Amazon.com Inc, commonly known as Amazon, is an American internet company offering eCommerce and cloud computing services. Amazons headquarters are based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest internet firm based on both market capitalization and annual revenues. The company has grown significantly since its founding in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. Due to its size, Amazon is the 8th largest employer in the US with more than 540,000 employers. With this huge number of the workforce, there is need to develop good strategies for making each employee feel appreciated by the company. It is also important for the company to continuously attract new employees and retain the existing talents within its ranks. This also calls for an elaborate human resource strategy that will ensure the company attracts and retains the most qualified and talented individuals who are capable of advancing its mission to enable it achieve its vision.
For an organization such as Amazon to thrive in a global environment, it has to set up appropriate structures that tame employee behavior in the workplace to ensure challenges such as discrimination on whatever basis are faced out. Global environments bring together individuals with different opinions and worldviews together (Cakir, & Kozak, 2017). Therefore, challenges such as communication, decision making, and conflicts are bound to come up as employees from different geographical places, cultural and religious backgrounds interact in the workplace (Hauser, 2014). If not properly managed, these challenges can affect the organizations overall performance and competitiveness on the global scene.
Therefore, one of the most important issues of concern for the management of Amazon in terms of managing its workforce is employee motivation. Employee motivation is an important aspect of organizational performance because it influences the input of the workforce, thereby ultimately affecting the results or the output of their efforts (Cakir, & Kozak, 2017). If the workforce is not motivated, they will have a poor input, which will result in poor performance in the organization. Thus, will eventually affect the competitiveness and excellence of the organization in its industry.
However, having an understanding of the behavior of individuals in the organization and their motivation levels can help the organization manage its workforce better. This is because the organization will be better placed in planning its strategic goals and develop a unique competitive edge over its rivals based on its approach for managing the workforce (Rozman, Treven, & Cancer, 2017). For an organization that dominates the global market like Amazon, it is critical to understand the various factors that influence the motivation levels of its workforce globally to ensure all its workers are treated in the same way regardless of their geographical location in the world.
Employee motivation can be described as the process of developing arousing, and maintaining goal-oriented actions and behaviors among individuals in an organizations workforce. The motivation is often induced through creating an expectation that the various needs of the individuals will be fulfilled if they adopt the desired behaviors in the workplace (Cakir, & Kozak, 2017). The employee motivation process in organizations is a continuous cycle that ought to be refreshed with new ideas and strategies for time to time.
The cycle begins by employees in the workforce feeling a sense of insecurity because of certain unfulfilled needs. This creates tension in the workplace, which will ultimately have a negative impact on the organizations performance levels (Lam, Loi, Chan, & Liu, 2016). Once the management realizes the dwindling performances of the workers, they will move to implement various strategies that will aim at improving the behavior of the workers and thereby satisfy their needs. The tensions in the workplace will reduce significantly (Cakir, & Kozak, 2017). This will allow the employees to develop the necessary drive and motivation to improve om their performance until such a point when they will feel their needs are not being properly addressed by the management again (Rozman, Treven, & Cancer, 2017).
Therefore, employee motivation entails the ability of the organizations management to get all the employees participating actively in contributing to the success of the organization in terms of helping it achieve its objectives (Ganesh, 2016). Thus, there is a close association between employee motivation levels and the behavior of individuals in the workplace. This is because motivation involves both physical and psychological factors that ultimately affect how the people behave (Ganesh, 2016). The psychological factors can determine the general predisposition of the people within the organization. The behavior of employees in the workforce affects their commitment and persistence in delivering on their mandate.
The employees of Amazon play a significant role in driving the companys agenda globally. Therefore, their personalities, actions, and behaviors are critical in ensuring they have a positive contribution to the company (Lam, Loi, Chan, & Liu, 2016). Conversely, the performance of the organization can also have an impact on the behavior of the individuals in the workplace. Therefore, for Amazon to remain competitive in the long run, there is need to ensure the organization puts in place appropriate structures that will help it remain competitive (Ganesh, 2016). This will involve creating a conducive environment in the workplace where the employees can be free to express themselves and use their talents and abilities to the best of their potential.
The organization must also create an environment where the workers feel appreciated for the contribution they make. The human resource manager in the company must, therefore, put in place strategies that bring together the various personalities and different behaviors of the individuals in the workplace to create a cohesive unit of individuals that can help promote the main agenda of the company (Ganesh, 2016). This implies that the organization must focus on addressing the differences ion individual behaviors in the workforce to ensure that the diverse skills, personalities, and abilities in the organization do not have a negative impact on the performance of the workers (Lam, Loi, Chan, & Liu, 2016).
The concept of employee motivation offers the company an effect6ive approach in managing the energy levels in the workforce to ensure the workers perform at their optimal, levels. Employee motivation focuses on the commitment of the workers to the ideals and the agenda of the organization both in the short and long term. It involves the processes and strategies inn the organization that focus on developing and sustaining higher energy levels among the workforce (Ganesh, 2016). This helps the employees to realize the significance of their contribution to the organizations success, thereby encouraging them to remain committed to the company in the long run. Nevertheless, the individuals in an organization will only participate in organizational processes if they feel there is something to gain from their performances (Ganesh, 2016). For instance, employees may expect benefits or gains such as prestige, cash, or kind. These expectations in terms of benefits often affect the desire of employees to use their skills optimally to help the organization achieve its objectives (Hitchcock, & Stavros, 2017).
Therefore, the concept of employee motivation is critical to an organization such as Amazon, which is a dominant player on the global scene. This is because the global nature of the company has made it possible for the company to recruit the most talented individuals from different parts of the world to join in its workforce (Calk, & Patrick, 2017). Amazon has one of the most diverse workforces in the country due to its global operations. While the diversity is crucial in ensuring the company benefits from different approaches to problem solving, it can have a negative impact on the organizations workforce management if the differences among the employees are not properly addressed (Hauser, 2014).
Therefore, employee motivation is crucial within the global environment that Amazon operates. This is mainly due to the impact that employee motivation has on the productivity and general performance of the workers. Lack of motivation among the workforce is associated with negative consequences such as high employee turnover, reduced productivity, and labor conflicts. These issues can harm the company in the long run in terms of its competitiveness at a global level, thereby threatening its long-term survival on then global scene (Awadzi-Calloway, Awadzi, & Awadzi, 2016). Motivation also affects the level of engagement among employees since most of them lack the necessary drive and energy to perform at an optimal level (Jurgena, & Rimovica, 2017). Essentially, employee motivation is a major factor that needs to be addressed in order to ensure an organization stays competitive in a global environment.
Businesses that have unmotivated employees usually experience challenges of low productivity and increased rates of turnover. Therefore, it is critical for the top leadership at Amazon to look for the various ways of reducing the rates of employee turnover and improve employee productivity through motivating the workforce appropriately (Calk, & Patrick, 2017). There are many different theories that can help Amazon understand how to motivate its employees to increase job satisfaction rates and boost productivity. Therefore, it is essential for the senior management to understand which specific theory suits its business environment based on the challenges that the employees are facing at the time (Awadzi-Calloway, Awadzi, & Awadzi, 2016). In certain instances, ideas from different theories may be combined together to create a broad strategy for employee motivation. For instance, there are three main theoretical models that Amazon can effectively use in developing an employee motivation strategy that can enable it attract and retain the best talents in its workforce. These are Herzberg's two-factor theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, and Locke's goal theory.
Herzberg's two-factor theory is one of the most widely used theories of motivation. The theory recognizes the different issues that affect employee motivation and provides relevant recommendations that can help managers address those challenges. According to the theory, there are two main factors associated with employee motivation (Hitchcock, & Stavros, 2017). These are satisfiers and dissatisfies. Herzberg defines satisfiers as those factors which contribute to employee motivation through job satisfaction (Calk, & Patrick, 2017). On the other hand, the dissatisfies are those factors that are associated with issues such as maintenance and hygiene in the workplace. The two-factor theory, therefore, highlights two main factors that the organization can use to gauge motivation levels in the workforce (Calk, & Patrick, 2017). The satisfiers or motivators include factors such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, as well as advancement (Hitka, & Balazova, 2015). On the other hand, the hygiene factors that the management needs to focus upon include monetary rewards, competent supervision, policy and administration, working conditions, as well as security.
The other important theory of employee motivation is Vrooms expectant theory. This theory is based on the idea that employees can be influenced or motivated through the desired outcomes that they expect from a process or...
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