International Human Resource Management at Amazon: A Case Study

This case study examines Amazon's international human resource management practices, focusing on its strategic activities, performance management systems, and leadership approaches. The report delves into Amazon's adoption of a scientific HR model, emphasizing data-driven decision-making in areas such as recruitment, retention, and employee development. It explores how Amazon fosters a positive work environment through flexible working arrangements, training programs, and employee engagement initiatives. The study also addresses the challenges Amazon faces in international expansion, including labor laws, cultural diversity, and cross-cultural training needs. Furthermore, it analyzes performance management methods, including the annual stack ranking and anytime feedback models, and discusses the application of leadership theories such as contingency and trait theories, as well as the ACDC leadership model. The case study includes a review of Amazon's work culture and provides recommendations for improvement, emphasizing the importance of employee feedback, open communication, and effective rewards systems. The analysis highlights how Amazon integrates its HR strategies to overcome challenges and enhance organizational performance, making it a comprehensive overview of Amazon's HR practices.

International human resource management 0
International human resource management
Student’s Name
7/15/2019

International human resource management 1
Introduction
Amazon is an American multinational technology company that focuses on e-commerce,
cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. The company considers its
employees as the key ingredient for the success of the organization. It focuses on creating a
flexible working environment and engages employees to create higher job satisfaction. The
company focuses on bringing continuous innovations to satisfy the diverging needs of the
customers and become the Earth’s customer-centric company. The company focuses upon
transforming its HR function into scientific HR that helps in bringing operational efficiency
and solving the complexities through data-driven technology. The scientific HR model will
allow the company to retain the best talent and will sustain the competitive advantage of the
company (Amazon.com, 2019).
The further paragraphs of the reports will describe the strategic activities of Amazon and the
role of performance management in influencing employees. It will also cover the challenges
the company will face in international expansion and the HR goals of the company.
Case Study Answers
1. Amazon believes in becoming the Earth’s most customer-centric company where the
customers can easily discover and buy the things online. The mission of the company
is to provide utmost convenience to its customers through possible lowest prices and
best available selection. To achieve its vision and mission the company believes that
the human resource is the key source ingredient. It strives to recruit the best
employees and has the objective to become the most scientific HR organization in the
world. In order to achieve its HR objectives, the company applies scientific HR
model.

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Under the scientific model, the company focuses on the HR actions and resources and
involves in solving broad strategic business problems that will allow increasing
innovation and will leave a direct impact on revenue (Sullivan, 2018).
The HR decision making at Amazon relies on data-driven. The main function of HR
management i.e. recruitment, retention, incentive plan, and development is done on
the basis of the latest data. The company focuses on hypotheses testing to acquire and
retain the best talent and develops the most effective talent management techniques
through accurate experimentation. The adoption of the scientific HR model will allow
creating a continuous learning environment by adopting machine learning and
automatic feedback. It focuses on acquiring the best talent from all over the world and
become the most technically HR proficient organization in the world (Sullivan, 2018).
The scientific HR model fosters forward prediction and is future focused. It assumes
that the existing strategies will become obsolete and drives for continuous innovation.
The HR scientific model fosters to convert everything in digital form. It will focus on
analyzing the external environment and prioritize the performance of employees and
business to manage the short term and long term performance of the company. Such a
model will allow the company to expand its business on an international scale. The
human resource at Amazon performs the function of developing a harmonious
working environment and develops cordial working relationships. Human resource
management uses workforce planning. It uses strategic and operational workforce
planning to map the deficiencies in operations and effectively respond to future
changes in the environment. Such functioning and adoption of scientific HR model
will allow the company to sustain its competitive advantage and become the most
customer-centric online company (Jones et al, 2016).

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2. Amazon’s believes that human resource is the key ingredient for the success of the
enterprise. It adopts various strategic activities that help in developing a positive
working environment and cordial working relationships. Amazon focuses on
providing flexibility to the employees and provides the benefit of work from home or
from anywhere the employees feel. It focuses on developing effective training and
development that allows the employee to enhance their professional and personal
skills and further provides the opportunity of career advancement. It focuses on
creating a continuous learning environment and has developed an Amazon career skill
program that offers onsite and virtual classes to help the employees in growing
personally and professionally. The associate to the training program of Amazon
allows training technical skills and providing industry certificates to the employees.
Such training allows improving the quality of its employees (Noe et al, 2017).
To increase the employee commitment the company has designed various benefits
and perks for its employees. The company focuses on improving the well-being of its
employees and has provided medical, vision and dental coverage. The 401(K) plan
provides an investment opportunity and enables the employees to achieve their
financial goals. It provides paternal leaves, adoption assistance and paid holidays to
satisfy the employees. Amazon’s focuses on inclusive culture and engages employees
in decision making. The employees are provided with the flexibility to work in
accordance with their choice and create work-life balance to make the employees
happy and more dedicated towards the organization goals (Amazon.com, 2019).
Amazon effectively integrates the strategic activities to overcome the challenges and
issues in the performance of the organization. The creation of the learning
environment allows the employees to develop the skills for effective adoption of
innovation in the organization. The flexibility in the working schedules reduces the

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pressure on the employees and makes them more committed in managing complex job
roles. The benefits and the employee engagement in the decision making make the
employees feel valued and happy to contribute more towards the goals of the
organization. Such strategic activities help in creating a positive working environment
and improve the performance of the organization (Smither, Houston and McIntire,
2016).
3. In operating the business internationally, Amazon has to deal with the new labour
laws and tax liabilities. The global expansion of the business develops the need to hire
a culturally diverse workforce. It becomes necessary for the HR manager to
compliance with the labour laws and reduces the complexities faced by Amazon. The
company will face the issue in understanding the diverse cultural workforce. It
becomes difficult to understand diverse social practices (Farndale et al, 2019).
International expansion of the business will create the need for providing cross-
cultural training. It creates difficulty for the employees to understand the diverse
culture and creates culture shock. The company also faced the problem of expatriation
because the employees are not able to adjust to the new environment and result in
failure of the projects. It becomes difficult for the company to hire the right people at
the right time. It also faces the problem of internal conflicts because of differences in
perceptions and culture of employees (Evans et al, 2016).
In order to improve organizational performance, Amazon must focus on providing fair
and performance-based compensation. It must make a continuous analysis of the
performance through data-driven methods and effectively design the compensation
plans for them. The company must focus on adopting egalitarian practices and flat
organizational structure to provide equal respect and satisfaction to the employees.
The egalitarian culture will help in promoting new ideas flat organizational structure

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that will allow easy flow of communication and `will help in achieving the
organization goals. The company must focus on providing training on relevant skills.
It must provide sensitive and language training to remove the anxiety and involve the
employees to work collaboratively. The above mentioned HRM practices will allow
the company to expand its business operations and develop cordial working
relationships (Papa et al, 2018).
4. To review the work culture at Amazon I will focus on conducting the survey in the
form of questionnaire to analyze the perceptions of the employees and will focus on
conducting the team interaction activities to analyze the behaviour of the employees
and will gather the data from the responses of the employees. I will conduct the off-
the-shelf culture survey to analyze the opinion of the employees and will participate
in culture walk to analyze the organizational culture and the structure followed by the
company. It will help in analyzing the space, the common areas utilized by employees
and will analyze the tone of messages of the employees to analyze the amount of
satisfaction the employees have. The culture interviews will also help in gaining the
insight of the Amazon culture. Through the indirect questions, I will be able to
analyze the present working culture under Amazon (Antonsen, 2017).
To improve the working culture the HR must focus on developing the culture in
accordance with the feedbacks collected from the employees. The HR must be the
proactive cultural consultant to strategically align the culture plan with the goals of
the organization (Holck and Andreasen, 2018). The HR must focus on effectively
communicating the information and developing open communication culture to
incubate fresh ideas from the employees and creates a learning opportunity for
employees. HR must focus on addressing the problems faced by the employees and
must design excellent rewards for creating higher job satisfaction (Dixon, 2017).

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5. To analyze the performance of the employees Amazon uses annual stack ranking
method under which the performance of all the employees is measured right from the
onboarding process and the employee is retained when the company sees add up in
the matrices. It uses anytime feedback model under which the colleagues praise or
critique the employees. The company also uses white paper process under which the
employees write the ideas and the obstacles that will come in the implementation of
the new idea and also the ways to overcome them. The white paper process is used to
analyze the employee success and failures and is used as a tool for promotion and pay
increase of employees (Nawaz et al, 2016).
Performance management focuses on engaging the employees which further helps in
boosting the productivity of the employees and help the organization to achieve its
goals. It focuses on identifying the deficit gaps among the employees and employs
efficient training to allow the employees to learn the required skills and perform
complex job roles. Under the performance management system, HR designs rewards
and recognition for the employees to provide job satisfaction and develop cordial
relations among the employee and employer (Inside Amazon Videos, 2018). Increase
in job satisfaction makes the employees more dedicated to bringing innovation and
achieve the mission and vision of the company. The performance management system
allows the company to align the activities of the employees towards the goals of the
organization and provides value to the company (Rusu, Avasilcai and Hutu, 2016).
6. The contingency management theory designed by Fred Fiedler states that the
company cannot follow one management theory. In accordance with the theory, the
company gets influenced by the three factors i.e.the size of the organization,
technology, and style of leadership. This theory states that the company must focus on
adopting flexibility and must act in accordance with the current situation. It states that

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the leader must adopt the style according to the current situation of the business. This
theory allows the company to change its policies and adopt different leadership styles
according to the prevailing situations. It allows the employees to grow their business
ideas and allows the manager to enhance its leadership and decision-making skills
(Steinbach et al, 2017).
The trait theory of leadership focuses on developing and analyzing the traits that help
in achieving the goals of the organization. In accordance with this theory, the leader
has the traits to motivate people and has interpersonal skills to develop strong
relations with the team members. They have the confidence and the skills to bring
creativity in the organization and develop the need for achievement. They have the
ability to be flexible and adapt to the changes that allow the company to successfully
overcome the obstacles and ensure the growth of the company (Carleton, Barling, and
Trivisonno, 2018).
Amazon must focus on applying ACDC leadership model which provides the
stepwise approaches to inspire and motivate the employees to meet the goals of the
company. The model focuses on emotional intelligence, awareness about mind and
body and non-verbal communication. This model states that if the leaders of the
company will be aware of themselves they will be able to direct better and develop a
connection with the members. It will allow the leader to apply the transformational
style of leadership for easy adaption of changes and further will help the company to
develop innovations for becoming the most customer-centric company (Radda,
Majidadi and Akanno, 2015).
7. For the continuous development of the leadership skills at Amazon, the leader must
focus on being an effective listener. The leader must develop the ability to anticipate
problems and examining the bigger picture to effectively handle the fluctuations and

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must focus on continuous learning. To inspire the team members the leaders must
effectively communicate and must make the employees realize the importance of
change. The leader must effectively delegate the task to avoid the confusions and
reduces the interpersonal conflicts. The leader must focus on understanding the
problems faced by the employees and must develop constructive solutions for them
(Ardichvili, Nattoch Dag and Manderscheid, 2016). The leader must be disciplined in
his actions and must focus on adopting new project and complex roles to develop
more competencies and skills. The leader must be self-aware about his strengths and
weakness and must have the ability to regulate his emotions to control its emotions
and develop the ability to make rational decisions. The leader must develop the
quality of understanding the emotions of the team members to develop actions that
allow developing cordial relationships (Andrews, 2018).
Development of components of emotional intelligence among leaders will allow the
easy adaption of change and will help in reducing the resistance towards the change.
Understanding of the employees will allow better teamwork and efficient achievement
of the goals of the company. It will help the leader to develop good rapport and trust
among the members. The development of emotional intelligence skills allows the
leader to understand the emotions of its customers and develop more connection by
satisfying their emerging needs. It will help the company to achieve its mission of
becoming the Earth’s customer-centric company and will allow integrating its
strategic goals with the goals of the company (Serrat, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is critical to note that Amazon focuses on developing an
inclusive culture and creates a flexible learning environment. It focuses on continuous

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learning and development of skills among the workforce through efficient training programs.
In the international expansion, the company will face the challenge of culture shock and the
problem of expatriation. It is analyzed that the company must focus on adopting ACDC
model that will help in motivating and inspiring the workforce to adopt change.
It is analyzed that performance management plays a major role in improving the satisfaction
of the employees and boosting their productivity. The company must focus on designing
incentive plans and recognition for the employees and the leader must develop the emotional
intelligence skills to coordinate the efforts of the members towards the common goal. It must
focus on turning the HR function into scientific HR model.

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