Human Cost Of Amazon



Human Cost of Amazon

Handy W Georges

[Name of the Institution]

Human Cost of Amazon

Introduction

Amazon is one of the largest retailer company that provide dozens of online products around the world. The company consists of global customers that require higher efficiency from the employees to provide them with the best quality products. However, due to increasing customers, the human cost of Amazon is also increasing. The company initially offered e-books but later expanded its business to several other products. It provided online books, gaming, goods such as electronics, apparel, food items, furniture and other accessories. The market expansion of Amazon has required the company to hire maximum employees to fulfil the demands of customers worldwide. The employees are obliged to work under strict conditions and keep the customers satisfied with the company. The current employees are unskilled to perform in every department and it required to recruit new employees. However, this recruitment resulted in the high human cost of Amazon.

Discussion

The market expansion was a necessary strategy for the sustainability of Amazon. The company is facing high competition from eBay and other online companies. Thus, it requires the company to efficiently respond to the changing trends in the surroundings. However, it is also a fact that Amazon has compromised on the working condition of its employees in order to capture the vast majority of people globally. The employees were subjected to work under strict conditions to fulfil the orders and demand of people. The working conditions in Amazon were extremely poor, thus this paper discusses the Human Cost of Amazon which has taken place due to the changing strategies of the company.

Lack of Proficiency

The new expansion required high technical skills to perform online gaming and other technologies. It required employees from IT and Engineering department to work competently. Employees are proficient in certain fields and are not masters to perform all the tasks. The increasing business asked for more talented employees that can manage the technical aspects of the company. The employees were required to develop software which makes the work and monitoring easy for the company. Later, the company developed software such as Prime through which customer was able to access the products with a single click. They also provided live streaming of shows on Netflix and other websites. This has also increased the loyalty of customers to the company ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"x75PHsTh","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Ind)","plainCitation":"(Ind)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":14,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/VKS9SMMM"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/VKS9SMMM"],"itemData":{"id":14,"type":"article-journal","title":"Inside out: How employees build value","container-title":"Journal of Brand Management","page":"393-402","volume":"10","issue":"6","author":[{"family":"Ind","given":"Nicholas"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2003"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Ind).

Poor Working Conditions

The Human resource of Amazon is mostly criticized due to poor working conditions. The employees are obliged to work for extra hours without getting extra compensation. They were also subjected to walk 15 miles to pick orders from the warehouse. If the employees ever failed to achieve specific targets, they were subjected to notices and termination. The working capacity of employees was also monitored regularly. The scanners would measure their response to work and would monitor their pace of performing the tasks. This has greatly impacted the health of their employees that resulted in poor performance. It was believed that when employees are overburdened, it decreases their productivity and thus the company’s targets are not achieved. The single employee of Amazon is believed to confirm 60 packages per hour which require high efficiency. During the training sessions, employees figure out that it's a tough job to work for Amazon. There are mandate breaks which are strictly monitored. At times the employees do not have any lunch break, thus no one eats for approximately 12 hours ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"DwUrjBRv","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(O\\uc0\\u8217{}Connor)","plainCitation":"(O’Connor)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":13,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/94A66VEU"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/94A66VEU"],"itemData":{"id":13,"type":"article-journal","title":"Amazon unpacked","container-title":"Financial Times","page":"2013","volume":"8","author":[{"family":"O’Connor","given":"Sarah"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (O’Connor).

The orders and packages in the company has an accurate time in which they need to be dispatched. Thus the employees are noted for their time and pace in picking and packing the order. Amazon tracked everything from employees to orders and from orders to customers and suppliers. At times the employees do not have time for bathrooms because they need to focus on the system and react immediately. If someone would be off task for more than 30 minutes, they would be immediately fired from the job. Also, on Black Friday the employees tend to work for six days a week. It's mandatory overtime and employees are on their feet. The work shift starts a 5 am in the morning and employees are obliged to maintain the discipline and stay stable. There is no space for chaos at Amazon or else employees are directly terminated.

Professional Training

Amazon needed to provide professional training to its employees to cope up with the emerging market trends. This requires software development, graphic designing and quick response to the emerging technologies. The employees are primarily trained to perform their work. Online business requires a maximum understanding of the software and technologies so that the employees would be in a better position to respond to customers demands. Amazon has invested a high amount to train its employees around the world. The training was not only determined to increase the sales but it also encouraged to build strong networks within the company. It was supposed to increase the level of support among the employees so that they will efficiently respond to customers queries. The training helped the employees to increase their efficiency and product delivery to the customers globally ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6FV1aPMq","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Cloud)","plainCitation":"(Cloud)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":10,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/RZLX2CUK"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/RZLX2CUK"],"itemData":{"id":10,"type":"article-journal","title":"Amazon web services","container-title":"Retrieved November","page":"2011","volume":"9","author":[{"family":"Cloud","given":"Amazon Elastic Compute"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Cloud).

Power Politics

Amazon is one of the largest revenue generating company. The company has formed a well-established communication system through which the customers can directly respond to their products. They rate the products and provide reviews about the quality. The review of each customer is available for other people so that the can check the reliability of products prior to their confirmation. They also rate the efficiency of employees and their customer care performance. This, helps the employees to improve their performance and do more hard work. The rating is also incorporated in the monthly performance of employees which leads to their promotion. Thus, the evaluation is not based on any internal politics but a fear method of ratings. However, this can have negative consequences as well. The company regularly checks the ratings, thus the customers at times may not be loyal in providing fair reviews which reflect on the performance of employees negatively ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"x8lCPIsr","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Sboner et al.)","plainCitation":"(Sboner et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":9,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/ZPSRJLMZ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/ZPSRJLMZ"],"itemData":{"id":9,"type":"article-journal","title":"The real cost of sequencing: higher than you think!","container-title":"Genome biology","page":"125","volume":"12","issue":"8","author":[{"family":"Sboner","given":"Andrea"},{"family":"Mu","given":"Xinmeng Jasmine"},{"family":"Greenbaum","given":"Dov"},{"family":"Auerbach","given":"Raymond K."},{"family":"Gerstein","given":"Mark B."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Sboner et al.).

Multilevel Sales Strategy

The employees not only just built relation with the customers but with the suppliers as well. They are required to build strong relations outside the organization in order to get the best products for their site. Due to increasing competition, it is highly technical to attract suppliers and make them loyal to the company. Thus the company has developed customer to customer strategy that offers them to control the vast majority of customers. This helps the customers to view the ratings of sellers on the website and select quickly from millions of products. This facilitates the transactions as well as it helps the employees to save time ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"oE2eD69p","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kantor and Streitfeld)","plainCitation":"(Kantor and Streitfeld)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":12,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/5YGHMEHA"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/5YGHMEHA"],"itemData":{"id":12,"type":"article-journal","title":"Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace","container-title":"New York Times","page":"74-80","volume":"15","author":[{"family":"Kantor","given":"Jodi"},{"family":"Streitfeld","given":"David"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Kantor and Streitfeld).

Conclusion

One of the frustrating parts of working at Amazon was that the company would offer promotions and raises in the holiday seasons. Initially, employees were happy to get bonuses on Christmas and other events but later they realized that it was in benefit of the company and not the employees. The holiday time which the employees would want to spend with their families was utilized in work. This has resulted in negative impacts on employees personal and professional lives. The work becomes stressful and ultimately employees were frustrated to work with a company

Work Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Cloud, Amazon Elastic Compute. “Amazon Web Services.” Retrieved November, vol. 9, 2011, p. 2011.

Ind, Nicholas. “Inside out: How Employees Build Value.” Journal of Brand Management, vol. 10, no. 6, 2003, pp. 393–402.

Kantor, Jodi, and David Streitfeld. “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace.” New York Times, vol. 15, 2015, pp. 74–80.

O’Connor, Sarah. “Amazon Unpacked.” Financial Times, vol. 8, 2013, p. 2013.

Sboner, Andrea, et al. “The Real Cost of Sequencing: Higher than You Think!” Genome Biology, vol. 12, no. 8, 2011, p. 125.