a peer-to-peer reward program that encourages employees to acknowledge each other and share gifts and presents that help them to motivate each other. The programs are efficient since they allow the employees to understand and influence one another to provide quality customer care services. The peer-to-peer programs are efficient for the organisation since they align with the motto of doing more with less. At times the employees may award each other parking spots within the company premises as a reward since finding a parking spot within the premises is difficult. The workers have bonuses which they award each other to celebrate each other. The company has encouraged its staff to respect and promote one another by acknowledging each additional contribution to consumer satisfaction. Zappos has allowed the employees to award each other hero awards based on their participation in promoting the company’s success.
Zappos has a very effective pay policy that helps it maintain only hardworking and motivated employees in its workforce. The company offers new employees an amount of $2000 to encourage those that want to quit to leave. In a new force, the lump sum to quit ensures that the organisation remains with employees motivated to work towards meeting the organisational goals. The process affirms that all the remaining employees are determined to promote the business’ operation and are interested in its long-term performance. The management categorises the remaining employees in Zappos into different categories where they earn based on their level. The ranking encourages low-key employees to work more innovative and complex to meet high standards and earn more income. Higher pay for more experienced employees ensures that the company retains old employees and motivates the new ones to contribute significantly to the company’s progress. The badge-based system has helped Zappos transform its payment policy into a more comprehensive manner that allows it to maintain its workforce and retain a considerable profit.
The badge-based payment policy is the most suitable method for Zappos to manage employees and reward them since it helps the workers to play their roles effectively to please the managers. Another strategy that helps Zappos meet its targets is promoting the most performing subjects into higher positions. Enabling workers allows them to be more accurate in their dealings and encourages loyalty among them. There are essential behaviours that a business must promote among its staff to create reliability and sustainability. Some of the ethical employee behaviour that the company must reward include loyalty, integrity, and honesty, among others. Human resource management creates an excellent rapport with its subordinates creating a conducive environment for the organisation’s success.
Ethical and Diversity Challenges that Can Rise in the Application of Strategic Human Resource Management
The human resource management process must entail activities harmonious with the events’ participants and help the company create a solid ethical image that improves the brand name. An honest human resource management process may result from various actions of the staff involved in the events. Such negatively impacting behaviours include harassing the applicant, unfair treatment that hurts others while benefiting some, denial of equal opportunities to the parties involved, and highly personal issues that deny the interviewee the right to privacy, among others. Management that wishes well for the company must provide solutions to such unethical behaviours and guarantee all participants equal opportunities to express themselves.
Harassment
The committee in charge of collecting the applicant’s information must protect the party by avoiding issues that may result in harassment concerns. The board must affirm that there is no disparity in the treatment of the applicants due to sex, nationality, colour, or physical state such as disability. Every person applying for the vacant position must receive equal treatment in a manner that makes them feel secure. Harassing job seekers create a negative image and name for the company and discourage many people from applying to fill these vacant positions.
Unfair Treatment
The human resource management process must conduct a free and fair recruitment process that allows all members applying to be employed opportunities to increase their chances without discrimination. Unfair treatment of the job seekers may be chaotic, leading to a shambolic selection of qualified candidates, thus making the company acquire underqualified personnel. Additionally, unfair treatment of the employees may lead to lawlessness in the organisation since some workers become angry and demotivated. An unfair treatment arises when the senior officers gain conflict of interest and want to corruptly employ new staff or give rewards to some members in an unprecedented manner. The general management must oversee the roles of the human resource management department to ensure that all activities operating in the section are by the ethical standards of the company.
Denial of Equal Opportunities
It is unethical for a company to deny applicants for some positions equal opportunities to showcase what they have to offer for the long-term development of the company objectives. Ethics define the morality of an organisation and hence indicate when the company needs to change its behaviour to accommodate people that contribute positively to its success. The human resource department must be among the most ethical departments since it is responsible for selecting employees to be employed or dismissed from the company. Therefore, human resource management must grant people equal time and opportunities to aid in choosing the most equipped candidate.
Lack of Privacy
The recruitment and selection processes in human resource management must allow the applicants to have the right to select what areas to answer and what not to, provided they indicate the matter is private. It would be unethical for the selection panel to insist on knowing topics that the participant claims to be personal in detail. Some areas that one may choose to remain private are personal issues like gender specification, age, or even marital status that do not directly influence their performance in the company. Human resource managers must make an exception for people who prefer to keep their personal information private. The company will thus remain professional with its staff and gain a positive branding among society.
Legal and Regulatory on Human Resource Management
The laws governing human resource management may positively or negatively impact the business’s decision-making processes. The firm must adhere to specific rules when employing or dismissing the workers. The law provides a legal framework that guides the employment process and educates job seekers about their rights. Health insurance and Affordable Care Act, Payroll Tax and Employee Compensation and Compliance, Workplace Safety Compliance and Legal Issues, and Legal Issues Surrounding Retirement and Pension Plans are some of the government acts that guide the human resource department when employing people.
Health insurance and the Affordable Care act
The process of employing new people to work in the industry must provide details on the current state of the employee health-wise to understand where the problem arises. If the medical team finds that the source of the sickness is related to the job the person was previously doing, the employer must provide compensation for their injured staff. The health insurance and affordable care act state that the employer must protect their employees from internally generated health damages by paying an amount to an insurance company to cater for their medical bills in case of health damages. In addition, it elaborates on the employer’s role in protecting a conducive environment for their employees.
Payroll Tax and Employee Compensation Compliance
Additionally, the employer must provide payroll tax and employee compensation compliance details that help the government to know what amount of tax to receive from the worker. The payroll tax is applicable in placing the employees into different income taxation categories based on their earnings ratio. Employee compensation compliance provides details on how the company manages its employees’ earnings when dismissing them to help them sustain their current lifestyle as they seek employment in new places when sacking them is an instant decision. Employee compensation compliance in many organisations dictates that companies will pay a specific minimum as compensation for instant dismissal. Zappos offers a minimum of $2000 for employees they sack instantly to help them reinstate their normal state.
Workplace Safety Compliance and Legal Issues
The workplace safety compliance and legal issues direct the employer’s responsibility to provide a conducive environment for their staff. Human resource management must provide all the protective gear employees need to work effectively under prevailing circumstances without harming their lives and health. The employer must offer legal support for its employees if an emerging issue requires legal minds. For instance, the company must provide lawyers to represent the workers in courts if they face charges of issues that concern their company’s service delivery. This helps the employees to seek justice somewhat and eliminates the burden that befalls them when in positions of power in a specific firm.
Legal Issues Surrounding Retirement and Pension Plans
The legal issues surrounding retirement and pension plans have existed for a long time and provide a sense of direction for the employment company. It guides how the employer must treat its employees once their time to retire comes. The employer must help the retiree meet their future demands for stable life conditions after retirement. The retirement and pension plan main exist for employees that have worked for a long time for a specific company; hence the employer is obligated by the law to make their lives comfortable. The COVID19 pandemic challenged many organisations on whether to pay their staff after many retired. The COVID 19 pandemic significantly affected many businesses since they had closed down to prevent the further spread of the virus, meaning they could not pay their retirement schemes continuously due to losses resulting from the economic balance collapse.
Contingency and Universal Strategy in Human Resource Management
Contingency Theory
The contingency approach of management dictates that human resource management relies significantly on the present underlying conditions. It states that managers do not use trend analysis and other trait-based strategies to manage human resource conditions (Yu et al., 2020). The theory purports that business management may not rely on the previous requirements to determine human resource supply needs. Therefore, adopting a single, rigid style for long-term use is impossible since the managers have to review the current conditions frequently. The theory is advantageous since it provides a realistic view of the human resource management process. Therefore, most of the managers using this theory are situation-oriented and not stereotypical because they rely on current conditions to make decisions that will help the organisation update its labour supply to prevailing circumstances. The contingency theory is appropriate for many organisations that need to be in operation in the foreseeable future since they deal with the issues at hand and increases innovation into new management practices.
However, the approach is disadvantageous to some organisations since it is a reactive strategy where the managers rely on the current situations to make decisions. Therefore, the system denies the considerable management time to reason about the condition before making decisions. It may be a failure for some managers to make instant decisions that may still influence the organisation positively in the long run. Moreover, the theory does not have enough literature to aid managers in making effective decisions. Therefore, managers may only make decisions that are right in their eyesight, only to affect the business negatively in the long run.
Universal Theory
Conversely, the universal theory states that any decision in the management process has different impacts on the business, whereas others are more influential to the general organisational performance. The management must find all the necessary resources to provide information on which path offers the highest degree of success. Additionally, the theory supports that the management conditions revolving around strategic human resource management activities such as recruitment, selection, and training are common phenomena in most organisations and have occurred before and alternatives found by researchers (Yu et al., 2020). Thus, the managers must invoke various researches to aid in the final decisions hence reliable.
The universal theory is advantageous for many organisations since it indicates that management practices are shared and provides historical evidence in data form to help the managers to make conclusive choices. Enough literature on management practices allows managers to contribute to decisions at the proper timing easily. Another advantage is that the theory will enable decision-makers to predict the future in the demand and supply of human resource management using already existing data. Moreover, the approach helps managers o set organisational goals and objectives in line with the projections of the future demand and supply of labour. In contradiction, the universal theory is complex for managers to execute since they must review different resources to support their decision. Therefore, the approach may not effectively handle instant activities in a business.
Zappos should practice employing the two strategies concurrently to obtain maximum results. The contingency approach will help the organisation to react to the abrupt needs in control of the human resource. In contrast, the universal system will significantly help in making long-term decisions that help in the continuity of the business progress. Simultaneous application of the two approaches will influence the general performance, guaranteeing maximum results that keep the business a going concern.
The Human Resource Audit
The human resource audit reviews the human resource management’s information concerning how they run their activities and the level of employee effectiveness in their performance. The human resource audit is essential for the organisation since it aids in deciding its plans (Roscoe et al., 2019). It helps review the policies revolving around recruitment, selection, employment, training and performance appraisal practices. Organisations must conduct such audits to measure their effectiveness and future performance. Zappos may use this strategy to determine its performance based on employee satisfaction and might benefit in understanding what qualities to consider in prospective employees.
Fig b: A human resource audit checklist
Recommendations
Zappos is highly committed to offering its customers maximum satisfaction using fewer costs for their products. Consumer satisfaction is a function of employee contentment and thus gets influenced by how the company handles its employees. First, Zappos must conduct frequent audits to determine how much work individual addresses. Encouraging more analysis on the employee-work ratio will help the company to detect any demand for more employees to avoid overloading the employees with extra duties hence improving employee satisfaction. Additionally, the company must introduce mentoring programs that allow its workers to interact with senior officers internally and externally to motivate them to contribute wholeheartedly toward organisational success. Zappos must focus on internal mobility by equipping its workers with more skills to actively participate in different departments to control the costs of outsourcing employees. Outsourcing occurs when an increase in demand for the workforce in one department arises in one department and declines in another. The main goal of adhering to these recommendations is to increase prior preparation for any change in the future that may require human resource management.
Conclusion
Zappos is a multinational company that has expanded its activities beyond the Las Vegas borders. It mainly focuses on retailing clothing, shoe wear and handbags through online platforms. The company needs to constantly review its human resource available to increase the returns they obtain from customers due to increased consumer satisfaction. The company may use approaches to motivate employees, including recognition, rewards and promotion. The company must conduct regular audits to determine the impact of critical employee management.
Reference List
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