Recruitment And Selection Challenges Faced By HR Managers At Amazon

Recruitment and selection in human resource management

Discuss about the Human Resource Management of Amazon Inc.

Amazon Inc. is an American e-commerce and cloud computing organization headquartered in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Company was founded by the most innovative leader of this era Jeff Bezos on 5^th July 1994. Initially, organization was started from a garage by selling books which later on becomes the largest online shopping website across the globe in terms of revenues. Today, the company delivers more than a million goods over their website in more than 168 countries and it is present in more than 12 countries across the globe. Every company’s success and growth is dependent on its employees’ and leader’s talent, knowledge and experience. Amazon has Jeff Bezos which is the most innovative and skilled leader of this era. He dreamt of selling products and services over internet and today he living his dream. In relation with this, Jeff Bezos believes in bringing his staff up along with himself and in relation with this, his expectations from his employees are bit high in comparison with other leaders’ (Amazon Inc., 2018).

To manage organizational operations in an effective manner, appointment and management of employees is an effective approach. Thus, human resource management plays vital role in doing so. In relation with this, recruitment and selection activity must be performed in the most appropriate manner so that the right person could be appointed at the right position with the objective of originating better outcomes (Shackleton, 2015). In this report, human resource management’s one of the primary activity will be discussed i.e. Recruitment & Selection with regards to analysing its effectiveness and efficiency. Further, report will move towards determining the challenges and issues faced by HR managers of Amazon while appointing and selecting the candidates for specified positions. Next phase of the report will focus on best practices in relation to mitigate the challenges and recommendations with regards to improve the efficiency of recruitment and selection procedure.

It has been observed that while hiring new candidates, HR managers and specialists faces numerous challenges. But it is the duty and responsibility for HR managers to tackle these obstacles in order to search great and talented candidates for the organization who could fit as the best for the vacant position (Taylor, 2014). Following are some of those challenges which are faced by HR professionals while executing recruitment and selection activity:

• Lack of enough resources: HR managers need to perform their activities with the available resources and sometimes, these resources do not act as enough to perform the activities in the appropriate manner. For example lack of budget in relation to posting ads over internet and other trending recruitment spots and they need to use traditional recruiting channels and free job boards to invite candidates. This leads to a big challenge for the HR managers to find the qualified and talented candidates. In relation with Amazon Inc., there is sufficient budget is provided to the HR department so that the most eligible candidate could be appointed over vacant position in relation with the accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives (Kurtz & William, 2017).

But there are several other challenges which HR managers of Amazon face such as finding innovative, efficient and talented candidates, finding consistent employees, etc. HR managers of Amazon use improvised and trending techniques to appoint innovative and creative candidates who come up with an extra ordinary idea of enhancing organizational performance. Finding innovation and creative skills in candidates leads to a long and complex process of recruitment and selection under which 60% of candidates give up in between the process. This left the HR managers with few options to select the most appropriate candidate as per organizational requirement (Chaneta, 2014).

• Transparency versus Effectiveness: Amongst HR professionals across the globe, transparency has gained the peak place. This is done to impress the applicants and primary objective behind this is that the more transparent company will be the high reliability will be developed amongst applicants (Cascio, 2018). In relation with this, HR managers need to make boundaries so that only that much information is provided to the applicants which are necessary for the applicants otherwise, it could affect applicant’s overall performance because it will showcase high expectations of company from candidates. In this concern, HR managers in Amazon are not able to find appropriate options as per the requirements for vacant position. In this regard, HR Managers needs to appoint from the few options left and it leads to risk that the appointed candidate would be able to comply with organizational requirements and policies or not (Chiang & Suen, 2015).
• Finding employees who fit the company’s culture: HR professionals hire candidates with the objective of enhancing organizational performance and for the same, new candidates require working effectively in team along with showcasing their skills for which they are hired. If this does not happen as per the expectations, HR professionals require investing in training acquisition process so that the new employees could be groomed as per organizational culture and organizational environment to promote team work with the motive of uplifting organizational performance. Finding appropriate candidates who could fit with the company’s culture is the biggest challenge for HR professionals for Amazon as well as for other companies. Inappropriate employees affect organizational environment and this lead the organization let go its great candidates because they did not get fit with the culture and environment of organization (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).

Challenges faced by HR managers at Amazon

HR managers are appointed in companies so that they could hire innovative, creative, experienced and talented employees for organization in relation with enhancing performance, enhancing market share and gain competitive advantage in the competitive business environment. Apart from this, Amazon’s primary objective in relation HR department is to find innovative and creative employees so that they could come up with new and unique ideas in relation with accomplishment of tasks to gain better outcomes (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Further, they are appointed with an expectation that they will stick with the organization for a long period of time and if in between they leave the job, this becomes a big loss for the organization. Making reduction in labour turnover is responsibility of HR professionals and for this, they could adopt numerous strategies such as motivation, strategies in relation with retaining key employees, by fulfilling employees’ basic needs and by offering them attractive incentive and other beneficial packages. Following are some of the best practices discussed in relation to the above discussed challenges which HR professionals face while executing recruitment and selection activity:

• Optimum utilisation of available resources: HR professionals in Amazon are talented and experienced enough to tackle these challenges in an effective manner so that desired goals and objectives could be acquired. With this regard, the first and foremost activity performed by them is examining available recruitment tools such as employee management plans and software. Recruiters should take appropriate and full information in relation to the requirements for the vacant position. Gaining enough knowledge regarding vacant position helps the HR professionals to determine the specific requirements of management regarding the specific position (Stone & Deadrick, 2015).

Further, HR managers need to utilise the gained information so that while recruiting, those requirements must be fulfilled initially before providing training and development sessions to provide necessary information regards to the organization such as policies, laws, regulations, and standards. Apart from this, HR managers utilise the available resources of positing ads for inviting employees so that the most appropriate candidate could be hired. Amazon Company has provided enough platforms and resources through which HR managers could invite huge number of candidates at one time from various places (Brewster, Chung & Sparrow, 2016). This also requires huge efforts from HR managers because selecting desired and most appropriate candidate from vast choice is bit difficult task. For this, HR managers have segregated recruitment and selection procedure into small segments such as aptitude test, personal assessment, group discussion, etc. (Woodrow & Guest, 2014).

• Attracting new candidates and retaining key employees: Attracting and retaining the best talent takes discernment, time, and a whole lot of work. HR managers need to appoint the appropriate candidate as per organizational requirements with regards to the vacant positon but with due to dynamic business environment, changing organizational culture and job roles, tasks for HR managers is becoming more difficult. With this regard, HR managers use effective platforms to post advertisements regarding vacancies. Selection of platforms is done on the basis of frequently used by candidates. This helps the human resource department to find the talented candidates to fulfil the job roles, responsibilities for the particular position in the workplace. Attracting the candidates is the primary step and if HR team got the talented candidates in initial step then, they are not required to put many efforts on further step of recruitment and selection such as screening of employees (Veloso, Tzafrir & Enosh, 2015).
• Embracing change with grace and ease: Change is a shapeshifter, thus, it influences environment, competitors, customers, and workplace. It has been observed that humans always afraid to change irrespective of the change, whether it would be technological, procedural or structural whereas organization always seeks for change in order to make a distinctive position in the dynamic and competitive business environment. Major reason behind this is that employees make themselves comfortable with the existing procedures, culture, and environment while switching to another forms lead to generate anxiety and uncertainty (Veth, Korzilius, Van der Heijden, Emans & De Lange, 2017). Thus, HR professionals are required to appoint those candidates who could easily bear change and are flexible enough to mould their skills, talent, and knowledge as per changing business environment. HR managers and the whole department are responsible for managing human resources within the workplace. Along with this, they are held responsible for uplifting employees’ skills and efficiency by providing them training, development sessions in various forms. This makes the employees efficient enough to tackle change along with originating better outcomes. Training could be provided to the existing employees through available measures such as on-the-job training method, off-the-job training method.
• Developing leaders of tomorrow: Team leader is the most crucial person and effectiveness of a team leader could be evaluated by its team performance. This is the reason why all teams of the organization do not perform at same level. It has been observed that many employees leave their jobs due to poor relationships with their managers and team leaders. Thus, it is required for the leaders to conduct interactive sessions so that the team members could feel comfortable. It also helps the leader to generate positive outcomes because every teammate would be able to communicate with its team members along with team leader. This will encourage them to share their views and ideas to perform the task. Team interactive sessions play vital role in enhancing organizational performance ( Theriou & Chatzoglou, 2014). This activity will provide various options to the organization in relation to choosing effective leader for tomorrow which ultimately helps the employees to boost up their career growth.
• Effective communication: Trending techniques in relation to improving employee relationship with employer is adaptation of effective communication technique at workplace. This helps the organization to develop an effective workplace environment and under this environment, every employee could share communicate directly with its superiors using effective communication mediums. Apart from this, trending strategies in relation to retaining key employees is developing health and safety workplace environment. Health at workplace is not regarding developing hygiene and safety, it is more than that (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2017). Every employee has its own specifications and capabilities. For example, every employee is a good performer in pressure so it is the duty of HR managers to develop appropriate workplace environment in relation with developing appropriate workplace environment where every employee could sustain for a longer period of time.

In order to improvise functionalities of human resource management in relation to recruitment and selection activity, following are certain suggestions and recommendations through which HR department of Amazon could hire talented and valuable employees:

• Social media: HR department of Amazon could post ads on social media platforms in relation to spreading awareness amongst the people regarding hiring. Advertisement over social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. should provide sufficient information to the candidates regarding vacant position, application procedure, etc. HR team will be able to invite large number of candidates with minimum investments over advertisement on social media platforms (Craig, 2015).
• Linked in employer branding: This platform is the most suitable and reputed platform for finding knowledgeable and talented employees. Over this platform, HR managers could post their ad and promote company’s features and strategies so that crucial candidates could be attracted. In this procedure, users of this platform will be able to gather appropriate information regarding job vacancy at Amazon. Along with this, linked in a largest professional medium which will help the HR managers of Amazon to attract key candidates as per organizational requirements (Carpenter & Charon, 2014).
• Creation of blogs and posts depicting employee policy in organization: HR managers could also portray its employee policies for attracting talented employees through creating blogs and posts on social media platforms. Apart from this, organizational website and other recruitment channels could also be utilised for depicting employee policy. Under employee policy, all those points will be highlighted which a candidate seeks for before getting a job such as flexibility, workplace safety, etc. (Tracey, 2016).
• Referral bonus: HR managers could also invent referral policy in order to invite talented employees. This will reduce the work load of HR managers as accountability for existing employees increases and they will refer only those employees who are capable and appropriate as per vacant position in the organization. In return, they get referral bonus which encourages employees to refer other people (Kuvaas, Dysvik & Buch, 2014).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that recruitment and selection is the major activity of human resource management in every organization. Major challenges faced by HR managers to recruit and select appropriate candidates for the vacant position have been discussed in this report. Apart from this, identification of best practices has also been discussed to mitigate the challenges and issues in accordance with recruitment and selection procedure. Apart from this, suggestions and recommendations have been given to the HR managers of Amazon to improve organizational performance by appointing talented employees.

Best practices for recruitment and selection at Amazon

References

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