Organisational Behaviour Report: Amazon Australia Employee Issues

This report provides an analysis of organizational behavior within Amazon Australia, focusing on issues of employee satisfaction, motivation, and organizational culture. The study identifies problems related to the company's warehouse environment, including the impact of technology on worker stress, unrealistic performance targets, and a perceived lack of employee engagement. The analysis applies organizational behavior theories such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Goal Setting Theory to understand the root causes of these issues. The report proposes a change management program that includes interventions such as revised leadership styles, employee motivation programs, and improved communication strategies to address the identified problems. The goal is to create a more positive work environment, improve employee morale, and enhance overall organizational performance. The report emphasizes the need for a more human-centered approach to management, recognizing the importance of employee well-being and engagement in achieving company objectives.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The purpose of the paper was to identify a problem in an organization and assess the concern
based on the organizational behaviour theories or models. The paper identified the problem of
employee satisfaction, motivation and organisational culture in Amazon Australia. The
problem was assessed based on the theories such as Maslow Need Hierarchy theory and Goal
Setting Theory. In the last section, the change or the intervention program has been discussed
which includes the motivation programs that can be incorporated by Amazon officials for
making the employees feel that they are the integral part of the company and they should be
valued. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos needs to change the leadership style as it will be
suitable for improving the effectiveness of the company and improve the performance in
terms of generating revenues. Through inclusion of Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory and Goal
Setting Theory, the needs of the different employees can be met and it will be effective in
managing performance of the entire company.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Problem description:..............................................................................................................3
Problem Analysis:..................................................................................................................5
Intervention/Change Program:...............................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The study directed towards individual and group performance with the activities in an
organization is known as organizational behaviour. The human behaviour or behaviour of the
staff is examined within an organizational environment along with the effect on performance,
motivation, structure, leadership and communication. Organizational behaviour acts as an
interface between the organization and human behaviour (Judge & Robbins, 2017). The
organizational behaviour in an organization can be addressed by the three categories, micro
level, which directs the focus at individuals at an organization, behaviour of an organization,
which is the macro level and work groups, commonly termed as the meso level. The purpose
of this paper is to address an organizational problem faced by a company followed by
recommending a change program based on the assessed problem. The organization selected
for this paper is Amazon. Amazon is a multinational company with its presence in all over
the globe. Although, the company is thriving with successful path in the e-commerce
business but reflects serious internal organizational problems, one of them is organizational
cultural problem. The paper will present well-designed change management activities, which
will address the issues arising from the identified problem of organizational culture. The
paper will be concluded by summarizing the issues with the addressal strategy.
Discussion
Problem description:
Amazon is huge multinational company working for addressing the needs of millions
of customer every day with a workforce of around 1500 employees in Australia. The rate of
employment of the full-time employees or staffs has doubled since the year 2017 launch in
the country. Although, the company has a picture of a well-structured efficiently working
environment due to the seamless flow of operation one experience while ordering from the e-

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commerce website (Kuvaas, Buch & Dysvik, 2018). However, the scenario of the internal
environment contradicts the whole expected picture of operational flow, especially at the
Amazon Australia warehouse. The recent launch of Amazon at Australia was one of the most
awaited incidences of Australian population. Prior to the launch of Amazon in Australia, the
customers of Amazon used to incur extra delivery cost and frequent varied prices due to the
delivery of product from U.S. warehouses.
The establishment of Amazon warehouse and e-commerce site was facilitated with
the motive of generating thousands of jobs and low-cost products for the Australian
population. The first fulfilment centre of Australia was established in the South East region of
Melbourne. The seamless flow of the Amazon’s supply chain network with the contribution
from cutting-edge technology allows the company to maintain the customer base with respect
to the customized needs and wide range of options, thereby enabling the practice of cost
cutting. The implication of advanced technology contributed in the success of the
multinational company. On the other hand, the same technological implication has affected
the employee satisfaction in the premises of Amazon warehouse, fulfilment centre or for back
office practices. The same technology is used for assessing and regulating each working
second of the employees or workers.
The aim of a company for establishing an ecosystem of technology should be directed
towards the improvement of operational flow, quality assessment and supplier inventory data
management. However, the technology is also intervening in the function of managing human
resources allotted for specific range of tasks and responsibilities. The employment state of the
company in Australia is associated with the sense of insecurity and unmanageable pressure
with the target of accomplishing unrealistic target; otherwise the actions may lead to the
condition of losing jobs.

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The relationship of the workers with the employers and bargaining power of the
workers are some of the concerning areas at Amazon. The corporate culture and environment
of the warehouse and fulfilment centre of Amazon has reflected a robotic approach with the
practice of exerting unrealistic pressure to the employees. The role of the warehouse workers
starts with handling electronic scanners, which direct the workers with the allotted aisle for a
specific delivery or products. In this process, when a product is scanned and loaded into the
cart for dispatch practices, the workers in the Amazon warehouse always feel under pressure
and under the watch, which negatively influence their motivation and willing engagement in
the complete operational process.
The practice of constantly monitoring and regulating the activities of the workers
from reaching to a product to dispatching the goods is very challenging for maintaining the
employee motivation and positive work culture at the Amazon workplace. Algorithms can be
crucial for maintaining a consistent quality of the services but if those algorithms that are
incorporated without understanding the impact on the employees or workers is very
challenging.
In accordance with various news channels, a large number of employees working in
the Amazon workplace have anonymously declared communicated about the harsh working
environment, which includes a high sense of fear and anxiety. Taking required breaks such as
refreshment and washroom breaks are seem challenging for the Amazon Australia workers.
Problem Analysis:
The identified problem or challenges in Amazon Australia has reflected the lack of
motivation, ‘human’ approach and lack of positive work culture in the warehouses or
fulfilment centre. The problems witnessed by the warehouse workers are affecting their sense
of mental peace, engagement in the allotted role and fear in terms of their job security. The

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complete process or flow of the workplace involves a robot-based approach. The constant
practice of timing the transition of a worker from one product to another and monitoring each
step with the help of technological devices may imply the lack of trust and ‘human’
relationship amongst the workers and the senior managers.
The lack of motivation amongst the employees or workers can be appropriately
associated with the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. This theory or model of motivation depicts
the stages of an individual motivation. In this theory, there are five categories of needs, which
need to be addressed by employer or organizational culture and through the allotted
responsibility, as it directly influences the rate of involvement and motivation of employees
in a workplace. For encouraging the efficient contribution of the workers in fulfilling the
expected goals of the company, the company also needs to understand the source of
motivation for the workers. Physiological needs of the employees involves the basic needs of
the workers, the safety needs of the employees reflects the aspects of employment, health and
personal security. The third category of need includes the need for experiencing sense of
connection and familiarity. Esteem needs includes the sense of freedom, strength, respect and
self-esteem. The category of Self-actualization demonstrates the need of accomplishing the
individual best (Mikkelsen, Jacobsen & Andersen, 2017). On the basis of these needs, it can
be deduced that Amazon workplace lacks the practice of accommodating safety needs, love
and belonging needs and esteem needs, which impacts the commitment of the workers
towards the allotted responsibility.
Another theory that can be associated with the identified problem at Amazon is goal-
setting theory. An ideal definition of goal is to have a complete knowledge about the
employee contribution, which needs to be executed through the investment of employee time
and efforts. On the basis of the goals set in the Amazon warehouse, the goals allocated to the
workers or employees are specific with benchmarks and targets, but there is huge gap in the

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employee’s sense of realistic target and that of the employers. Although, Amazon has
implemented the clarity of goals amongst workforce but have failed to involve or engage
workers in the decision making process. The top down approach in the workplace influences
the performance of the workers negatively. The four elements for the proper implementation
of a goal are, specificity in goals, explicitly in the time period, performance feedback and
engagement of employees in the decision-making process. The company lacks the important
element of engaging the employees in setting individual and group goals (Vibert, 2017).
Moreover, implementing advanced technology in the organization without the attempt of
aligning employee satisfaction or personal goal has majorly affected the overall employee
satisfaction, motivation and organizational culture of Amazon Australia.
Intervention/Change Program:
From the above analysis, it can be seen that Jeff Bezos has been constantly trying his
best to be at the top in the chart of the e-commerce companies. The officials along with the
employees are constantly trying their best to streamline their processes and eliminate the
different defects for driving the better customer along with employee experience. There is
utilisation of the different systematic methodologies for making the processes of work easier
as well as efficient inclusion of Kaizen program that was being named after Japanese term
meaning change for the better.
However, it has been noticed from conducting a survey among the different
employees working in the various departments of Amazon that employees are facing poor
working conditions and due to the same, it impacted their morale to a great extent. All these
was due to the ineffective kind of leadership style followed by Jeff Bezos and it impacted the
overall performance of the company to a large extent. In such scenario, there needs to be a
start to a change or intervention program that will be helping the company and the

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employees to feel that they are being valued and it will help them in performing efficiently as
well.
In the change management program, the first aspect which needs to be included is the
following of the 8 step Change Model formed by Kotter. In the respective scenario, there
should be creation of urgency and need for implementing the change is required to be done.
It is highly important for CEO and the other higher officials of the company to involve and
share information to influence the feelings of employees (Van der Voet, Kuipers &
Groeneveld, 2016).
Creation of the vision for change is the second element which needs to be adopted by
Amazon in which Jeff Bezos needs to change the style of leadership which is followed by
him as it will be making the employees feel that they are being valued (Arif et al., 2017). The
leader, i.e., the CEO of Amazon needs to define clear as well as compelling statement which
will be capturing the idea regarding what the firm does. In the respective scenario, Jeff Bezos
needs to understand the emotions of the employees and motivate them through both financial
as well as non-financial rewards (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016).
Communicating the same to the employees will be assisting them and making them
feel that they are the important asset of the company (Schmidt, Groeneveld & Van de Walle,
2017). Removing of the obstacles is the key criteria wherein professionalism needs to be
maintained along with being emotional with the different employees as they might be feeling
that they should be building on the change in a proper manner.
The creation of change and bringing the same can be challenging, however, in
order to successfully implement the same in Amazon, Jeff Bezos and the other higher
officials need to implement procedures through motivating the employees and taking their
views into consideration as well (Imran et al., 2016). The Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs and

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the Goal Setting theory are required to be incorporated for generating the successful
outcomes and keep up the curve for the continued success as well (Dievernich, Tokarski &
Gong, 2016).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that in order to solve the problem of the high
technological advancement and the robotic feeling in Amazon, there should be changes made
in the company that will be helpful for understanding the opinions and grievances of the
employees working. In Amazon, the main concern which has been noticed is related to the
poor working conditions and the ineffective style of leadership of Jeff Bezos. In such
scenario, the change management aspects can be incorporated wherein the Maslow’s
Hierarchy Theory can be incorporated for understanding the different basic needs of the
employees need to be satisfied as it will be helping them in boosting the morale and the
productivity can be increased to a large extent. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos needs to
understand that employees are the critical asset of the company and their opinions need to be
valued as well. These changes can be brought through communicating the same to employees
and enhancing their productivity individually. For the entire development of the company and
boosting the revenues of the company as a whole, the bringing in required changes are
necessary and inevitable in nature.

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