Critical Appraisal of Human Resource Process in Amazon Inc.

This report provides a critical appraisal of the human resource process in Amazon Inc., including recruitment, performance appraisal, and motivation. It also discusses the challenges faced by human resource in the organization.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Critical appraisal of human resource process..............................................................................1
Human resource activities which is related to corporate culture and strategy.............................4
Challenges faced by human resource in context to an organisation............................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management refers yo the procedure to manage and control the
individuals which lead to do better work in workplace (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). It is the
function which is related to recruiting, inspiring and maintain business environment in an
organisation. The main purpose of this report is to know the process of hiring as well as
performance appraisal. Human resource is an essential part in every organisation as it fills the
gap between the performance of workers and business objectives so that they focus on
completion of activities on time. Amazon Inc. is considered in this report. This is an American
technology enterprise which is located in United States. The headquarters of this enterprise is in
Seattle, Washington, U.S. Amazon is founded by Jeff Bezos in year 1994. The services provide
by company is e-commerce, artificial intelligence, electronics as well as digital streaming.
Number of employees in an entity is 810000 which work across the country. Amazon produces
their products such as Echo, Fire tablet, Fire TV and Kindle. On the other hand, services of
Amazon are Alexa, Appstore, Prime and web services. This report covers critical appraisal of
Human resource, human activities related to strategy and corporate culture of business and
challenges which are faced by human resource.
MAIN BODY
Critical appraisal of human resource process.
Human resource process is defined as business plans that the management of HR is to
implement the changes which help employees to work effectively and efficiently. This process
enables management of Amazon to improve the culture of organisation in order to encourage
workers satisfaction as well as increase productivity in workplace (Arubayi, Eromafuru and
Egbule, 2020). Therefore, there are many human resource process such as recruitment, hiring,
performance appraisal, motivation, training and development. Some of these process is
mentioned below:
Recruitment: It refers to the procedure of hiring, selecting and retaining applicants in
their business organisation for the particular job position. The recruitment process which is
explained below:
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Recruitment planning: This helps to identify the vacant seat in workplace then company
prepare job description which is required for the specific job. Committee of Amazon decide the
area in which they have empty place in business.
Strategy development: When draft is prepared, the they decide the number of candidates
required, Afterwards, they adapt some strategy to hire candidates. Human resource of Amazon
select the worker and give them training program to develop their skills, the method of Amazon
to recruit by aptitude tests which they shortlist from them (Banfield, Kay and Royles, 2018).
Searching: It states that to search the applicants enterprise use two approaches such as
selling and source activation by which it helps to recruit best worker in business. In context to
amazon, HR use different media such as websites by which they give the information of the post.
Screening: In this stage, human resource of Amazon shortlist those candidates which are
suitable for the specific job and eliminate unqualified candidates.
Evaluation and control: It is the last stage, cost is involved in this recruitment process.
It includes the salary of employees, office expenses, as well as to recruit the candidates.
Source: Recruitment process
Strength: The main advantages of recruitment are to maximize the performance and
productivity in business as this helps them to hire candidate which is perfectly suitable for job
position. Professionals of Amazon take the advantage to hire skilled and knowledgeable
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Illustration 1: Source: Recruitment process

applicants by conducting rounds which is oral as well as written test in business environment
(Berman and et.al., 2019).
Weakness: It involves huge costs for hiring and selecting candidates, lack of
communication involves when they not have better management to recruit employees and it also
invite the unsuitable workers for recruitment.
Recruitment of staff is important for Amazon in UK as it is successful recruiting plan to hire the
best sort workers to suit your company needs. Effective recruitment will minimize the search,
hiring and preparation time. Therefore, recruitment help manager of Amazon to recruit best
employees in an organisation to accomplish the objectives.
Performance appraisals: It refers to identify and analyse the performance of workers
which lead to achieve the objectives and goals in business. It helps to evaluate the knowledge,
skills, growth as well as achievement in their work. The performance appraisal of amazon is
done by stack ranking where the employees are ranked by their better work, efficiency and
performance (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Farndale, 2018). The methods of this process are
mentioned below:
Establish performance standard: This steps set the standard which helps to compare
employees performance of workers. This standard which helps human resource of Amazon to set
the clear objectives and goals.
Communicate performance expectations to workers: The standard is set then
management has to discuss with their employees so they know their performance in workplace.
Amazon gives feedback to their workers about the working quality of them.
Measure actual performance: Performance is measured by observing and monitoring
their working method as it is done in particular period of time. Amazon use statistical and written
report to monitor the efficiency of employees (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018).
Compare actual performance with standards: They made a comparison between the
predetermined standard and actual standard which help them to determine the deviations in their
performance.
Initiate corrective actions: The last step improves the performance and takes corrective
actions in order to achieve the overall business goals and increase the profitability in Amazon.
Strength: It benefits the business as it builds strong relationship between superiors and
subordinates and improves the communication with employees.
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Weakness: It creates negative experiences for the workers and the top management and it
takes lots of time as well as investment for the performance management (Cheng and Yi, 2018).
Source: Process of performance appraisal
Motivation: It is define as to direct, supervise and maintain the behaviour of employees
in working environment which helps to maintain the satisfactions. It is important to inspire
people by innovating new ideas and performance in order to increase productivity and achieve to
better outcomes. Human resource of Amazon motivate their workers by learning new things,
training and development program as well as offer cash to quit (Cooke and et.al., 2020). The
Hetzberg two factor theory is defined as under:
Hygiene factors: This factor explains the motivation in the working environment. The do
not have better satisfaction for the long term. Human resource management of amazon inspire
employees by pay, company policies, fringe benefits and job securities.
Motivating factors: The factors motivate their workers by performing the better work in
business. In context to Amazon, motivators includes recognition, growth, promotional which
result to achieve in organisational objectives as well as goals. Thus, it helps to retain staff and
motivate them to work effectively and efficiently (Deyo, 2019).
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Illustration 2: Source: Process of
performance appraisal

Motivation of employees is crucial for Amazon for the effectiveness of an organisation. This is
the level of dedication, energy and creativity that employees of an organisation play on regular
basis.
Human resource activities which is related to corporate culture and strategy.
The term corporate culture refers to as a set of trust and attitude that determines them to
advice how organisation manage and control business, connect with their workers. Human
resource activities include recruitment & selection, compensation & benefits, learning &
development, performance appraisal. Recruitment is the important way which is related to
organisation culture and strategy to find the best applicant who fit in work culture of Amazon.
This list the job recruitment at their websites to demonstrate the corporate culture in business
environment. Hiring of candidates affect the recruitment process as they have expectations of the
potential workers. The strategy of recruitment is to hire skilled people to accomplish the business
goals (Järlström, Saru and Vanhala, 2018).
On the other hand, performance appraisal affects the revenue, sales, morale which can
impacts positive as well as negative to corporate culture. Amazon has good enterprise culture
which retains employees to work effectively and efficiently. Human resource of Amazon
motivates their staff to do more activities and work by minimizing turnover. Corporate culture
impacts the performance of workers and their inspiration level. They make efforts to attain
business goals when they appraise to be part of business environment. Amazon drives the
performance of staffs to innovate new ideas and continuous improving the experience of the
ultimate users. This impacts the productivity and working efficiency as it affect to business
strategy in an environment.
The term retention is defined as the procedure by which management monitor and ensure
that workers do not leave their jobs. Amazon employee retention strategy is to fulfil their
requirement to meet the needs and demand of workers that if any staff quit their job they will pay
them cash. In relation to corporate culture and strategy the organisation adapt this strategy to
retain workers in order to minimize turnover and help them to engage staffs in workplace. The
positive working culture in development of employees and in their salaries (Kamoche, 2019).
The impacts of these human activities such as recruitment, performance appraisal and
retention such as human resource of Amazon have good corporate culture then it affect positively
to hire and recruit skilled and talented candidates to work in a defined and an appropriate
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method. On the other way when there is not proper structure then it relate to negatively business
environment. Performance appraisal helps Amazon to motivate and retain their employees to
achieve the overall goals and objectives as well as the performance of business which impacts
positive to strategy and enterprise culture. Therefore, company culture impacts the performance
appraisal which help Amazon to motivate staff and improve the productivity in business. On the
other way, Retention impacts the organisation culture as well as the strategy to inspire,
satisfaction, attitude in order to attain the overall purpose of business venture.
However, these activities affect culture and strategy positively as well as negatively
which allow the workers to allow them to achieve common goals in defined manner. In hiring
the best candidates the hiring process is based on the corporate culture, performance appraisal of
Amazon attract the staff to motivate them and performance for the success of business
organisation. To develop the company culture helps human resource to hire talented and
experienced workers in workplace. Strong culture reflects the employee engagement,
performance as well as productivity which gives good working environment in business. This
impacts that how they relate to company and their work effectively (Knezović, Bušatlić and
Riđić, 2020).
Challenges faced by human resource in context to an organisation.
The challenges of human resource management impacts the performance of business
which lead to problems in the workplace as well as to make decision related to their business.
Issues faced by management such as revenue, growth, recruitment, hiring, training, diversity,
behaviour towards diversity along with the culture. Some of these challenges which is faced by
human resource of Amazon are mentioned below:
Managing workforce diversity: The main problem which is faced by human resource is
diversity in workplace. There have different cultures and they come from various states which
become differences and conflict among the employees. The human resource treat based on their
performance then this will be grater issue to handle in the workforce which lead to decrease in
performance in business. HR of Amazon face problem related to the workplace diversity that
affect the work culture in the company (Macke and Genari, 2019).
Meeting aspiration of employees: There increase in number of employees in today's
industry who related to young generation which is distinct from previous generations. In today's
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business environment there are the people who are career oriented which are transparent to their
lifestyle. Amazon face to fulfil the requirement and needs of workers in their workplace.
Recruitment and selection: In context to Amazon, human resource face problem in
COVID-19 pandemic as they have to conduct the online interview and round that is very difficult
to hire candidates. In this pandemic Amazon has recruit employees through video calls in
between they come problems such as internet connectivity, miscommunication and they human
resource cannot predict the right candidates to select for the specific job position (Mitchell,
2018).
Training and development: This process faced by human resource towards the
behaviour of workers in business environment as they have to deal with the implementation in
technology which management has to train their employees to develop their skills and
knowledge and engage their learning power to improve their learn effectively. In context to
Amazon, they have quantifying training effectiveness and creating training workforce.
Dynamic policies and program: Changes in procedure and policies affect the overall
organisation. Therefore, human resource play an important role in changing of strategies and
plans in a company by which they have to give give conduct some seminars and events to
properly communicate with the employees. Human resource has faced this issue related to their
strategies and policies by which it affects the productivity and performance in business (Mölders
and et.al., 2018).
Human resource planning
Human resource planning is refers to the process by which understand and analyse the
needs of company to accomplish the business goals and objectives. It states the continuous
planning process which help them to enable them to enhance the quality of candidates in the
workplace. The steps of human resource planning are determination of organisational plans,
forecasting, assessment of supply of human resource and they match demand and supply in an
organisation in order to motivate workers and take competitive advantages in the marketplace.
Amazon has proper resource planning which help human resource go improve labour
productivity, hiring of experience employees and assist them to adjust in change in technological
and analyse to conduct various development program to boost the skills and knowledge of new
as well as existing employees (North-Samardzic and de Witt, 2019).
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In the COVID-19 pandemic, human resource of Amazon face many challenges such as
recruitment and selection as well as training and development by which there were problem of
connecting with the people as they cannot go out to the office for interview. As the management
of Amazon is to conduct their interview process online which help them to hire the best and
talented workers.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis, it is concluded that human resource is the important part in
organisation for the success as well as failure to identify and understand to meet the needs and
demands of employees. It examine the strength, weakness for the hiring, performance appraisal
and the retention of employees in order to motivate workers to achieve the overall goals and
objectives in workplace. There are some human activities of Amazon such as learning and
development, recruitment along with the selection in workforce. There are many challenges
which are faced by human resource such as managing workforce planning, meeting aspiration of
employees, recruitment and selection, training and development as well as dynamic policies and
program.
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