Human Resource Management of Amazon Training and Development

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT ▬▬▬▬๑๑▬▬▬▬ HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT Research training and development activities of Amazon Lecturer Nguy.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

▬▬▬▬๑๑๑▬▬▬▬๑

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT Research training and development activities of Amazon

Lecturer Nguyễn Thị Bích Ngọc Class Smart Operations Management in English Group 7 6 members

HA NOI, 2022

Executive Summary 3

Chapter I: Amazon Business Overview 5

1 Overview 5

Chapter II: Training and Development Analysis 10

1 Amazon Human Resources Strategy 10

1.1 Introduction 10

1.2 Amazon HR Strategy Approaches 10

1.3 Amazon Human Resource Management Analysis: Retention Rates 11

1.4 Amazon Human Resource Management: Recruitment Policies 12

1.5 Conclusion 12

2 Training and Development Program (Career Choice Program) 13

2.1 Determining training needs 13

2.2 Organization of training and development system 14

2.3 Planning Training and Development 14

2.4 Training and Development Program Evaluation 15

2.5 Staff Development 15

2.6 Result of Training and Development Program 16

2.7 Training and Development of Amazon in a new era 17

Chapter III: Evaluation 19

1 Advantages 19

2 Disadvantages, Solutions 20

CHAPTER IV: Conclusion 21

References 22

Executive Summary

The current SHRM assignment investigates Amazon, one of the most prosperous commerce companies the world has ever known It employs over 1 million people, of whom 34 work in its warehouses or fulfillment centers Amazon's goal of becoming the most customer-focused business on the planet is reflected in its HR management and functions The bar raiser program, which lets current Amazon employees assess a candidate's qualifications, skill set, and competencies before making a hiring decision,

e-is one of the company's most innovative hiring and selection practices In addition, Amazon recruits candidates for selection using its websites, job portals, referrals, and body shopping As of yet, Amazon has taken a different stance on layoffs and

generally opposes downsizing Due to the company's rapid growth to date, it has gained a reputation as one that makes numerous hires but only after a very rigorous hiring process Amazon receives high marks for being a learning organization, which can be seen in the way it encourages employees to innovate, try new things, and fail

As a result, the business values learning In terms of organizational structure, it has a functional structure where hierarchy is the norm and there are geographical divisions within the structure so that it can effectively handle the challenges posed by the

geographical location, such as logistics, compliances, and many other things

Recognizing the importance of training and developing human resources in the

process of creating competitive advantages and sustainable development of

enterprises, group 7 researched and made an essay with the topic: Researching

Amazon's training and development activities with the desire to provide an overview

of the implementation of human resource training and development policies in

enterprises dubbed the "giant" of Amazon e-commerce industry and the reason for its success in the field of human resource training In addition to group information, table

of contents, and references, the essay includes 3 chapters as follows:

Chapter I: Amazon Business Overview, Chapter II: Training and Development

Analysis, Chapter III: Evaluation, Chapter IV: Conclusion

The essay certainly still has shortcomings, group 7 is looking forward to receiving comments and suggestions from teachers and readers to improve the essay At the same time, Group 7 would like to thank Ms Pham Thi Bich Ngoc for creating an opportunity for the group to learn and research together about training and

development activities in particular and knowledge of Human Resource Management

in particular

Group Member Information

Lê Thúy Quỳnh 11203369 Leader, Doing Script,

Doing Slide.

Trần Thị Thùy Linh 11202307 Doing Script, Doing Slide Hoàng Nhật Nam 11202665 Doing Script,

Presentation Đào Thị Thanh Tâm 11206806 Doing Script, Doing Slide

Đỗ Thị Việt Hoa 11201526 Doing Script, Doing Slide Bùi Thị Thùy Dương 11200943 Doing Script,

Presentation

Chapter I: Amazon Business Overview

e-competitive application process, Amazon is a very large organization like Google, Apple, and Facebook It also has the largest e-commerce marketplace and cloud computing platform in the world, measured by revenue He began with an online bookstore before expanding to other goods and services, including self-video

downloads or streaming, MP3 downloads and streaming, audiobook downloads and streaming, software, video games, electronics items, clothing, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry items They have separate websites for different countries, as well as mobile apps that allow for flexible shopping with Amazon They also offer to ship to different countries from these websites

- History of the company

The demand for shopping has been growing since the early 1990s, particularly

in wealthy nations However, this is also a period when the Internet is

expanding When Jeff Bezos became aware of this, he launched Amazon, an online store Moreover, the website was formally established and launched in July 1995

A book was the very first thing that Amazon sold Additionally, now is the moment to officially switch from conventional to online book shopping Users get useful advantages via the new method of purchasing books in comparison

to customary purchases

Amazon has continued to grow by selling electronics, software, video games, clothing, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry, after years of expansion By marketcapitalization, Amazon surpassed Walmart in 2015 to take the top spot among retailers in the country Amazon greatly increased its foothold as a brick-and-mortar retailer in 2017 when it paid $13.4 billion to acquire Whole Foods Market

The market that Amazon taps into is also quite vast, global, and not limited to any one nation or area Bezos revealed that Amazon Prime, their two-day delivery service, had more than 100 million users globally in 2018

According to the company's yearly reports, as of 2021, Amazon has net assets worth around $470 billion and a net profit of more than $21.3 billion Over 50% of the company's revenue comes from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing division

- Business Sector

The main areas Amazon is focusing on are cloud computing, digital streaming, artificial intelligence and e-commerce, consumer electronics, and self-driving cars

- Business Philosophy

Four principles guide Amazon: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for innovation, commitment to operational excellence, and long-

term thinking Amazon aims to be Earth’s best employer, Earth’s best

customer-centric company, and Earth’s safest workplace

- Core Values

Amazon identifies four principles as its core values:

● Customer obsession rather than competitor focus

● Passion for invention

Amazon sees itself as an innovative business as well This may be the reason they've continued to create new goods and services throughout

time, such as Prime delivery, Kindle e-readers, and Amazon Web

Services, which serve as the foundation for the current global internet According to Amazon's About page, the firm encourages its staff to

"continue to explore for fresh ideas from any place," showing that it has

a love for innovation

● Commitment to operational excellence

Much of Amazon's devotion to its customers is driven by operational excellence; without an exceptional fulfillment operation, it is impossible

to deliver millions of packages each week within a two-day window

● Long-term thinking

In 1997, when so many businesses and investors were narrowly focused

on term profits, Amazon's dedication to long-term aims over term ones must have stood out But Amazon has demonstrated the value

short-of long-term planning: since going public in 1997, the stock price short-of the company has climbed by approximately 2000 times

2 Organizational structure of the company:

In Amazon's organizational structure, several business activities and components serve

as the foundation for establishing the interactions and reporting linkages between these various components

The organization is pretty obvious in the figure above:

First, at the top of Amazon's organizational hierarchy is Jeffrey Bezos, who serves as both the company's chief executive officer (CEO) and the principal decision-maker foreach subordinate board

- The second tier consists of the top executives who assist in running Amazon, such asthe chief financial officer (SVP & CFO), CEO of Worldwide Consumer, Director of Worldwide Controller, CEO of Web Services, and Director of Technology and DigitalMedia (SVP, Amazon Devices, Digital Management) These executives process information through the CEO's decisions and then pass it down to each lower

department to suit each need

- This personnel will be in charge of rolling out all of Amazon's customer services on the third tier

As you can see from Amazon's organizational structure, there are three main parts to it:

- A global umbrella hierarchy: Amazon is not the first company to employ this

strategy, which is employed by many others The top team members report directly to Jeff Bezos, who has the highest rank They have to answer him

- International groupings based on function: This is a crucial element of Amazon's organizational design The main objective of this project is to successfully enhance themanagement of the company's e-commerce operations Every industry comprises a dedicated team reporting to the senior manager, who may be the CEO or SVP, and an executive manager

- Geographical divisions having sub-divisions of their own: The corporation is known worldwide, although only the international and North American geographical divisions are taken into account here The commercial objectives and the geographic locations of the corporation are taken into account As a result, each problem in a different geographic area can be resolved effectively

well-Chapter II: Training and Development Analysis

1 Amazon Human Resources Strategy

1.1 Introduction

Amazon is known as one of the world's leading companies in the e-commerce

industry Therefore, this business always attracts a large number of potential

employees, business partners, and even competitors However, Amazon's human resource management strategies are not effective Therefore, the recruitment and retention strategy of this company is not well received by many candidates and

employees

1.2 Amazon HR Strategy Approaches

In any company, whether positive or negative, HR strategy has a profound effect on its employees Companies can increase or decrease the motivation of their employees

to work, maintain their dedication or prevent that dedication to the company Amazon

is one of the companies that has taken an innovative approach to recruit One of the innovative options Amazon has recently suggested in reaching its people is

“incentives” (Chalmers, 2018) In this strategy, Amazon has asked employees who do not want to continue working to quit and receive a salary corresponding to the number

of years they have worked with this company This strategy was initially tested at an Amazon subsidiary, Zappos (Chalmers, 2018) Initially, this strategy only applies to new hires who have only spent a few weeks with the organization However, it has been changed and maintained continuously

In running this strategy, every year Amazon asks employees who have worked for at least 12 months whether they want to quit and receive a salary that matches their experience This offer sounds tempting, but if the employee chooses to quit, the employee will not be able to apply for any more Amazon companies (Chalmers, 2018) Therefore, those employees must carefully consider their options In this way, Amazon was able to filter out those who lacked dedication to the company and retain employees who were loyal to them Although it may seem like the company will

suffer some financial disadvantage at first, in the long run, the company will only haveloyal employees who are willing to devote themselves to the organization.

Another very important strategy to improve employee performance, this strategy created to improve the performance of workers who are below the required level is titled Pivot (Howland, 2017) With this strategy, instead of having to work, employeeswill have the opportunity to receive more training and stay at the company This strategy will recommend ideas that are not part of the company's previous

performance improvement plan, including consulting with a career professional This specialist is responsible for supporting and guiding workers through the complex stages of the job

However, Amazon's human resources strategies were not accepted because it was perceived that the company lacked racial and gender diversity Approximately 58.3%

of employees were male and 61.7% of Amazon workers were white in 2018 (“Our Workforce Data,” nd) These statistics indicate that the company needs to improve its diversity efforts

And now, Amazon is working to improve its HR initiatives by offering some extra perks and bonuses These compelling benefits include healthcare, financial security, support networks, maternity and maternity leave, paid time off, and employee

discounts (Pratap, 2019) Another innovative innovation is the career options program,which allows hourly employees to develop their skills in a variety of environments and upfront 95% of their tuition fees (Pratap, 2019)

1.3 Amazon Human Resource Management Analysis: Retention Rates

After an article by Kantor and Streitfeld (2015) was published in the “New York Times,” there was a discussion surrounding Amazon’s retention strategy To get a deeper understanding of this issue, the two authors of the article contacted former employees of this company to gather accurate information from them These former employees shared that most of their co-workers often cried at the pressures of their managers Although the organization is very popular with customers, the conditions under which millions of people work to satisfy customer needs are often unbearable

(Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015) However, thanks to Amazon's constant motivational policies, those employees have surpassed their expectations Therefore, as Heskett (2015) observes, it is not possible to rely on low or high retention rates to ensure the success of a company To ensure that only the most committed employees stay with the company, Amazon may have to promote employee loyalty and persistence in the early stages of employment Another option is to let the results speak for themselves and ignore the retention rate.

1.4 Amazon Human Resource Management: Recruitment Policies

Finally, when discussing HR strategies, hiring processes cannot be ignored There is

an issue mentioned above that is the majority of men and white family members in this organization Therefore, people who are not in the above group will not be

favored by recruitment professionals However, Amazon has policies that for people not in the above group to get a job, they must perform better than others The

company treats this process with utmost responsibility and considers it better to

interview many people and to end the recruitment by not hiring the “wrong person” (Petrone, 2014, para 1) The “corner-by-corner” process for recruiting new employees

at Amazon is quite rigorous (Petrone, 2014, paragraph 2) The organization's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, considers its demanding approach to hiring the most prominent factor in Amazon's success

1.5 Conclusion

Amazon is one of the corporations known for its customer-friendly policies In

contrast, this company has very harsh policies and treatment of its employees

Although there are many benefits, to increase employee retention, they need to adjust their HR policies and change the way they behave towards employees, thereby

increasing loyalty employee achievement in a positive direction