Leadership and Diversity: Strategies for Amazon's Workforce

This presentation examines leadership strategies for managing a diverse workforce, using Amazon as a case study. It begins by outlining the challenges of a diverse workforce, such as communication barriers and cultural differences. The presentation then details Amazon's diversity practices, includi...Read More

DIVERSITY IN EMPLOYEE
CULTURE

CHALLENGES OF A DIVERSE
WORKFORCE
• Coping up with the cultural differences amongst the employees
of various backgrounds
• Aligning the mindset of the members with the goals of the
organization
• Huge gap in communication as language is a barrier in diverse
workforce (Garcia and Alexander)
• Implementation of the processes from the various creative
designs of diverse employees
• Secluding biasness and managing the training program with
success

COMPANY OVERVIEW- AMAZON
• The largest organization of electric commerce throughout the
world
• Based in America, it has its headquarters in Seattle, Washington
• The founder of the organization is Jeff Bezos and the year of
foundation is 1994
• Popular as the largest online retailer of America, it started its
online services in 1995 (Diversity And Inclusion)
• The company was originally an ‘online bookstore’ but now it sells
a variety of products like games, foods, jewelries, clothes and
many more

DIVERSITY PRACTICES AT
AMAZON
• AWE- Amazon Women in Engineering, a program for the female technical
experts to contribute in the organization
• Amazon Warriors- Recruits military talents who have served their
country’s military programs
• AmazonPWD- A diversity program to recruit the physically disabled
people who still have the talent to serve the organization
• ASIANS@AMAZON- A program to recruit people from diverse
background throughout the Asian countries
• Black Employee Network- To overcome racism and recruit more
employees with black skin color

LEADERSHIP SKILLS FOR A DIVERSE
WORKFORCE
• Creating an all-inclusive environment by engaging all types of
employees in the workplace
• Incorporating training facilities to make the employees aware
about diversity and its positive outcomes
• Overcoming biasness and avoid conflicts between diverse
employees in an unbiased manner (Markova and Svetlana)
• Guiding the employees to adapt a common language for open
and transparent communication

PERSONAL LEADERSHIP
EVALUATION
The leadership skills that I possess to manage diversity at the
workplace are:
• Generating free communication amongst the employees to
exchange thoughtful ideas
• Engaging all the employees to shift from design to
implementation process
• Removing gender diversity by treating men and women
equally
• Influencing the employees to incorporate a positive attitude
towards diversity

PERSONAL LEADERSHIP
EVALUATION
The leadership skills that I lack in managing a diverse
workforce are:
• Overcoming the communication barrier due to the
difference in mother tongue
• Reducing the work pressure and maintaining work-life
balance due to inefficiency in assessing the capability of
the employees
• Resolving conflict situations at ease without generating
biasness and removing favoritism concept

MAXIMIZING STRENGTH & IMPROVING
WEAKNESS
• Improve communication within the employees by adapting one
single language for effective and transparent discussion
• Recruit equal number of men and women to promote equality in the
work sphere
• Conduct training programs to convince the employees against
racism, biasness and promote the positives of diverse workplace
• Deal the conflict situations from a neutral perspective to seclude
favoritism or biasness

LEADERSHIP SKILL TAKEAWAY FOR PROFIT
• A successful leadership in a diverse workplace can engage all the
employees in productive work with unique solutions.
• This helps to gain customer satisfaction leading to an increase in the
customer base.
• The organization thus can incorporate more profits from the existing
as well as the new customers.

LEADERSHIP SKILL TAKEAWAY FOR
EXPENSES
• An effective leader in a diverse workplace will focus on establishing
proper inter-communication amongst the employees.
• Hence, the leader needs to arrange for training programs that will
rise the expenses for the organization.
• However, the expenses on training is an investment that will
produce effective results by increase in productivity of the
organization (Kaushik, Christine and Diana).

LEADERSHIP SKILL TAKEAWAY FOR
PRODUCTIVITY
• In a diverse workplace a successful leader should be able to involve
the members in the organization and deal them without favoritism.
• A positive influence of the leader will help to increase the production
of the organization and motivate the employees in working together.
• An effective leader can influence the employees to exchange
innovative ideas and put them in process to enhance production.

REFERENCES
"DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION". US ABOUT AMAZON, 2020,
HTTPS://WWW.ABOUTAMAZON.COM/WORKING-AT-AMAZON/DIVERSITY-AND- INCLUSION.
GARCIA, NIDA H., AND ALEXANDER S. ACOSTA. "FROM LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTION TO
LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTION: PROVERSIFIED LEADERSHIP SKILLS AND ABILITIES OF
PHILIPPINE SCHOOLS OVERSEAS (PSO’S) ADMINISTRATORS." (2017).
KAUSHIK, VIBHA, CHRISTINE A. WALSH, AND DIANA HAEFELE. "SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF
IMMIGRANTS WITHIN THE LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE WORKPLACE: A SYSTEMATIC
REVIEW." REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES 1.1 (2016): 15-25.
MARKOVA, MARIYA, AND SVETLANA TODOROVA. "A MODEL OF SKILLS AND ACTIVITIES FOR
MODERN LEADERS AND MANAGERS IN ENABLING MANAGERIAL LEADERSHIP PROCESS IN
ORGANIZATIONS." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, COMMERCE AND
MANAGEMENT 2.12 (2017): 64-94.