Assignment Task:
Assess whether the information is correct or not, and/or complete, and provide correct information to enhance the discussion.
In my scenario, I chose Amazon as my retailer. I'm an avid customer, and as I've lived all over the place, my purchase history runs a very interesting spectrum. It was also interesting to see when and what I was purchasing, at what volumes, and what were considered staples depending on where I was living. (Lots of sunblock living in Charleston, SC and Los Angeles. Baltimore, Dc I load up on cold weather gear because I seem to forget winter is real every time I move back.) My orders doubled in Nov and Dec as I rely on Amazon for Christmas shopping. Then I Imagined what queries a manager might have at Amazon due to supply, demand, and customer behavior, and how they would use data to solve for that variable.
Although the main headquarters is in Seattle, Amazon is divided into sales regions all over the states. They are then broken down into reginal, state and local facility management teams. Amazon prides themselves on being a great place to work, and there is a focus on employee happiness and retention (Castello, L., et al, 2013). That's why in my scenario, my " Staffing Manager" at the managerial level must make a decision on how to accommodate the upcoming Holiday hours without A) Annihilating payroll with expensive overtime, B) risking employee burnout and attrition, C) Over hiring and spending company resources on training and onboarding, only to then spray the place down with pink slips when the holidays are over (which is also a large liability to fire people)
A manager at this level would be responsible for types of information like payroll reports and monthly invoices. The idea is to match up staffing needs with the data on these reports, which can typically be pulled from a Salesforce (or similar)reporting system(Al Imran 2014). This manager's areas of focus and concern is to manage inventory and to make sure there are enough employees to handle the output the of holidays. Pulling a report from last year, my manager sees that they need to increase labor by 20%, but only for an abbreviated amount of time (90 days or so). The report also reflects that these months had the highest resignation rate among staff and had the highest overtime which affected Amazon's bottom line negatively.
Managerial Decision- This Amazon staffing manager decides to hire 50 seasonal employees to accommodate the projected 20% volume reflected in the data for timeframe needed in the report. This prevents expensive overtime, potential employee burnout, and liability from possibly having to lay off new employees. This also gives this Amazon manager a hiring pool for when permanent positions become available, as these seasonal employees are already familiar with company proceedings and culture.
Resources:
Castello, L., McGrath, D. G., Hess, L. L., Coe, M. T., Lefebvre, P. A., Petry, P., ... & Arantes, C. C. (2013). The vulnerability of Amazon freshwater ecosystems. Conservation letters, 6(4), 217-229
Al Imran, M. A. (2014). A study on amazon: information systems, business strategies and E-CRM.