Understanding & Leading Change

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

Part 1............................................................................................................................3

Company Overview......................................................................................................3

SWOT Analysis.............................................................................................................5

Evaluation of the Drivers and Impacts of Change........................................................6

Evaluation of How Change has Prompted Leadership, Individuals and Team

Behaviour......................................................................................................................8

Part 2..........................................................................................................................10

Force Field Analysis....................................................................................................10

....................................................................................................................................10

Critical Evaluation on the Barriers for Change in Amazon’s Professional Culture.....10

Recommendation for Amazon on Its Change Strategy and Leadership Approach. . .11

Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model................................................................................11

Critical Overview of the Leadership Approaches....................................................13

Recommendations..................................................................................................14

Conclusion..................................................................................................................16

References.................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
The term "organizational change" is used to describe the process by which an
enterprise modifies a significant aspect of its structure, including its ethos, the
technology and infrastructure it relies on to function, or its internal procedures
(Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018). Planning, deployment, and maintenance
are the three main pillars of business transformation, the technique of using changes
to bring about a comprehensive solution. Every team member who is affected by an
organization-wide shift in strategy or tactics may feel anxious and unprepared,
however, the change if driven by a constant necessity can transform the way the
organization is growing (Lewis, 2019). Amazon being one of the most prominent
global giants in the corporate spectrum also required a certain change in its
employee management principles. The report will document and evaluate the
change and its desired impact on the company.

Part 1

Company Overview
Although Amazon has been committed to having a strong and engaged workforce
with excellent employee management values and strategies, it failed to maintain its

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commitment in recent years (Yousif Ali and Hasaballah, 2020). The company had
faced an intense employee backlash and its poor management of employees has
promoted a larger debate on the values that the company promised. Low employee
retention has also been recognized as a result of the company's poor employee
management approach and less regard for the people who work for them. The brand
has also faced backlash from the larger society and its customer base who are more
interested in a company that peruses the values and reflects proper corporate
principles for a better community.

Amazon has realized that to maintain its market reputation and customer
trustworthiness, a complete cultural overhaul is necessary which will uphold the
employees needs and will allow them to gain the value they deserve (Van Rooij and
Fine, 2018). The HR department of Amazon had been performing poorly which
directly impacted the overall employee handling practices and therefore lowered
employee wellbeing and deteriorated their engagement with the company.
Seemingly, Amazon is rethinking its mission. Amazon announced two new
declarations will be introduced to its 14-point list of enduring management concepts:
"Strive to Be the Earth's Best Employer" and "Success and Scale Bring Broad
Responsibility," respectively (Karapancheva, 2020).

It is unknown why the move was made so soon before Amazon founder and CEO
Jeff Bezos transfers over power to Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy, but it
does reflect pledges made by Bezos in his farewell shareholder letter to improve the
firm increasingly by becoming more welcoming and progressive (Solanki, 2019).
Widespread complaints over Amazon's exploitation of its own employees and its
effect on the environment prompted the company to make some adjustments.
Similarly, Amazon employees have been advocating for months for the
establishment of a management principle that specifically targets inclusivity (Duncan
and Hille, 2019).

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SWOT Analysis
Strength Weakness
 Amazon has a brand worth of  In today's highly connected
$249 Billion, putting it in second world, it's not unusual to find a
place after Apple and ahead of variety of online stores to peruse.
Google in Interbrand's Global So it's not too hard for Amazon's
Brand Ranking 2021 (Duncan competitors to copy its business
and Hille, 2019). model. Some companies are
 Amazon is known for its constant even able to compete with
stream of novel ideas and Amazon.
products, such as their grandiose  As a result of strikes, Amazon
drone delivery service and the may have to temporarily suspend
Withings Aura Smart Sleep some or all of its activities
System. This sets them apart (Kantor, Weise and Ashford,
from competing businesses. 2021). Six Amazon distribution
 Many independent merchants sites in Germany came to a halt
now use Amazon's infrastructure after workers decided to strike
to market their wares because to over hazardous working
the site's popularity (Kantor, conditions.
Weise and Ashford, 2021). More
than 2 billion products are listed
by third-party merchants,
according to statistics from
Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon
(FBA) program.
Opportunity Threat

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  In addition to two other retail
 Amazon's expansion into brick- companies, Amazon is under
and-mortar locations will help the investigation by the US State
company better compete with Department for continuing to
other retailers and win over new exploit labour and supply
consumers. networks linked to human rights
 Amazon can increase its violations. This might lead to
potential in the market and also serious problems for the
expand its customer company's image, finances, and
trustworthiness by allowing for a legal standing (Ingram and Kent,
positive human resource 2019).
management approach. Amazon  Even Amazon can't avoid the
should focus on increasing effects of a depressed economy.
workspace safety, and humane Sales for Amazon might be
employee management and impacted if the economy
eliminate forceful employee continues to deteriorate.
management to increase its
employee engagement and
retention.

Evaluation of the Drivers and Impacts of Change

For the third time, Amazon has been named among the most hazardous companies
to work for in the United States (Kenny, 2019). The Council for Occupational Safety
and Health (National COSH) has named Amazon to its "Dirty Dozen" list of the 12
least secure companies in the United States in 2022. Since its Bessemer, Alabama
warehouse opened in 2020, the online retailer has had an accident rate more than
times the market rate, involving six fatalities.

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 (Source: Pope, 2022)

One of the employees who died was apparently compelled to work sick because he
didn't have enough sick leave, according to the National COSH. One employee's
worries that the "pace of work" and general stress led to accidents were also cited.
They also cited the case of an Amazon warehouse worker in Staten Island, who was
fired in 2020 after he protested the company's inadequate COVID-19 safety
procedures (Pope, 2022). After finding that he had been dismissed from Amazon in
retribution for his comments, a court recently ordered Amazon to return him.

A huge percentage of its employees leave each year. Amazon lost 1.5 per cent of its
workers per week before the epidemic hit. Less than half of Amazon's churn occurs
in logistics, warehouses, and utilities, whereas the retail industry's estimated yearly
churn was 64.6% in 2021 (Pope, 2022). Even Jeff Bezos, then CEO of Amazon,
seemed concerned. At first, Bezos encouraged high turnover because he believed
long-term workers would get complacent and lead to a "march to mediocrity." Bezos,
in his farewell letter to shareholders as CEO last year, emphasized that the
corporation needed to "do a better job" for its workers. A surge of unionization

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initiatives at the firm's facilities may have played a role in Bezos (Baboolal-Frank,
2021). Nonetheless, Amazon has a scaling issue as well. It's having trouble finding
replacements for its departing employees while being the second biggest private
employer in the United States.

Employees and unions have long complained about Amazon's hostile work
environment, high turnover, and high accident rates. Amazon's high turnover may be
traced back to the company's questionable recruiting procedures, strict production
targets, lax attendance regulations, and uneven execution of corporate policies.

One problem is the "time off task" measure, which Amazon uses to track worker
productivity and provide written feedback; accumulating too much "time off task" may
result in disciplinary action up to and including firing. A worker's employment at
Amazon will be terminated without further notice if they accrue enough negative
leave balance due to absences that they are unable to get their absences cleared by
the appropriate department (Baboolal-Frank, 2021). All these factors have prompted
the company to take effective measures to change its HR practices and incorporate
aspects which will ensure employee wellbeing and retention. As a result, the
company has introduced its $300 million investment in safety procedures, it has
introduced a safety and injury prevention program that it plans to roll out to other
U.S. operations by the end of the year. It is the firm's intention to reduce the OSHA-
measured incidence of injuries and illnesses in the workforce by half by 2025.

Evaluation of How Change has Prompted Leadership, Individuals and Team

Behaviour
In order to solve the existing employee wellbeing issue, the appropriate place to
begin is with CEO Andy Jassy and his efforts to remedy Amazon's cultural issues.
Amazon has continued to pour resources into human resources in 2022, launching a
slew of programs meant to help workers feel valued and boost retention (Kantor,
Weise and Ashford, 2021). The ability to work from anywhere will be a major new
perk for workers. It is expected that Amazon workers will be more productive and
content as a result of this more freedom to prioritise both work and personal life.
Amazon also plans to keep spending heavily on staff training and development
opportunities including free tuition and onsite classes at its corporate offices.
Amazon can guarantee that it will continue to be a leading company for decades to

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come by improving its workers. However, despite all these new efforts guided by the
leadership, the workers are not completely convinced and still feel insecure about
their job at Amazon (Kantor, Weise and Ashford, 2021). The effect will take time to be
completely realized and re-establish employee trust in the company as the issues
were publicized for a long time.

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Part 2

Force Field Analysis

Forces For Change Forces Against
Change

Employees demand for

better professional Failure if existing HR practices
flexibility and wellbeing
Amazon’s goal is to
improve its working
conditions for its
workers’ safety and
wellbeing and by
doing that it wants
to increase its
retention rate. It
Government and legal
wants to incorporate
authority's pressure to provide
workers with a positive work the employee's first Limited planning and
ambience and ensure that principle to ensure inconsistent
wellbeing their wellness and communication
engagement.

Scores for Forces for change 5 and 6 respectively= 11

Scores against the change 3 and 4 respectively= 7

Considering the higher score for the forces for change, it is determined that Amazon
should move for the change and maximize its positive impacts to ensure that its
efforts to bring about the change are well-synchronized ( Lunenburg, 2010).

Critical Evaluation of the Barriers to Change in Amazon's Professional Culture

 Amazon promotes itself as one of the world's most customer-focused
businesses. Amazon's mission is "to be the most customer-centric business
on Earth," with a focus on helping consumers "search and explore" products

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 they may be interested in purchasing. One of the pillars of Amazon's
corporate culture is a high degree of customer-centricity, which has
consequences for many aspects of the company's operations (Baboolal-
Frank, 2021). This approach has directly impacted the employees which
necessitates them to outperform others in the same industry. Intensive
pressure on the employees contributes to an inflexible working approach
which led to employee exhaustion and discontent (Alshmrani, 2021). This
strategic perspective of the company often holds back its intention to change
the rigid dynamic and establish a flexible humane work environment to
support the employees.
 "Breakneck-paced," and "infamously cost-conscious," are all words used to
define the Amazon corporate culture (Van Rooij and Fine, 2018).
Disadvantages involve but are not limited to, having unattainable expectations
of employees' job output, fostering an atmosphere of dread in the workplace,
and failing to properly acknowledge and reward employees for their efforts.
Media outlets were encouraged to question the claims, and then-Amazon
CEO Jeff Bezos even responded to the piece. Moreover, the leadership style
at Amazon has been likened to "purposeful Darwinism," which is used to
define the company's unique approach to staff selection and development.
People have come to see aggressive, argumentative, and "bruising"
workplace cultures as antiquated. The conventional wisdom these days is that
in order for a business to thrive, it must provide its workers with a supportive
and positive work environment, and its management must be approachable
and treat its staff members as if they were members of their own family
(Solanki, 2019). Some workers at Amazon report feeling immense emotional
and even physical strain from the company's culture. The reason for this is
that working at Amazon requires adjusting to a certain culture that isn't right
for everybody. Only those who thrive under constant stress and a hectic pace
will be successful here. These have resulted in slowed intention to shift the
focus on incurring a change in culture and make the workplace amicable and
workable for everyone.

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Recommendation for Amazon on Its Change Strategy and Leadership
Approach
Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model
Creating a Sense of Urgency: A feeling of immediacy must be instilled in the HR
system from the top down. It's important that everybody participating recognizes the
necessity for transition or understands the significance of transformation to the future
of Amazon. It will be challenging to maintain the proposal's pace and accomplish
permanent changes without their cooperation (Harrison et al., 2021).

Putting Together a Guiding Coalition: In this phase, Amazon needs to assemble a

team that can lead the proposed change and sway key stakeholders owing to their
expertise, experience, credibility, and impact. Teams must be aligned so that the
change can be uniform.

Developing Vision and Strategies: The objective is to build a practical vision to

guide the initiative and work out efficient methods of getting the job done. An image
of the company's potential once the modification has been executed may be
constructed with its support (Lazuardi and Muhyi, 2021). Amazon’s intent and core
values to uphold its employees need to be integrated with its strategies.

Communicating the Change Vision: The goal of this phase is to increase

awareness of the plan across the company in a manner that wins over scepticism
and gains widespread support for the transformation being implemented. Amazon’s
inefficiencies and cruel employee management has been infamously publicized in
the global media which has created employee scepticism and also reduced the trust
in the company (Lazuardi and Muhyi, 2021). Thus, clear reformative content needs
to be promoted so that the lost faith can be re-established.

Eliminating Barriers to Action: Change management in large organisations may

be fraught with difficulties. The business operations and its framework, as well as
any person who is opposed to change, may also act as barriers. Amazon will have to
identify such obstacles to ensure the proper execution of the change process
(Solanki, 2019).

Achieving Short-Term Successes: It might take some time to affect a true and
lasting change. Employees may get disheartened if they go too long without
experiencing any success. It's crucial to establish short-term targets to meet and
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applaud early on in the transformation in order to maintain the enthusiasm rolling and
urge staff to keep supporting the endeavour (Harrison et al., 2021). Organizational
improvements that can be implemented quickly are considered short-term wins. A
fast victory should be something that everyone can see, that is directly tied to the
change endeavour, and that can be celebrated by the whole company. Amazon
should not pressurize its HR team to adapt to the change drastically rather the
change should be consistent.

Shaping the Change: This phase is all about keeping the change in motion by
monitoring how far along the teams have come in their attempts to achieve the
change's vision. The teams should know what is working and what is not.

Sustain the Change: Leaders of the transformation now focus on creating an

environment where the changes they've made will take root. In order to ensure that
all aspects of the organization’s infrastructure are in line with the new course of
action, it is necessary to make adjustments to things like established norms,
procedures, incentive systems, and more. Amazon will have to ensure that they need
to sustain the change (Baboolal-Frank, 2021).

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 Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model

(Source: Harrison et al., 2021)

Critical Overview of the Leadership Approaches

In the context of Amazon, their change initiative is under the revolutionary process
which will need adequate leadership guidance. Especially to oversee the HR
initiative, the leadership must be strong and well-equipped to guide the change
without any inconsistency (Ford, Ford and Polin, 2021).

I. Coaching Style

A coaching leader is someone who invests significant time and effort into figuring out
what makes each person of their organization special and then building on those
qualities. They will make an effort to form meaningful relationships with their
subordinates in order to fully comprehend the aspirations, values, and outlooks of
their teams (Al Hemeiri, Albayedh and Jones, 2021). Coaching leaders are
comparable to democratic and affiliative leaders, but they focus more on each
employee's development and success. Leaders who coach often create an upbeat
atmosphere where people feel safe to ask questions and provide feedback. Many
workers, however, have a sense of being micromanaged. As a coach, one needs to
know when to stand back and give the squad a break. As Amazon is in its primary
phase of the change initiative, the company will have to focus on its coaching
efficiencies to ensure that the HR unit and the associated people are well-aware of
the change approach.

II. Transformational Leadership

Change agents always look for ways to become better. They consistently execute
challenging objectives that test the limits of the team's capabilities. Charismatic
leadership, which relies on the leader's personal charisma and influence, is
commonly connected with this approach. Successful transformational leaders are
captivating since they are articulate speakers who can reach their teams through an
instinctive connection (Ha and Le, 2021). The transformational leadership style is
popular in fast-growing businesses since it encourages workers to surpass their own
expectations for what they are competent in doing. However, transformative leaders
run the risk of exhausting their subordinates by giving them too much responsibility

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without providing enough training and support. Amazon’s leadership needs to be
guided by the transformative ideal as it will enable the company to move forward with
the change approach and allow for a larger vision for the company to succeed.

Recommendations
Considering Amazon's present scenario of employee dissatisfaction and societal
backlash, it is essential for the company to expand its scope to cultivate strong
leadership and HR strategy that will enable the company to bring in the change it
desires to ensure a complete overhaul of the company culture.

I. For Amazon, reshaping and re-establishing new strategic practices in the HR

department is essential.
II. Amazon will have to ensure that their strategic priorities in terms of employee
wellbeing are well-communicated with the employees and are clearly stated in
their recruitment policy so that people can feel at ease and not be threatened
to be a part of the company.

In order to realize these ambitions, Amazon will have to incorporate well-defined

approaches. Especially in the HR department which is behind the entire goal of
employee management improvement.

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Conclusion
In order to grow and survive, almost every business will experience some kind of
transformation at some time. Whether they are intending to add new staff, change
the employee management approach, or strategic values, expand a current division,
or combine with another firm, these shifts may have a dramatic effect on the
organization's future. Similarly, the change in culture, especially in employee
management culture can often be challenging to plan and execute. Especially for a
company like Amazon which thrives to prioritize excellence and pace in performance
to serve their best to the customers. The current report, therefore, has consolidated
a set of information, insights and suggestive evaluation of Amazon's change
approach in the recent past. It is discovered that Amazon's reputation as the best
employer needs to be rebuilt in the light of the constant employee backlash and low
retention rate. Thus, the organizational leadership will now develop and execute
gradual strategies to achieve their change goals and reach a standard level.

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