HRM Challenges at Amazon: Retention and Technology Impact

This report examines the human resource management (HRM) challenges faced by Amazon, a multinational e-commerce giant with a vast global workforce. The study identifies two primary challenges: employee retention and the impact of rapid technological advancements. It analyzes these issues through the lens of the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) model, highlighting the importance of planning, job analysis, compensation, ethical practices, grievance handling, and environmental adaptation. The report emphasizes the need for Amazon to address employee dissatisfaction, adapt to technological changes through training and development, and foster a work environment that promotes employee engagement and innovation. The SHRM model is presented as a framework for proactively managing these challenges and developing effective strategies to ensure Amazon's continued success. The report concludes by underscoring the significance of proactive HRM practices in maintaining a skilled workforce and navigating the complexities of a rapidly evolving business landscape.

HUMAN RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The human resource management is a branch of management that consist with
monitoring and controlling the human resource i.e. employees of an organisation. The human
resource management also consists with development of numerous strategies and plans for the
purpose of enhancing the job satisfaction level of the employees from their working in the
company. Amazon is a multinational company that provides its products and services on online
platform. Recently, the company has employed more than 100 million employees. The present
study shows some major challenges that can be faced by the company in the near future relating
to management of its human resources. The present study evaluates to major problems of
Amazon i.e. lack of employment retention power and challenge that can be faced by the
company due to technological development.The challenges is being detected, analysed and
verified with the help of SHRM model that provides various stages through which various
challenges can be effectively analysed and solved through developing effective plans and
strategies for the company.
MAIN BODY
Human Resource Management (HRM) is an activity of managing employees and other
members working in an organisation. By Implementing & managing individual’s companies can
enhance their productivity & profitability. HRM plays a vital role in development of organisation
as employees are most important assets of company. Further, if employees are managed and
satisfied than their performance gets maximised. Companies who apply HR Practices in their
workplace organise training & development programme for their employees so that they can
adapt changes & innovations made in company. Further, compensation and other benefits are
also offered to employees with the purpose of acquiring & retaining talented staff at work place.
If an organisation is having talented and skilled work force than it can win over its
competitors and skilled staff also helps in enhancing brand image of company. Human Resource
Management works towards maximisation skills of its employees. Further, individuals of
company are managed according to policies and procedures followed by companies. HR
managers of company also does recruitment, selection, performance appraisal & reward
management activities. Further, this activity is also beneficial in managing & maintaining
relationship with company’s members and other members of industry. HRM enable employees
to achieve their organisational goals & success.

Currently I am working at Amazon Australia and I found that various changes are faced
by company such as Retention of Talented Employees with in organisation and changes in
Technologies. Both the challenges faced by company are discussed below-
Employees Retention is an activity through which company can retain its employees at
work place by appraising their performance and providing rewards to them. But Amazon faces
problem in retaining talented & skilled individuals in organisation as it offers its services in
many countries across the globe thus, for operating its business in Australia it requires
employees which are skilled in dealing with customers of Australia. Further, company also
required to spend money on improving performance & skills of employees which in turn reduces
profitability of company. To overcome for this challenge Human Resource Department of
company provide incentives, compensation, perquisites and conduct appraisal programmes for
employees so that company can acquire retain them (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017).
Innovation & Advancement in technology is an another challenge faced by Amazon as
technology is changing at a faster rate and it is important for company to adapt all type of
changes introduced in technology. If company is not able to adapt changes & innovations made
in company than it directly affects profits, market share and customer base of company. Thus, it
is also a challenge faced by company. For managing this challenge Human Resource Department
of company is required to give training to employees so that they can implement new
technology. HR department also motivate & encourage its employees to create new innovative
ideas at work place and it also organise programmes for recruitment & selection of new
employees at work place which are good at technology (DeCenzo Robbins and Verhulst, 2016).
Strategic Human Resource Management Model (SHRM)
SHRM Model is used by human resource department of Amazon to manage and maintain
career of managers this department. This model helps in developing careers and profession of
human resource managers working in the company. This model is also beneficial for company in
competing with other companies which are offering products & services same as Amazon.
Various stages are involved in this model through which company can also improve skills and
knowledge of its staff members. This model is used in day to day operations of company. SHRM
Model include different stages such as Human Resource Planning, Job Analysis, Job Design,
Compensation, Grievance Handling, Ethics & Environment.

Human Resource Planning- According to SHRM Model, Human Resource Planning is
essential to analyse need of individuals within the organisation. As to how many number of
individuals are needed in company so that it can achieve its future goals & objectives. A
systematic plan is made so that human resources can achieve current & future goals by using
other resources of organisation (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Job Analysis & Design- Job Analysis & Design is an activity through which Human
Resource department of company analyse requirements of jobs and duties & skills required in
individual for a particular job. According to skills and responsibility of a particular task HR
mangers design job role for its members.
Compensation- Compensation is a process of reward management through which helps
in retaining employees. As in this process rewards and benefits are given to individuals
according to their performance which further beneficial in improving performance of employees
of firm.
Ethics- For Improving efficiency of performance of companies individuals and to
achieve organisations objectives on time HR Managers of company are required to conduct
training of its employees so that they work by following all ethics, values and legal provisions
applicable to company (Cascio, 2015).
Grievance Handling- According to this stage HR manager of company take care of all
the problems faced by its employees while performing company’s operations. If problems of
individuals of company gets resolved on time than they improve their efficiency and enhances
their morale which in turn improve problem of employee’s retention in company.

Disciplinary Action- HR managers of company also encourage & motivate its members
to make discipline at work place. For this managers of company formulate & regulate rules and
guidelines for individuals so that they can maintain discipline this future and it further can be
beneficial for company in achieving success in future.
Environment- Environmental Factors affects operations of Amazon. For which HR
mangers conduct development programmes which helps individuals to adapt changes and
develop innovative ideas so that they can implement them in adverse situations perform their
Illustration 1: SHRM Model
(Source: Proposed model for strategic human resource management, 2019)

task. All this stages are helpful for Human Resource Managers of Amazon in managing
challenges faced by company (Noe and Wright, 2017).
Being a multinational company that performs its business activities and provide its goods
and services on online basis, it needs to keep doing technological changes in the business.
Frequent development of technology needs to provide continuous training and development to
the employees (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). This process needs a huge cost and time of the
company. In this regard, it can be treated as a huge challenge for Amazon.
Further, for the purpose of adopting the technological changes within the company in an
effective way, it is important to making each of the employee comfortable with the changes
whose job performing process is going to be affected with the changes made by the company. It
can be detected with the help of job analysis and design stage of the SHRM model. It can help
the managers in detecting various job positions that is going to be affected by the company'
decision of bringing technological changes in the company. Further, with the help of grievance
handling process, the managers can determine the problems of employees with the changes made
by the company. By solving those problems, they can make workers comfortable with the
changes.
In addition, by taking disciplinary action, the human resource managers of Amazon can
make the employees to adopt the changes and enhance their ability and skills of working with the
help of training and development programmes conducted by the business organisation
(Morgeson. and et.al., 2018). Furthermore, the human resource managers are also needed to
develop such an environment in the company in which workers' ability to adopt the changes can
be developed and improved as well. In this order, by using various stages of SHRM model,
company can face the challenge of technological advancement in the company.
Another major problem faced by the Amazon Australia is reduction in the employee
retention power of the company. Due to lack of coordination among employees, unethical
behaviour of employees, the working environment of the company may get effected (Brewster
and Houldsworth, 2016). In addition to these components, there are also various some other
factors due to which the employee dissatisfaction can be enhanced in the company that may lead
in reducing the employee retention power of the company.

With the help of SHRM model, Amazon can detect the problem of lack of employee
retention power in advance by developing effective strategies and plans for the human resources
of the company. Further, by analysing the performance and interest of the employees in
performing their job in the company. With the help of analysing the change in interest of
employees, Amazon can easily detect the problem of lack of interest, the challenge of reduction
in the employee retention problem can be predicted by the human resource managers. This
problem can be solved by the managers by redesigning the job structure in the business. They
can develop new policies and procedures fir performing jobs in the Amazon. By developing
more interesting procedure, they can build and enhance the interest of existing employees of the
company.
Further, as per the model, Amazon should provide appropriate amount of compensation
to the employees. It is the major source of providing job satisfaction to workers. Moreover,
human resource managers should also keep in touch with the workers of the company. They
should provide a certain platform to them where they could shoe their grievances from the
company relating to their work, organisational environment or from any other, factor relating
their job in the company. It would help the company in maintaining and enhancing the job
satisfaction in the company and sustain them with the company for long time.
It can lead in making them sustaining with the company for the long period of time and
maintain the employee retention with it as well so that it can be able to retain the talent and skills
with the company itself.
In this regard, it can be analysed that the SHRM model can help the managers in
detecting various challenges that can be faced by the Amazon in near future (Brewster,
Mayrhofer and Morley, 2016). Further, it can also help the managers in developing various plans
and policies for the business so that it can effectively respond to those challenges.
CONCLUSION
From the analysis of the above essay, it can be concluded that, the Amazon is one of the
leading brand at international level. The company has employed a range of employees in the
company worldwide. Due to having a range of employees, a company may face huge challenges
relating to the human resource management in the company. Further, the study has also
concluded that SHRM model can be used for the purpose of detecting various future problems
that may face by the business organisation in the near future. In this regard, the company can

develop effective plans and strategies for the business so as to develop the ability of the business
to face those problems easily.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Noe, R.A. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive
advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Cascio, W.F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
DeCenzo, D.A., Robbins, S.P. and Verhulst, S.L., 2016. Fundamentals of Human Resource
Management, Binder Ready Version. John Wiley & Sons.
Chelladurai, P. and Kerwin, S., 2018. Human resource management in sport and recreation.
Human Kinetics.
Brewster, C. and Hegewisch, A. eds., 2017. Policy and practice in european human resource
management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield survey. Taylor & Francis.
Morgeson, F. P. and et.al., 2018 Job and work analysis: Methods, research, and applications
for human resource management. Sage Publications.
Brewster, C. and Houldsworth, E., 2016. International human resource management. Kogan
Page Publishers.
Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W. and Morley, M. eds., 2016. New challenges for European resource
management. Springer.
Online
Proposed model for strategic human resource management. 2019. [ONLINE] Available through:
<http://bankofinfo.com/proposed-model-for-strategic-human-resource-management-in-
bangladesh/>