PBL Case Study Analysis

Introduction

Researchers outline Human Resource Management as an essential policy for the easy running of any organization around the globe. Plenty of HRM researchers concentrate on best practices and strategic fit without consideration of ethical dimensions, which are essential to practices in the history of human resource management (Mathis et al., 2016). Laborers or employees are considered assets to an organization which means that they deal with or are viewed as the company’s products, whether they are paid attention to, it insults the personhood of the employees. Employees in an organization are essential in that they help run the company by offering services and products. The human resource management Harvard model outline that despite the gain of the company, the interests of stakeholders like the company workers in the HRM policies; this is one of the models that confirm the stakeholder’s power as outlined in the firm’s stakeholder theory and also viewing the company employees as essential stakeholders (Stone et al., 2020). Stakeholders have different interests in the company operations; thus, they experience different unethical behaviors due to different organizations’ moral obligations.

The PBL assignment is based on the Amazon company’s determination to produce more and earn more revenues against its employees’ health and safety erasures. Additionally, the company also pays its employee’s low rewards. The paper will discuss employee rewards and equity, occupational health and safety, and ethics. The research question is how the HRM policies such as rewards and equity, occupational health, and safety measures affect the employees and the company’s performance in general. Recently, the company has faced several criticisms. There have been rising protests among Amazon employees throughout the United States. The employees. They protest that the company offers them inadequate pay; they complain that they put their bodies and minds behind the company’s progress to keep it going but do not see its benefits (Barrickman, 2022). The employees also complain that workplace injury rates have increased, and the company does not do much about it.

The general strategies of HR management practices are very substantial to any company’s operations. An organization that guarantees and ensures that the employee’s health and their working conditions are good, as well as their rewards and equity, motivates them to work even better, thus enhancing the organization’s productivity. Nevertheless, dissatisfied workers in a company are more likely to cause harm to the company than good; they tend to protest, quit their jobs, or even fail to go to jobs, thus increasing the absentee rates compared to satisfied employees. Therefore, companies need to motivate their employees, especially on their rewards and equity, and ensure a better working environment. For instance, they can offer employees rewards based on their performance and practice ethical practices in the company. In the Amazon case, employees outline several issues, such as inadequate employee pay, poor working conditions in the organization, and lack of ethical practices ad ethics in the company.

The paper’s research question is how the lack of HRM practices such as rewards and equity, occupational safety, and health and ethical practices impacts the company’s employees. The report thus will give a clear understanding of Amazon’s rising employee protests throughout the United States. It will concentrate on rewards and equity, Occupational safety and health practices, and ethics (Mathis et al., 2016). The paper will discuss the contextual background, which will briefly outline the facts, and the theoretical background will discuss the theoretical framework of rewards and equity, occupational health, and safety. The paper will also discuss the recommendations or the managerial implications.

Contextual Background

Rewards and equity and the health and safety of the workers are essential HR management practices in a company. An organization whose work is equitable among all employees and the employees’ compensations is based on equity helps motivate the employees to achieve better and enhances the organization’s productivity. Better working conditions at the workplace also help the employees to feel appreciated and thus increase their sense of belonging in the company. Research shows that an organization that commits itself to enhance employees’ working conditions and offering better rewards is more effective and productive; employees do not waste time on protests and strikes (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2013). Additionally, health and safety in an organization increase both productivities and improve the quality of services and products, enhancing the company’s image and reputation with the public. A company’s lack of proper rewards and equity system negatively influences staff performance.

Amazon failed to offer better working conditions, especially in their warehouses; this led to the company’s employees protesting in multiple areas in the United States on Tuesday against the issues and low wages for their services, especially today in the face of record inflation (Barrickman, 2022). In Amazon’s case, the employees at KSBD air hub protested over low pay, and they also demanded breaks after one hour because of the excess heat in the organization. In turn, Amazon responded to its employees’ demands with threats, intimidation, and retaliation.

Theoretical Background

Rewards and Equity

First, the paper will discuss the theoretical background of rewards and equity of the company employees. Equity and rewards are among the main factors in organizational strategies. Equity impacts attracting and retaining employees and enhance ideal employee performance to meet the organization’s goals and objectives. Adams’s equity and the expectancy theory help us understand the relationship between employee motivation and their perception of inequitable or equitable treatment. Equity theory admits that employee factors impact the perception and assessment of employees’ relationship with their employers (Kollmann et al., 2020). The theory further outlines three likely outcomes of the employees’ attitude; employees may feel equitably rewarded, under over rewarded. An employee who feels under-rewarded has her morale and motivation reduced. Research shows that if the company workers feel under-rewarded, their productivity reduces, thus leading to poor performance of the company in general. Therefore, not offering employees a better salary is unfair, which may even reduce their morale to work in the company (Holland, 2019). For example, Amazon company employees feel they are under-rewarded, and as a result, they have protested, thus reducing the employee’s productivity and motivation.

Expectancy theory is another theoretical model that will analyze the impacts of rewards and equity on company employees. The theory outlines that individuals act in a particular manner, expecting an outcome to follow the action and that this outcome is attractive (Bolles, 2010). The assumption is that increased employee performance is followed by monetary rewards, which improve the future employee’s performance. According to this theory, motivation is an instrumentality product, valence, and expectancy. When the company workers are highly motivated, they are likely to increase their productivity compared to employees with low motivation. Research shows that when an employee receives a reward for something good they did, they are likely to do it again and again due to the motivation of rewards. Salary is an example of rewards for employees. When employees are rewarded significantly, their motivation and productivity increase (Bolles, 2010). Rewards and incentives lead to high motivation, which leads to job satisfaction. Increased job satisfaction among the employees helps reduce the protests of employees as well as employee turnover rates.

Occupational Health and Safety

The paper also analyzes the employees’ occupational health and safety measures in Amazon’s Case. Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory model will be used to analyze health and safety needs. The theory outlines that the satisfaction of company employers has two dimensions: motivation and hygiene. The theory suggests how employees are treated in the workplace affects their productivity and motivations (Chiat & Panatik, 2019). If employees are treated correctly, and in a better manner, it keeps them from being unhappy, thus reducing the rising protests among the employees. Hygiene factors comprise issues such as the company working conditions, supervision, salary, relationship with the supervisors, security, and company policy, among others. Factors like better working conditions increase job satisfaction among employees. The company policies also play a role in the organization’s health and safety conditions because the company’s policies impact how the organization caters to the health and safety issues of the employees. Motivators include achievement and recognition, making workers more creative, committed, and productive (Chiat & Panatik, 2019). Research outlines that companies with clear company policies receive better attention for health issues and safety in comparison to companies that do not have a clear company policy. These organizations with clear company policies tend to have minimal incidents; thus, their employees feel safe due to better working conditions; as a result, the performance measures and productivity increases. Good working conditions reduce an organization’s employees’ dissatisfaction, enhancing effective and efficient job activities in the company.

Another theoretical model is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy, safety needs rank on the second level. The safety needs include the security of the body and the workplace resources; they help facilitate the company employee’s health (Hale et al., 2019). In HR management, occupational health and safety issues include offering breaks to employees and ensuring that the company resources are safe when they are using them to do their daily tasks. Therefore, Amazon needs to implement various policies to establish better working conditions; for instance, it can implement strategies to reduce the excess heat in its warehouses to enable the employees to offer their services easily. Research on health and safety effectiveness programs in companies indicates that today the procedures on safety and health in a workplace are significant to both the employer’s and employee’s well-being because the loss of human life is immeasurable and unbearable (Hale et al., 2019). Better conditions at the workplace reduce employee stress in an organization and help increase their productivity and performance, thus increasing the products and services of an organization.

Ethics and Ethical Practices

Another issue in Amazon, as outlined in the case study, is the issue of ethics and ethical practices. Ethics in HR management is a crucial aspect that needs to be attended to by the company managers; it is where the business managers or the professionals help an embedded organization uphold its outlined values irrespective of the levels. With ethics, the company can improve the employees’ trust and sustain their relations. In an organization, ethics can take the form of ethics in employee compensation systems and health and safety (De Gama et al., 2012). The utilitarianism model is based on the principle of happiness; it governs the correct practices from unfair practices by focusing on the outcomes. The ethics model suggests that every worker’s happiness counts on equal measures. Utilitarianism and ethics influence the practices of HR management, where it recounts the results and consequences of the organization’s employees. Profit maximization is among the main objective and goals of HR management. The Human Resources managers employ efficient and effective strategies to enhance the welfare of the company workers. Managers ensure their workers are happy by offering better working conditions. Similarly, the company also needs to offer a better rewards system for the employees and ensure that the compensation they offer is reasonable and based on their performance. Happy employees result from safe working conditions, resulting in increased job satisfaction, thus reducing the protest and increasing productivity.

Managerial Implications/ Recommendations

After the analysis of Amazon’s case, the following recommendations are offered for the company to enhance better operations and reduce the rising protests of the employees in the United States. The first implication is that Amazon can design an appropriate system reward to settle the rewards and ethics issues in the organization. The company can employ an equal reward system for all its employees. Rewards motivate employees to achieve higher quality performance; it enables the organization to attract and retain highly experienced employees since it reduces employee turnover rates (Munap et al., 2013). The rewards also help increase job satisfaction, thus reducing employee protests. If Amazon company employees have a better reward system based on employee performance will enhance job satisfaction among its employees, thus reducing the rising protests in the United States. The company’s managers can establish extrinsic and intrinsic rewards that equitably cater to all workers. Amazon should increase a massive pay rise for its employees to keep pace with rising living costs and inflation.

The second implication is that the managers of Amazon need to improve the company’s working conditions to reduce the company employees’ injury rates; this will increase employee job satisfaction (Quinlan et al., 2014). The company also needs to give employees working in the organization, especially in extreme heat, breaks for at least after an hour to help keep their health safe and reduce injury rates. The company managers must ensure that the workplace is clean and safe from toxic fumes and deadly viruses that the employees must endure as they do their daily tasks.

To eliminate the occurrence of ethical issues in the company, such as management harassment and the oppressive system rates, its managers can prove a training program on various topics in the code of business ethics and conduct. The managers can train the employees on anonymously submitting a complaint to the company website at a higher management level; this will help reduce unethical practices in the company.

Conclusion

The paper discusses the rising protests of Amazon company workers in the United States due to low pay and poor working conditions. The report discusses what impacts employee rewards and equity, occupational health and safety, and ethics have on the job satisfaction of employees of Amazon organization. The issues in the case study are poor working conditions, low pay or rewards, and harassment from the company managers, which results in unethical behavior. Various theories have been used to examine the main issues affecting the company. It offers the recommendations the company can employ to help reduce the issues in the company to enhance the smooth running of its operations. Amazon company thus needs to consider the recommendations outlined in the report to improve the working conditions and enhance an organization free from ethical challenges. For instance, company managers must ensure that the workplace is clean and safe from toxic fumes and deadly viruses that the employees must endure as they do their daily tasks.

References

Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., Valentine, S. R., & Meglich, P. (2016). Human resource management. Cengage Learning.

Stone, R. J., Cox, A., & Gavin, M. (2020). Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.

Barrickman, N. (2022). Rising protests among Amazon workers throughout the United States, World Socialist Web Site. Available at: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/13/ykek-o13.html (Accessed: November 26, 2022).

Bondarouk, T., & Ruël, H. (2013). The strategic value of e-HRM: results from an exploratory study in a governmental organization. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(2), 391-414.

Holland, P. (2019). HRM in the Contemporary Workplace. In Contemporary HRM Issues in the 21st Century. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Kollmann, T., Stöckmann, C., Kensbock, J. M., & Peschl, A. (2020). What satisfies younger versus older employees, and why? An aging perspective on equity theory to explain interactive effects of employee age, monetary rewards, and task contributions on job satisfaction. Human Resource Management, 59(1), 101-115.

Chiat, L. C., & Panatik, S. A. (2019). Perceptions of employee turnover intention by Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory: A systematic literature review. Journal of Research in Psychology, 1(2), 10-15.

Hale, A. J., Ricotta, D. N., Freed, J., Smith, C. C., & Huang, G. C. (2019). Adapting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a framework for resident wellness. Teaching and learning in medicine, 31(1), 109–118.

De Gama, N., McKenna, S., & Peticca-Harris, A. (2012). Ethics and HRM: Theoretical and conceptual analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(1), 97–108.

Quinlan, M., Bohle, P., & Lamm, F. (2014). Managing occupational health and safety. Palgrave Macmillan.

Map, R., Badrillah, M. I. M., & Rahman, B. A. (2013). Organizational rewards system and employees’ satisfaction at Telekom Malaysia Berhad. Journal of educational and social research, 3(3), 281-281.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX 1: PBL Worksheet

APPENDIX 2: Amazon Case Study