Personal and Professional Skills Required to Achieve Amazon Strategic Goals

Introduction

Amazon is an international e-commerce corporation based in the Seattle which started as an online books store but has progressively grown to currently selling diverse products. Its growth has been reflected in the number of sales for instance, in 1997 its revenue was $150 million while in 2001 it was $3.1 billion (Krishnamurthy 2001, p.9). Jeff Bezos was quick to understand the potential of internet retailing and set up Amazon.com to compete with other physical stores which have not only grown Amazon but also made him among the wealthiest men on the planet. However, to achieve such an immense success especially in the current moment where many online companies have launched their activities using a competitive mechanism, it requires strategic planning and implementing of productive measures. Thus achieving strategic goals, Amazon has been investing in the professional development of its managers and other employees to maximize their skills in pursuing the goals and objectives of the company. Setting and meeting goals of a company are the key to growth, but skills are needed to become competitive in a continuously changing business world. Thus, the essay shall focus on personal and professional skills required to achieve Amazon.com strategic goals, a skills audit to establish the learning styles of Amazon.com employees and implementation of a personal development plan.

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The Personal and Professional Skills Required to Achieve Strategic Goals of amazon.com

Strategic goals refer to the objectives that an organization sets and strives towards achieving. The executive management has to develop the strategic goals guided by the vision of the organization. Furthermore, the executive body of an organization has to explain to the subordinate employees their plans and skills need to achieve the strategic goals. In most cases, the strategic goals should be achievable and should be a reflection of a realistic assessment of the current or future business environment. The primary strategic goal of Amazon is to increase its marketing share. The strategies to achieve this goal is low pricing for their goods and minimizing operational costs. Amazon.com creates a platform for retailers to sell their products and makes their profit by taking a percentage of sales made on each item. The process of achieving these goals is tedious and requires personal and professional dedication for the company to grow progressively. To meet such progress, Amazon.com has been investing in personal and professional skills needed to achieve these goals for their employees.

The Personal Skills

The personal skills needed include time management, stress management, and effective communication. Time management refers to the ability to set and comply with timelines for various activities. This skill has an impact on performance and productivity of both an organization and a person at the workplace. An article published about Amazon's employee's on management revealed that the company do not care about their employee's welfares and force them to endure long working hours to realize the organizational goals and objectives. In response, the CEO, Bezos, stated that the claim was inaccurate and even if it had a hint of truth it would be inappropriate to allow all employees all the permission they wanted since it would affect the working time and productivity of the corporation (Athitakis 2015, para3). Thus, when setting goals and subsequently implementing time the only way to measure progress is by setting timelines for achieving the SMART objectives by utilizing useful time management skills. Thus, dealing with people wasting time at the workplace on unproductive or not work-related activities is a critical consideration for a company seeking growth.

Moreover, managers and supervisors should be able to delegate tasks for different employees to contribute their share and improve the efficiency of meeting the goals within the agreed duration. Furthermore, the ability to prioritize tasks is the key to avoiding chaos such as not meeting deadlines. Identifying and pursuing urgent tasks could create time to accomplish complex tasks and still meet the deadlines. Hence, time management skills is a critical personal skill the Amazon employees require to achieve goals in the competitive industry.

Additionally, stress management is a personal skill needed to achieve the goals and objects of the Amazon company. Stress management refers to techniques need to deal with stress by identifying and eliminating stressors or taking action that minimizes their effects. Amazon.com is an international corporation and to maintain this position in a competitive world, it requires the employees to works towards strict strategies and producing accurate results. Such situations may create tension as employees perform their duties and may lead to stress. Also, such busy working places have employees with interconnected responsibilities which increases the chances of conflict. However, the success of the business will depend on the ability of the employees to deal with their conflicts and foster a harmonious working environment. For instance, at Amazon.com the public relations unit work hand in hand with the marketing team. If the two have divergent ideas on the working procedures towards a particular goal the employees may enter into a conflict, which may require the human resource department to handle the two parties to find a solution before operations are affected. Such occasions lead to stress and adequate problem solving, and decision-making skills are needs for a peaceful working environment.

Another personal skill needed to meet strategic goals at Amazon.com is effective communication. Effective communications refer to the sharing of messages between two people or groups for successful delivery, reception, and comprehension of the content to inform action. The communication is either be verbal, non-verbal or written to pass an intended message. Every workplace is based on the foundation of effective communication between individuals while pursuing the same organizational target. Effective communication is two way as the one passing the message and audience have to take a turn to listen and respond to reactions to arrive at the desired conclusion. For instance, when a manager is sharing the strategic goals of Amazon to the subordinate employees effective listening is needed. Moreover, the employees are encouraged to ask questions to clarify pieces of unclear or conflicting information. Communication is considered effective when both the audience and the speaker assign same meaning to a message (Cite). This skill is also useful when solving conflicts, for instance, an organization with a workplace culture that allows employees to air their grievances without victimization will have few cases of employees complaining about job dissatisfaction or increased cases of turnover.

Professional Skills

The professional skills refer to the capabilities of a person to handle tasks at a particular workplace. Some of the skills needed to meet the strategic goals at Amazon include counseling and mentoring, coaching, self-development, and goal setting. Counselling and mentoring are the skills necessary to help professionals in supporting the staff with emotional and decision-making issues. Emotional challenges are common in a workplace which may affect the operations and productivity of an employee and hence the company. The Counselling skills help staff members to identify the triggers of unhealthy emotions and find solutions. Mentoring skills are needed to guide and advice the employees on the appropriate course of action in various situation inclined to the strategic objectives. Another professional skill is coaching which refers to engaging with the coaches in a thought-provoking process coupled with creativity to inspire the desire for utilizing personal potential in handling tasks at the workplace. For instance, the staff at Amazon could be coached by identifying and exploiting their leadership and multi-tasking skills. Leadership skills enable a person to become accountable and responsible when allocated various duties. Moreover, multitasking requires an employee to handle an array of task successfully without issuing excuses. With such skills, employees can work in both relaxed and under-pressure situations when needed to perform an urgent task without compromising on the quality of the final results.

Additionally, occupational standards are units of competence needed to perform at a given job are required (Lester and Religa 2017, p. 201). These standards also stipulate what should be achieved in the workplace and this context, it is the strategic goals of Amazon Corporation. For instance, there is a set of competencies that a human resource manager needs to possess to perform duties in this position effectively. Some of the skills include the ability to spot and nurture talent (Bjorkman, Ehrnrooth, Makela, Smale, and Sumelius, 2013, p.196). Moreover, he/she should be equipped with leadership and problem-solving skills to deal with various employee issues to avoid such occurrences from affecting the operations at the workplace. Another professional skills needed is the ability to attain continuous personal-development. The skills cover all activities related to self-development at the workplace such as improving awareness, developing and nurturing talent, and building human capital among other activities that enhance a person's employability. Amazon continually encourages and creates opportunities for both top and subordinate employees to learn and improve their skills not only to serve at the company but also in their future endeavors. These opportunities are mostly conducted in the form of a mentorship program or a short course or continuous learning from employees who have more experiences than others.

Additionally, learning from mistakes or challenges is another platform for lessons needed to build personal skill and knowledge to handle tasks at Amazon. Moreover, those employees who enroll for further studies for example on a master degree or an undergraduate course, are encouraged and in some cases provided with relevant facilitation to achieve this goal for personal development (Mizell 2010, p. 12). Building human capital is a critical consideration for organizations to expand their operations and Amazon has acknowledged these facts and is aggressively investing in this area. The opportunities such as promotions and increase in salaries are some of the motivations at Amazon to encourage employees to seek self-development.

Furthermore, strategic managers need the skills of chairing and delivering presentations at meetings. Meeting the strategic goal requires from time to time update on the progress to establish the weaknesses and strengths of the process and inform the areas for adjustments. This activity is achieved through regular meetings which discussed the future strategy. Organizational and creativity skills are needed to prepare effective presentations to convince people at the meeting to consider strategies for dealing with a problem. Thus, it is essential for professional to have computer knowledge and skill such as the use of Microsoft word office, powerpoint slides, and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. During the hiring process of the various organization, the potential candidates are expected to demonstrate their skill and knowledge on the use of various computer applications needed at their workplace. This situation is not any different at Amazon considering that most of its activities are accomplished over the internet.

Another skill is the mastery of the strategic goals to support others to w...