TALENT MANAGEMENT IN AMAZON.COM
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Talent Management in Amazon.Com
Section1: Introduction
Talent management is critical for companies to be able to maintain a competitive advantage. With the increased competition in the business world today, companies have to find ways of overcoming the competition they face and stay ahead of the competitors. Working with talented employees increases the performance of a company. A good example is in the technology industry where there are many players and which compete by the ability to come up with new product features that attract more customers in the market. Talent management, in this case, is paramount in being able to recruit, retain and motivate innovative employees to give the company a competitive advantage (Bratton& Gold, 2012). This paper explores the people resourcing and development practices that can be adapted by businesses to overcome human resource issues associated with talent management. The focus will be made on Amazon.com a company. It is an online retailing business which has been facing challenges related to talent management that affects its performance. The company ranked among over 500 companies in the world with a high turnover rate of employees (Tuzuner 2009: 50). Many workers are employed by the company for approximately one year and then they shift to other businesses. However, Amazon.com has come up with strategies to ensure proper talent management and retaining in their company.
Section2: Talent Management
Talent management is a business loyalty to hire, maintain and develop the most gifted and advanced workers available in the job market. So, talent management is an important terminology when that illustrates a company’s commitment to employ, administer, build up and preserves creative workers (Mhapatra 2013: 250). It involves all the methodological work processes and structure that are related to maintaining and increasing a better workforce. It is usually a business strategy that many companies adopt. Implementation helps companies to easily retain their top best-talented employees (Kelliher & Anderson 2010: 95). Just like it is in employee’s participation or recognition it is a stipulated business approach that can ensure the attraction of the most capable workers for a preferable competition with other organizations.
Importance and Challenges facing Talent Management
(a) Importance
The human resource management considers employees with the right skills to be retained in their enterprises for long. It is crucial for the human resource management to keep the whole workforce occupied in their various roles. It provides them with a sense of belonging and advancement. However, it can be disadvantageous given a lot of tasks to handle alone (Taylor 2014: 1036). That is why many human resource managers depend on talent management strategy to streamline managerial processes. Getting the right data is also another importance of talent management. It involves taking the right planned decisions in the human resource domain since it relies on precise information. In most instances, the human resource manager knows that good data is hard to be achievable. Therefore there is a need to have the competent personnel to tackle the issues. That is where the talent management can help by mechanizing the main processes of helping people to get the data and making better decisions. Talent management also creates automate repetitive tasks. Some of the jobs like creating and updating leave information require talented personnel (Millmore 2003: 102). Though there are other tasks that can be automated to free, technical tasks require endowed human resources.
(b) Challenges
There are various challenges facing talent management. For instance getting and keeping enough workers at all levels to satisfy the organizational need of growth is hard. Though some organizations may train employees for long, they end up shifting to other enterprises. Guidance is also unavoidable because the highly skilled groups need a lot of expertise in the organization for business efficiency (Redman & Wilkinson 2009: 47). In order to get the best workers the in different specialized areas the company also has to invest in their training. However, it is time-consuming and costs a lot. It is also a long-term investment and many companies may choose house training to give all the required skills to the employees. Another challenge is those recruitment executives that don’t realize the importance talent management training to employees and the company. Technological and digital convergence factor have affected talent management (Taylor 2014: 1035). A recent report by the University of Oxford shows that the digital advancement has made most of the organizations lose a lot of talented personnel due to the replacement by digital gadgets. It is even stipulated that by 2030 there will be a reduction in workforce to artificial intelligence that will affect talent administration due to technological advancement.
People Resourcing and Development Practices
- Retention Strategies
(a) Reward Management
Compensation management is the key factor in Amazon.com for employee’s retaining. Apart from salaries, Amazon.com gives her employees gifts to motivate them (Mahapatra 2013: 145). Rewards usually encourage workers to work towards the set goals of the company. Therefore, maximum achievement of the organization becomes smooth and management due to better collaboration between the employers and the employees. Rewards that individuals receive from companies involve monetary and non-monetary components (CIPD 2012: 48). For instance, remuneration does not only recompense the employees for their efforts but also motivates them. However, it also impacts on the enrollment and the retention of the talented workers (Kelliher & Anderson: 94). The word reward management covers all the approach and the methods for the pay systems to motivate the employees to work their best way possible in the organization. In the past few years, the human resource management and the personnel section have been concerned with the of reward management for the employees together with the finance departments (Franca et al. 2012: 2010). However, there is a plan to integrate the human resource management and the monetary department in Amazon.com to boost talent administration in the company.
(b) Long Term Contracts
Amazon.com employs some of the most competent workers among many companies in the world. Long-term contracts are some of the criteria that the firm uses to retain the most skilled employees. For instance, in the year 1998 the company employed around 2,100 workers. Some of the employees are maintained even to date (Gold et al. 2010: 82. They utilize long-term contracts to induce division of labor and specialization, therefore, creating talent management in the organization. They also have self-governing contractors who serve the organization for the long time (Kispal et al. 2010: 466). Additionally, the agency’s workers are represented by the labor union to represent their employees. Competition for the qualified workforce in the company is intense and in most cases the software development and other technical staffs where the company struggles to maintain their long-term employees (Tuzuner 2009: 60). The long-term employment of the businesses strategy ensures the continued success of a business as they are able to maintain employees.
(c) Staff Motivation
Performance appraisal is one of the strategies that Amazon.com provides to the employees. Assessment enhances staff motivation-improving proficient performance in their areas of specialization. Additionally, it entails motivating the employees through promotions, rewards and also salary increment (Millmore 2003: 89). Any organization that involves its employees in their motivation enhancement has the best performing employees, and the output of the team also remains high. The most skilled employees in Amazon.com are promoted while others are given rewards to motivate them (Bratton & Gold 2012: 92). Motivation enables workers to specialize in their various specialized areas for the advantage of the company.
- People Development Practices
(a) Promotions
There must be a discussion by the managers on whether any individual in the company deserves to get a job promotion in the company it or not. The skillful performance of employees in the company are some the key factors. The promotion managers also play a vital role in enhancing any development (Akinson 1984: 30). For instance, if the person makes an efficient performance and requests for a promotion, it is easy if there is the clarification from the employer. A person waits for another 12 months for the development application to be approved. The debates on development take two different times of the year (Taylor 2014: 1055). The first meeting is usually in February or March. There is a keen observation of how the employee’s works to identify the one that is working well to get a promotion. The other meeting takes place in September or October and leaders of the company talk more about workers that would be getting the endorsement.
(b) Training in Different Areas of Specialization
Amazon.com is guided by the e-commerce of the four philosophies, long-term operations, passion for invention and commitment to the operational excellence. Therefore, the company is among the best businesses in the world that offer training for their different employees so that they can have advanced expertise in their various areas (Redman & Wilkinson 2009: 56). The company provides training for their various employees in their different areas of specialty. For instance, it has an extensive one-month training and leadership plan before they hire their employees. Amazon prepays 95% of tuition for the workers at fulfillment centers to take training (Macmillan & Harris 2009: 102). The company offers training to the clients to equip them with the necessary capability required by the organization.
Section3: Data Analysis of Amazon.com
(a) The problem
Despite being a market leader and pioneer in the online retailing business, Amazon.com faces a challenge in talent management. One of the key challenges that the company faces is high employee turnover where a significant number of talented and competent employees leave the company. According to Mahapatra (2013), Amazon.com was ranked as having the second largest employee turnover rates. In such a way, it means that the company continuously loses talented employees who have a sound understanding of the industry and customer expectations to competitors. The company also has to continually recruit new hires to meet the operation needs which are costly. Failure to resolve the issue could result to Amazon.com losing its competitive edge to other players that are joining the industry who can recruit and retain highly talented staff. The company, therefore, needs to adapt the right resourcing and development practices that will help to overcome the issue (CIPD, 2012).
(b) Causes
Extrinsic motivators in the company usually cause dissatisfaction if they are absent. However intrinsic motivators can give new enthusiasm. The reason for this is that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are free ones does not automatically increase the same way as the other decreases (Tuzuner 2009: 60). Sometimes Amzon.com Company does not apply the Herzberg two factors of motivation, and that is one of the factors that do not motivate workers to maintain their talent management in the company. Lack of rewards and motivation makes some employees lack incentive leading to low performance. Therefore, little output in the enterprise (Bratton & Gold 2012: 98). Lack of extrinsic factors also makes the workers lack the trust in the company, and they fail to exercise their talent management in the enterprise. For example, some people lose their jobs after serving a long time in the business (Macmillan & Harris 2009: 100). Their specializations in some of the talent areas are cut off making the company lose qualified workers.
(c) Solution
Amazon.com applies the theory of Herzberg’s two factors in motivating its employees. According to Herzberg, the motivation factor has two dimensions. The first one is the intrinsic motivators and the second one is the extrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivators create inspiration to the employees (Mahahpatra 2013: 159). However, extrinsic motivators reduce the motivation in case they are present. In Amazon.com, promotion rewards and any other kind of performance appraisal is the intrinsic motivator that the company uses. The strategy motivates workers to make the maximum effort for greater output of the group (Kellher & Anderson 2010: 93). The other intrinsic motivators that the company looks at are less tangible but more emotional needs such as acknowledgment relationships, challenging works and growth potential. The company also looks at extrinsic motivators that tend to be more tangible (Franca et al. 2012: 119). Some are basic needs such as security of job, salary and all other benefits that the employees should be catered for to retain the talent management in their areas of work. Additionally, the company offers job security for the employees to have a long-term relationship with the organization.
For efficient operations, competent administrators in Amazon.com are employed to accurately access the legal and the ethical relationships of the business transactions in the company. The act requires familiarity and the main principles of the international law (Redman & Wilkinson 2009: 80). It also requires the managers to understand the culturally broad ethical traditions in all the commerce transactions and relationships. Legal and moral aspects of the international trade are the authoritative law that guides Amazon.com management of the law and ethics in the global market (Torrington 2009 54). It provides the pathway through which managers successfully find the way to the ethical and the legal environment of the business in the whole world.
Section4: Recommendations and Conclusion
(a) Recommendations
The prosperity of Amazon.com talent management entirely depends on the managerial skill and employee’s collaboration. Though the company has applied the best ways in promoting talent among workers, their performance should still be improved for greater achievements. The company is also playing its role in enhancing the implementation of talent management through motivating their workers. Therefore, performances of appraisal are some of the notable acts that the company is pursuing to improve employee’s roles. Nevertheless, the company’s employment should also be higher to share the workload among the workers since it has a lot of workload for the current average number of employees. Though it has achieved much of its goals still there is more to be done. Through all the required strategies the company would be able to acquire the best international trademark which is their main target.
(b) Conclusion
There are various strategies that Amazon.com applies to retain their employees and boost the company’s talent management. For instance, reward management that entails gratifying the achievements of the workers is the primary method aimed at promoting their performance. Employees can work in a competitive environment still augmenting their aptitude. The business has also enacted some internal and external trading purposely to develop their employees tactically. All these methods enable the company to undertake various tasks without any problem. However, it is still faced with some managerial practices that the administrative department is also trying to sort out for the purpose of their quality production.
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