Human Resource Management: Analysis of Amazon's HRM Practices

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amazon's Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. It begins with an introduction to Amazon and its business principles, followed by a discussion of the positive aspects of its HRM, such as diversified hiring and employee motivation through awards and recognition. The report then delves into the negative aspects, including concerns about employee overwork, health, safety hazards in warehouses, and the lack of diversity in top management. Based on these findings, the report offers several recommendations for improvement, including establishing a dedicated safety department, aligning with international safety standards, promoting ergonomic workplaces, focusing on quality over speed, and improving diversity in top management. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of prioritizing employee health, safety, and effective HRM practices.

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Human Resource Management: Amazon
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Positive aspects of HRM........................................................................................................2
Negative aspects of HRM......................................................................................................3
Recommendations for improvement......................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Amazon.com, Inc. was established in the year 1996. They are online retailers who sell
books, electronics, household items and many other miscellaneous articles. The company is a
highly competitive company and is one of the leaders in the industry. Due to their high
competitive business strategy, they have been able to create a performance and satisfaction
standard for the consumers (Who we are. US About Amazon, 2020). Their four principles of
conducting business is to obsess about customer service rather than focusing on the
competitor, invention and innovation. Committing to excellent operation and thinking about
long-term impact and outcome, which incorporates both their mission, vision and sustainable
business thinking. The company employs more than 7,50,000 employees all over the world
(Amazon: number of employees 2018 | Statista. Statista. 2020). Working environment is non-
unionized and they believe in speed and accuracy, which means they must maintain a
competitive environment in the workplace. Due to their commitment to timely delivery, the
company warehouses and distribution centers have both humans and robots working
alongside the other.
Discussion
Positive aspects of HRM
The positive aspects of Amazon’s Human Resource Management is their diversified
hiring process. They hire top talents from almost all the industries such as MBA graduates,
military spouses, war veterans and other professional personnel. They believe in innovation
and provides the employees to work in similar environment. Their motto is to retain those
talents and that requires motivating the employees and providing them with positive
environment (Who we are. US About Amazon, 2020). Their select awards and recognition

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program and employee appraisal ensure that the employees receive increment and bonuses as
per their performance. This increases their morale and motivation for being dedicated more to
work.
They have included people belonging to diverse culture and background into their
company so that diverse perspectives can be gained. They know that they must include
people from different cultures and regions or they make their talent pool small. They also
maintain women representation in the workforce. They also have incentives and awards for
performance as well as performance based appraisals. The human resource management
works for talent management and retention, inclusion and diversity as well as proper
compensation and benefit system which constitutes a complete approach to effective human
resource management in the company.
Negative aspects of HRM
The most problematic aspect of Amazon’s human resource management is their
importance to speed and accuracy, which leads to employee overwork, health, and safety
hazards. In recent few months, Amazon has been featured in the new multiple time, all for the
record of being among the most unsafe workplaces (Evans, 2019). As the warehouses have
both machines, robots and humans working together and they demand complete dedication
from their employees, it is their duty to provide them with a secure environment and safe
workplace. They also must ensure that the work requirements does not create any permanent
injury or disability to the workers (Spitznagel, 2019). There have been more than 400 injury
cases in busy warehouses, which is concerning number. It implies that the necessary health
and safety support are not present in most of the centers.
Another issue that appears in the Human Resource Management of Amazon is the
lack of diversity and gender equality in the top management. Though the company has

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claimed gender equality and diversity as their human resource responsibilities, in the top
management, only one or two women are present which makes the balance quite problematic
(Kim, 2017). Moreover, they have not given any effort to include other genders like the
LGBTQ+ community or indigenous community in their top management.
Recommendations for improvement
Analyzing the situation and the drawbacks of current HRM practices in Amazon the
following course of action can be recommended:
 The company needs to establish a separate department that will take care of the safety
needs of the fulfilment centers and warehouses (Sorensen et al., 2018). This would
ensure that the safety measures are taken seriously and there is an independent
department taking care of the necessary safety requirements.
 They need to look at the different safety standards of the countries in which they
operate. Different countries have different safety requirements and standards. While
some countries are extremely particular about the worker safety protocols, some are
not (Grossmeier et al., 2016).
 The company can perform a safety inspection or audit to understand the gap that they
have in safety measurements. This will require involvement of independent
organizations and personnel that will give them unbiased report. They might also
consider establishment of ergonomic workplaces to increase employee comfort (Org
et al., 2018).
 The company needs to focus more on quality delivery rather than pace. Overworking
the employees leads to employee burnout. Employees overstraining themselves might
be injured at work, becoming unable to continue work.

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 There Human resource department should keep doctors and medical aid at the sights
where heavy lifting and transport are done. They might also take the help of the
automation to lift and segregate products so that the employees are not affected
(Duarte & Kuwahara, 2017).
 In order to fulfill the gap in inclusiveness in the top management, the company should
ensure that they promote people based on performance and ensure that women fills
one third of the positions and another one-third by the other ethnic communities.
 The company should create strategies for top talent retention and recognition system.
It can be done effectively by ensuring a performance based appraisal system, which
enables the talented employees, irrespective of their background to reach to top
management positions (Devillard, Hunt & Yee, 2018).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Amazon has issues related to
safety of the employees and diversity at the top management. Several methods can be used to
address the issues that surface in the organization. They are in need of safety maintenance
and better human resource management. Considering the recommendations, the company can
ensure that they keep employee health and safety as their foremost responsibility and improve
their approach to HRM.

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References
Amazon: number of employees 2018 | Statista. Statista. (2020). Retrieved 23 March 2020,
from https://www.statista.com/statistics/234488/number-of-amazon-employees/.
Devillard, S., Hunt, V., & Yee, L. (2018). Still looking for room at the top: Ten years of
research on women in the workplace. McKinsey Quarterly, 2, 106-115.
Duarte, R. C. D. S., & Kuwahara, N. (2017). Ergonomic intervention at loads storage and
transfer on vessels of Amazon State. Product: Management & Development, 8(1), 61-
70.
Evans, W. (2019). Ruthless Quotas at Amazon Are Maiming Employees. The Atlantic.
Retrieved 23 March 2020, from
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazon-warehouse-reports-
show-worker-injuries/602530/.
Grossmeier, J., Fabius, R., Flynn, J. P., Noeldner, S. P., Fabius, D., Goetzel, R. Z., &
Anderson, D. R. (2016). Linking workplace health promotion best practices and
organizational financial performance: tracking market performance of companies with
highest scores on the HERO scorecard. Journal of occupational and environmental
medicine, 58(1), 16-23.
Kim, E. (2017). Here's who really runs Amazon — and only 2 of the top 38 execs are women.
CNBC. Retrieved 23 March 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/28/who-are-
amazons-top-executives.html.
Org, A., Sorensen, G., Sparer, E., Williams, J. A., Gundersen, D., Boden, L. I., ... &
Okechukwu, C. A. (2018). Measuring Best Practices for Workplace Safety, Health.

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Sorensen, G., Sparer, E., Williams, J. A., Gundersen, D., Boden, L. I., Dennerlein, J. T., ... &
Pronk, N. P. (2018). Measuring best practices for workplace safety, health and
wellbeing: The Workplace Integrated Safety and Health Assessment. Journal of
occupational and environmental medicine, 60(5), 430.
Spitznagel, E. (2019). Inside the hellish workday of an Amazon warehouse employee.
Nypost.com. Retrieved 23 March 2020, from https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-
the-hellish-workday-of-an-amazon-warehouse-employee/.
Who we are. US About Amazon. (2020). Retrieved 23 March 2020, from
https://www.aboutamazon.com/who-we-are.