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Managing Human Resources

AMAZON
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Word count: 3012

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3

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

Conclusion................................................................................................................................10

Reference List..........................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Human Resource Management (HRM) is a managerial function, which deals with people’s
skills to achieve organisation goals (Michael, 2019). It plays a crucial role to build the core
competencies of the organisation by adopting systematic process such as planning, training,
recruiting and motivating employees. Additionally, it combats with internal challenges such
as employees’ disputes and de-motivation, cultural framework and retaining potential
candidates. It will analyse various performance management model by assessing its
advantage and disadvantage for the organisation and employees. Further, it will identify
various theories and approaches which helps to maintain high performance. It will also
explain the role of the line manager in performance management. Moreover, it will review
the business approach of Amazon to achieve a high level of performance.

Amazon is an American multinational company which deals with technological product and
services such as E-commerce, cloud computing, AI and digital streaming. Jeff Bezos founded
it in 1994 and it is currently headquartered in Washington, US (aboutamazon.com, 2021).
Further, it has generated annual revenue of 386 billion dollars in 2020 with the support of
around 0.8 million employees (Statista.com, 2021).

Discussion
Definition, evaluation, and analysis of performance management models, including the
advantages and disadvantages of each.

Performance management is a process, which allows the organisation to control and assess
the individual performance effectively to achieve the goals (Hook and Jenkins, 2019).
Further, it provides clarity to the employees and organisation regarding the performance and
attaining business objectives. The process of measuring performance may be varied from
business to business due to differences in culture and objectives (CMI, 2021). It is also
considering as a dynamic and interrelated process, which shares the objectives among
corporate, employees, teams and managers to gain ownership of the process. The model or
techniques used by the organisation can be different as the HR manager could adopt a
suitable process, which helps to achieve the objectives in a limited period.

The different model aims at creating engagement among employees through clear
communication and directing vision to achieve strategic objectives. Further, the model

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follows a cyclical process to maintain a disciplined approach and evaluate the techniques for
individual, teams and organisation. Each model aims to assess the current performance of
the individual and organisation to make adjustment in future goals to enhance efficiency.
Moreover, the process motivates employees’ thorough incentives and appraisal schemes or
offering training and development to the employees. Other than that, each model collects
employee's information to drive high-level performance.

As per the individual performance management model, it deals with evaluating employee’s
skills and potential to attain the task and review the knowledge and competencies with the
help of personal development (Hook and Jenkins, 2019). Further, it compares and contrasts
the performance of organisation, teams and individual. It helps to bridge the gap between
individual skills and organisation goals by assessment of performance at a regular interval. At
the same time, it helps to make sound decisions for the organisation by evaluating the current
and future requirements. The model contains various strength and drawbacks for the
organisation as it helps to set the expected departmental goals for teams, individual as per
their contribution. It helps to gain a reality check and follow relevant and achievable goals.
Further, the management performance is reviewed and assessed at regular interval to
maintain efficiency. Attaining regular review helps to identify the quality of performance and
its production volume it provides (Ferreira, 2017). It can be compared and control to enhance
motivation and promote employee engagement practices to enhance efficiency. Further,
performance management helps to retain the right employee at the right place by linking up
the talent management process.

On the contrary, it may not be useful for a small organisation to attain performance analysis
at a continuous level. Additionally, it raises the cost of various machinery and loads
paperwork to evaluate the process that could be time-consuming. Another disadvantage is
that it focuses on people management and avoids monitoring and controlling the data and
financial resources, which could reduce the net revenue of the organisation.

The second model of people and performance focuses on adapting different HR policies in
order to achieve the goals by uniting the group work. The model follows the traditional
method and procedures to enhance the productivity of the group of people to cope with new
challenges (Knies et al., 2021). It can be successfully implemented through strong values and
broad level culture. Additionally, involvement of a high number of skilled managers could
bring over specialisation in the process, which may not be suitable for every employee.

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However, the advantage of adopting this model as it helps to share the objective and values
among people of the organisation equally. Further, it focuses on general interest of the
organisation rather than individual interest, which helps to attain the objective and goals with
larger context. Apart from these points, the model manages and practices policies to create
value for an organisation. Moreover, it creates inclusive blocks to increase performance to
motivate and maintain productivity. The model does help the employees to enhance their
knowledge through upgrading skills and knowledge by attaining training and development.
On the other hand, the model may enhance extensive conflicts among employees, which may
raise concerns to create performance management. Further, it may pressurise the manager or
supervisor to direct and control the group of people's performances. Apart from these points,
the model does not focus on effective planning and management of people that could raise
further consequences.

Thirdly, Purcell’s effective performance model is a traditional method of appraisal, which

designed to improve the corporate, team and individual performance by driving line
managers (Hook and Jenkins, 2019). However, due to the traditional approach of appraisal
scheme, it might limit the benefits for HR manager and employees to gain motivation and
enhance productivity. Additionally, the model is criticised due to its process to make the
organisation effective. The model focuses on creating an involvement between individuals
and team with the help of a line manager who would control and direct the process (CIPD,
2021). On the contrary, it is a disadvantage for the model as it does not cope with current
requirements due to which most of the organisation does not consider involving the process
internally. The process assesses and reviews the performance once or twice a year that
reduces the burden on operating cost. However, the model could be time-consuming or need
a huge amount of data to record the information that might lead to complexities in the
organisation.

Yet, the line manager ensures to deliver and clarify the duties and objectives of the
organisation that lead to an increase in employees and team efficiency. Moreover, it ensures
to conduct training and development of employees to enhance performance that would boost
the productivity of the team and organisation.

Identify theories, best practices and approaches taken to manage and drive high levels
of performance successfully and outline the business approach to managing remote
teams.

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There are various approaches, practices and theories are available for the organisation to
measure the performance and outline the process successfully. Amazon could variously tool
and approaches such as 360-degree feedback, performance appraisal, management by
objective and competencies that would help to drive high performance in the internal
environment.

Performance Appraisal is a formal approach, which gains employees feedback regarding the
performance of work in the organisation to enhance efficiency once or twice a year (Kajgar,
2020). The approach helps to provide feedback to the managers and leaders of the
organisation to make effective decisions regarding appraisal schemes and identify
development needs. Additionally, it offers growth opportunity by assessing the overall work
performance of employees such as completion of task, time is taken, new projects and
available sources in the organisation to set new objectives (Sharma and Sharma, 2017). It
would help Amazon to adopt an annual appraisal scheme, which would reduce the cost and
avoids wastage of resources. On the contrary, an organisation in the current scenario focuses
on the regular personal development of employees by assessing the performance monthly or
quarterly basis. Further, the organisation can enhance its learning and development
opportunities such as online courses that reduces the importance of performance appraisal.
Amazon uses rank-by-rank performance appraisal, which is known as stack ranking system,
provides certain rank to the employees to get promotion for their contribution.

However, the organisation that focuses on huge profits and enhancing continuous motivation,
may not adopt performance appraisal as it limits the evaluation process. Further, it can be
time-consuming to record the data of annual report, which might increase the workload and
may not provide static results.

360-degree feedback appraisal is one of the measuring tools for the performance
management process. The approach involves gathering data collection from employees,
teams regarding the job or performance accomplished for the particular time (Yudithama et
al., 2019). It involves process, which includes 8-10 people to form appraisal. The 360-degree
feedback covers a wide range of skilled people and employees' behaviour to measure the
performance. However, the process is time-consuming and differs from organisation to
organisation, which may provide uncertain results. Yet, due to advanced technology such as
Google forms and mobile application, data gathering has become easy to conduct a survey
and perceive feedback from employees. On the contrary, to drive a high level of performance

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through 360-degree appraisal, the organisation needs to provide training to adopt the process.
Further, it needs to determine the objectives and set of question to gain employee's concerns
and their approach towards Amazon.

Other than these approaches, Amazon can also use Management by Objective or
Competencies to assess the performance (Dangol, 2021). The primary focuses of the
approach are with performance output from employees by setting objectives and target for
them to achieve goals. On the other hand, the Competencies approach allows the
organisation to measure the input performance of employees and determine the level of
potential the employee must accomplish to the job. To drive a high level of performance
through the first approach, Amazon needs to be clarified the goals and objective throughout
the internal environment among leaders, managers, and employees which will provide
strategic direction to achieve and pursue the goals. Further, it needs to ensure that, each
employee and team's objective is inter-related which is highly contributed to the
organisational goals. It can be achieved through SMART goals to determine and direct the
action plan to achieve high performance in the organisation. On the other hand, the second
approach relates to maintaining occupational standard to accomplish objectives such as skills,
knowledge, and experience.

Amazon can identify the competencies through assessment of employee’s job profile or
measuring through various skills test, interviews to evaluate the potential to combat
performance management. The data would provide various source of information about the
candidate, which could be easily compared and assessed among different people to retain
high potential employees.

Further, Rating scales is one of the performance appraisals schemes that promote employee's
contribution by focusing on accomplishing objectives by grading system to fulfil the job
satisfaction (Idowu, 2017). The rating system is inter-related with the job description, which
highlights the level of performance required to gain excellence in performing duties. The
appraisal focuses on employee's performance management by scaling the potential in
interview, survey, and concluding the performance level of competence. Amazon can use the
approach the technique to compensate for top and poor performer in the organisation.
Further, it can be used to gain succession planning to raise promotion and rewards for
employees. On the contrary, it could create confusion among employees due to continuous
rating points that is too subjective in nature. Additionally, due to subjectivity, the employees

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could misuse the evaluation, which might highlight the result as unreliable and unscientific.
However, Amazon could easily communicate with the employee by reviewing the
performance through a rating scale. It will improve the quality of conversation among
employees and managers to sustain high level of performance.

The role of line managers in performance management and any legal, wellbeing and
Health and Safety compliance considerations.

The line manager reports to the high-level manager to look over the employees and their
operation of the business (Brewster, 2017). It plays a pivotal role in the business operation by
measuring and controlling the employee’s contribution on daily basis. The line manager fills
the gap between employees and upper-level managers. It is responsible for planning and set
the objectives for employees to work to maintain communication among teams. Further, the
line manager has to grade the level of responsibility for the work assigned on daily basis to
other employees. Secondly, it is responsible for optimising and allocating the resources to
control the money, time and other resources. Additionally, he has to manage and control the
budgetary plan to enhance productivity. The line manager has to cope with legal compliance
in the organisation, as it is important to adopt the culture and comply with equality legislation
through promoting equality and diversity. It will help Amazon to engage and enhance the
participation of a large number of employees to maintain ethics and morality in work. To
consider the legal duties, the line manager needs to ensure to treat all staff members equally
and fairly and create an inclusive culture to build teamwork (csg.ed.ac.uk, 2021).

The line manager plays a substantial role to conduct effective communication and regular
meetings with employees and leaders. Amazon will be able to consider the recommendation
from the line manager regarding activities, problems, and progress. The line manager is
responsible to set standards and parameters to maintain job expectation, accuracy to
accomplish the work in the required time frame. The benchmarks lead to clarity in decision-
making and monitor the staff behaviour as per the legislation, standards applied.

Further, the line manager will ensure that each employee is getting an equal opportunity to
access the learning and resources. To combat wellbeing compliances, the line manager has to
conduct annual review once or twice a year to measure the motivation and job satisfaction of
employees. It will help Amazon to meet the employee's requirements and provide a quality
environment to enhance productivity in performance. Further, to concern with raising
wellbeing, it needs to focus on providing training to the employees to support personal

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development. It will help to raise the growth and opportunities for employees to gain
promotion and rewards. However, to consider the health and safety issues of employees, the
line manager has to recommend the occupational health unit due to the absence of health
issues. Further, promoting safety guidance in clear instruction such as conducting health
report, insurance policy and allow leave due to poor health after consultation.

Review and outline preparation and approaches have been taken by Amazon, how they
aim to manage the performance of their people and continue to achieve high levels of
organisational performance

Amazon has adopted a data-driven approach by measuring customers and employee's

behaviour. The data provides clarity to make sound decisions and liberate the employees.

Amazon uses Anytime Feedback Tool in the current scenario to gather feedback available
from employees (inc.com, 2021). The internal tool of Amazon allows the employees to
directly sent the appraise and criticism regarding co-workers at the workplace. Additionally,
the branch manager who identifies the respected concerns and maintains secrecy of the name
of the feedback provider receives the feedback. The feedback tool provides one to one
interaction with the head manager, which helps to motivate people and enhance productivity
to generate high performance. The process called rank and yank to rate employees against
each other for the annual review (Klinck and Swanepoel, 2019). Amazon ensures that every
aspect of a worker’s performance is getting measured and ranked in the earlier stage as it is a
continuous process under which employees treated as data subjects in every scenario. The
advantage of this model as the culture allows the employees to defend the views and
decisions rigorously. Further, the data-driven process accepts the criticism structurally
without taking it personally. However, it has become significantly important in any
organisation to enhance employee experience and growth.

On the contrary, Amazon has faced criticism to adopt stack ranking as the manager gets
under pressure and forced them to give bad ratings to good employees due to political
involvement in the culture. Additionally, the stack ranking could be de-motivating for other
employees who have poor ratings that could deteriorate the performance. It will further raise
the dependency on other employees to get high rank, which would limit the progress of
individual skills.

Amazon has also taken key measures to deal with outside performance such as satisfying
customers. It manages to respond to the direct messages from customers within 24 hours,

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which measures the seller responsive as key performance metrics. On the other hand, it also
gains public feedback, which is transparent as the customer can send the review within 90
days. Public feedback plays an important role for third-party merchants to maintain their
reputation. Additionally, Amazon allows the customers to create review and rate the product
from one to five star which summarises the service. To measure seller performance, Amazon
uses five key customer metrics to calculate seller ratings (EcommerceBytes, 2021). The key
metrics are the Order Defect Rate system (ODR) which allows the customer to raise the
concerns over the defection of the product. Secondly, the cancellation rate, late dispatch rate
allows customers to reviews their services in cancelling or late services. Further, the policy
violation that is used to collect data over issues related to legal regulation while dispatching
product and services from seller. In addition, the last contact response time, the seller should
provide actual status and response within 24 hours regarding product delivery.

Amazon claims that the feedback provided by the subordinates to the managers helps to list
poor performers annually. Every year Amazon initiates its Organization Level Reviews under
which top and worst performers are introduced to the board of managers. To manage the
people's performance Amazon has designed their feedback structure to push the potential of
employees to achieve high ambitions. Amazon applies performance management, which
might hold in a week, and monthly business reviews to maintain accountability of each
employee. It has claimed that each employee receives the data print of reviews in 50 to 60
pages. The reviews test the knowledge of these employees through various metrics. However,
the sessions are long and time-consuming which requires substantial amount of working
hour.

Conclusion
From the process of study, it can be concluded that the organisation has to adopt modern
methods over traditional methods to process performance management such as 360-degree
feedback and MBO tools. Further, it has found that people and performance model could
unify and inter-relate the objectives to achieve a high level of efficiency in the work. Amazon
is used a performance management system in the form of stack rating. It has adopted anytime
feedback tool to review the employees' praise and criticism over the other employees on daily
basis. However, it has found that it may limit the individual skills and involve politics to gain
good ratings. Additionally, to manage the outside people of the organisation, Amazon uses a
customer feedback system with the help of direct messages, public feedback, and product

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reviews to assess the performance. Further, it uses five key customer metrics to assess seller-
rating performance.

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