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OB Assignment

Organisational Behaviour (Federation University Australia)

StudeerSnel wordt niet gesponsord of ondersteund door een hogeschool of universiteit

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Executive Summary

The purpose of the paper was to identify a problem in an organization and assess the concern based on the

organizational behaviour theories or models. The paper identified the problem of employee satisfaction,

motivation and organisational culture in Amazon Australia. The problem was assessed based on the theories such

as Maslow Need Hierarchy theory and Goal Setting Theory.

In the last section, the change or the intervention program has been discussed which includes the motivation

programs that can be incorporated by Amazon officials for making the employees feel that they are the integral

part of the company and they should be valued. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos needs to change the leadership

style as it will be suitable for improving the effectiveness of the company and improve the performance in terms

of generating revenues. Through inclusion of Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory and Goal Setting Theory, the needs of

the different employees can be met and it will be effective in managing performance of the entire company.

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Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Discussion..................................................................................................................................3

Problem description:..............................................................................................................3

Problem Analysis:..................................................................................................................5

Intervention/Change Program:...............................................................................................7

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The study directed towards individual and group performance with the activities in an organization is

known as organizational behaviour. The human behaviour or behaviour of the staff is examined within an

organizational environment along with the effect on performance, motivation, structure, leadership and

communication. Organizational behaviour acts as an interface between the organization and human behaviour

(Judge & Robbins, 2017). The organizational behaviour in an organization can be addressed by the three

categories, micro level, which directs the focus at individuals at an organization, behaviour of an organization,

which is the macro level and work groups, commonly termed as the meso level. The purpose of this paper is to

address an organizational problem faced by a company followed by recommending a change program based on

the assessed problem.

The organization selected for this paper is Amazon. Amazon is a multinational company with its presence in all

over the globe. Although, the company is thriving with successful path in the e-commerce business but reflects

serious internal organizational problems, one of them is organizational cultural problem. The paper will present

well-designed change management activities, which will address the issues arising from the identified problem of

organizational culture. The paper will be concluded by summarizing the issues with the addressal strategy.

Discussion

Problem description

Amazon is huge multinational company working for addressing the needs of millions of customer every

day with a workforce of around 1500 employees in Australia. The rate of employment of the full-time employees

or staffs has doubled since the year 2017 launch in the country. Although, the company has a picture of a well-

structured efficiently working environment due to the seamless flow of operation one experience while ordering

from the e-commerce website (Kuvaas, Buch & Dysvik, 2018). However, the scenario of the internal

environment contradicts the whole expected picture of operational flow, especially at the Amazon Australia

warehouse. The recent launch of Amazon at Australia was one of the most awaited incidences of Australian
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population. Prior to the launch of Amazon in Australia, the customers of Amazon used to incur extra delivery cost

and frequent varied prices due to the delivery of product from U.S. warehouses.

The establishment of Amazon warehouse and e-commerce site was facilitated with the motive of

generating thousands of jobs and low-cost products for the Australian population. The first fulfilment centre of

Australia was established in the South East region of Melbourne. The seamless flow of the Amazon’s supply

chain network with the contribution from cutting-edge technology allows the company to maintain the customer

base with respect to the customized needs and wide range of options, thereby enabling the practice of cost

cutting. The implication of advanced technology contributed in the success of the multinational company. On the

other hand, the same technological implication has affected the employee satisfaction in the premises of Amazon

warehouse, fulfilment centre or for back office practices. The same technology is used for assessing and

regulating each working second of the employees or workers.

The aim of a company for establishing an ecosystem of technology should be directed towards the

improvement of operational flow, quality assessment and supplier inventory data management. However, the

technology is also intervening in the function of managing human resources allotted for specific range of tasks

and responsibilities. The employment state of the company in Australia is associated with the sense of insecurity

and unmanageable pressure with the target of accomplishing unrealistic target; otherwise the actions may lead to

the condition of losing jobs.

The relationship of the workers with the employers and bargaining power of the workers are some of the

concerning areas at Amazon. The corporate culture and environment of the warehouse and fulfilment centre of

Amazon has reflected a robotic approach with the practice of exerting unrealistic pressure to the employees. The

role of the warehouse workers starts with handling electronic scanners, which direct the workers with the allotted

aisle for a specific delivery or products. In this process, when a product is scanned and loaded into the cart for

dispatch practices, the workers in the Amazon warehouse always feel under pressure and under the watch, which

negatively influence their motivation and willing engagement in the complete operational process.

The practice of constantly monitoring and regulating the activities of the workers from reaching to a

product to dispatching the goods is very challenging for maintaining the employee motivation and positive work

culture at the Amazon workplace. Algorithms can be crucial for maintaining a consistent quality of the services

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but if those algorithms that are incorporated without understanding the impact on the employees or workers is

very challenging.

In accordance with various news channels, a large number of employees working in the Amazon

workplace have anonymously declared communicated about the harsh working environment, which includes a

high sense of fear and anxiety. Taking required breaks such as refreshment and washroom breaks are seem

challenging for the Amazon Australia workers.

Problem Analysis

The identified problem or challenges in Amazon Australia has reflected the lack of motivation, ‘human’

approach and lack of positive work culture in the warehouses or fulfilment centre. The problems witnessed by the

warehouse workers are affecting their sense of mental peace, engagement in the allotted role and fear in terms of

their job security. The complete process or flow of the workplace involves a robot-based approach. The constant

practice of timing the transition of a worker from one product to another and monitoring each step with the help

of technological devices may imply the lack of trust and ‘human’ relationship amongst the workers and the senior

managers.

The lack of motivation amongst the employees or workers can be appropriately associated with the

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. This theory or model of motivation depicts the stages of an individual motivation.

In this theory, there are five categories of needs, which need to be addressed by employer or organizational

culture and through the allotted responsibility, as it directly influences the rate of involvement and motivation of

employees in a workplace. For encouraging the efficient contribution of the workers in fulfilling the expected

goals of the company, the company also needs to understand the source of motivation for the workers.

Physiological needs of the employees involves the basic needs of the workers, the safety needs of the employees

reflects the aspects of employment, health and personal security. The third category of need includes the need for

experiencing sense of connection and familiarity. Esteem needs includes the sense of freedom, strength, respect

and self-esteem. The category of Self-actualization demonstrates the need of accomplishing the individual best

(Mikkelsen, Jacobsen & Andersen, 2017). On the basis of these needs, it can be deduced that Amazon workplace

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lacks the practice of accommodating safety needs, love and belonging needs and esteem needs, which impacts

the commitment of the workers towards the allotted responsibility.

Another theory that can be associated with the identified problem at Amazon is goal-setting theory. An

ideal definition of goal is to have a complete knowledge about the employee contribution, which needs to be

executed through the investment of employee time and efforts. On the basis of the goals set in the Amazon

warehouse, the goals allocated to the workers or employees are specific with benchmarks and targets, but there is

huge gap in the employee’s sense of realistic target and that of the employers. Although, Amazon has

implemented the clarity of goals amongst workforce but have failed to involve or engage workers in the decision

making process. The top down approach in the workplace influences the performance of the workers negatively.

The four elements for the proper implementation of a goal are, specificity in goals, explicitly in the time period,

performance feedback and engagement of employees in the decision-making process. The company lacks the

important element of engaging the employees in setting individual and group goals (Vibert, 2017). Moreover,

implementing advanced technology in the organization without the attempt of aligning employee satisfaction or

personal goal has majorly affected the overall employee satisfaction, motivation and organizational culture of

Amazon Australia.

Intervention/Change Program

From the above analysis, it can be seen that Jeff Bezos has been constantly trying his best to be at the top

in the chart of the e-commerce companies. The officials along with the employees are constantly trying their best

to streamline their processes and eliminate the different defects for driving the better customer along with

employee experience. There is utilisation of the different systematic methodologies for making the processes of

work easier as well as efficient inclusion of Kaizen program that was being named after Japanese term meaning

change for the better.

However, it has been noticed from conducting a survey among the different employees working in the

various departments of Amazon that employees are facing poor working conditions and due to the same, it

impacted their morale to a great extent. All these was due to the ineffective kind of leadership style followed by

Jeff Bezos and it impacted the overall performance of the company to a large extent. In such scenario, there

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needs to be a start to a change or intervention program that will be helping the company and the employees to

feel that they are being valued and it will help them in performing efficiently as well.

In the change management program, the first aspect which needs to be included is the following of the 8

step Change Model formed by Kotter. In the respective scenario, there should be creation of urgency and need

for implementing the change is required to be done. It is highly important for CEO and the other higher officials

of the company to involve and share information to influence the feelings of employees (Van der Voet, Kuipers &

Groeneveld, 2016).

Creation of the vision for change is the second element which needs to be adopted by Amazon in which

Jeff Bezos needs to change the style of leadership which is followed by him as it will be making the employees

feel that they are being valued (Arif et al., 2017). The leader, i.e., the CEO of Amazon needs to define clear as

well as compelling statement which will be capturing the idea regarding what the firm does. In the respective

scenario, Jeff Bezos needs to understand the emotions of the employees and motivate them through both financial

as well as non-financial rewards (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016).

Communicating the same to the employees will be assisting them and making them feel that they are the

important asset of the company (Schmidt, Groeneveld & Van de Walle, 2017). Removing of the obstacles is the

key criteria wherein professionalism needs to be maintained along with being emotional with the different

employees as they might be feeling that they should be building on the change in a proper manner.

The creation of change and bringing the same can be challenging, however, in order to successfully

implement the same in Amazon, Jeff Bezos and the other higher officials need to implement procedures through

motivating the employees and taking their views into consideration as well (Imran et al., 2016). The Maslow’s

Hierarchy Needs and the Goal Setting theory are required to be incorporated for generating the successful

outcomes and keep up the curve for the continued success as well (Dievernich, Tokarski & Gong, 2016).

Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that in order to solve the problem of the high technological advancement

and the robotic feeling in Amazon, there should be changes made in the company that will be helpful for
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understanding the opinions and grievances of the employees working. In Amazon, the main concern which has

been noticed is related to the poor working conditions and the ineffective style of leadership of Jeff Bezos. In

such scenario, the change management aspects can be incorporated wherein the Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory can

be incorporated for understanding the different basic needs of the employees need to be satisfied as it will be

helping them in boosting the morale and the productivity can be increased to a large extent. On the other hand,

Jeff Bezos needs to understand that employees are the critical asset of the company and their opinions need to be

valued as well. These changes can be brought through communicating the same to employees and enhancing

their productivity individually. For the entire development of the company and boosting the revenues of the

company as a whole, the bringing in required changes are necessary and inevitable in nature.

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References

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Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt

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