Qantas Airline Case Study Analysis

This assignment requires a detailed analysis of Qantas Airlines. Students must evaluate the airline's performance, focusing on its restructuring efforts, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and financial successes. The analysis should draw upon various provided sources, including academic journals, news articles, and Qantas' official reports. A comprehensive understanding of Qantas' business model and its position within the global aviation industry is essential for this case study.

0Running head: QANTAS AIRWAYS
Managing People and Organisation

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Executive Summary
Qantas Airways is an international Australian airline company; it is the flag bearer of the
country as well. The human resource frame of the company focuses on managing its human
capital by performing various actions such as recruitment, training, retention, compensation,
and development. There are various strengths and weaknesses of Qantas Airway’s HR frame.
The strengths of the human resource frame include effective recruitment and training
program. The recruitment process focus on hiring suitable employees and training program
enhances abilities of current workers. The HR department also ensures a high level of
diversity during recruitment and also establish various talent programs for employees’
personal development.
Along with strengths, there are few weaknesses in HR frame as well, such as the high
turnover ratio of workers due to high work pressure. The HR department also failed to engage
with low-level staff properly and implement modern technology in the recruitment process.
The company can adopt various strategies to overcome its weaknesses such as recruiting part-
time workers, using technology while assessing abilities of job candidates, hiring outside
Australia and setting quarterly employees’ engagement programs. These strategies will assist
in improving the relationship between HR department and employees and also benefit the
company by sustaining future growth.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Qantas Airways..........................................................................................................................4
Strengths of Human Resource Frame........................................................................................5
Effective recruitment process.................................................................................................5
Diversity in Qantas.................................................................................................................6
Women Workers....................................................................................................................6
Employees Talent Programs..................................................................................................6
Training and Development.....................................................................................................7
Weaknesses of Human Resource Frame....................................................................................7
Lack of New Talent................................................................................................................7
High Employee Turnover.......................................................................................................8
Employee Engagement...........................................................................................................8
Lack of Ability to Change......................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Human resource frame of a corporation focuses on recruiting employees as well as deciding
their role, responsibilities, duties, values, interests, and interactions; in other words, it
manages the human capital of an organisation. The human resource frame is administered by
the HR department of a company that performs various actions relating to human capital such
as recruitment, training, development, retention, compensation, and others. An effective
human resource frame efficiently manages employees’ requirements and increases their
productivity through motivation, training, incentives, maintaining a positive organisational
environment and removing the conflict between workers and company.
In modern business environment, corporations focus on maintaining an effective human
resource frame since it provides them a competitive advantage over their competitors; the
insightful understanding of human resource frame’s strengths and weaknesses allow top-level
management to formulate policies that improve the productivity of employees and sustain
future development of the company. This report will focus on analysing the strengths and
weaknesses of human resource frame maintained by “Qantas Airways”. Further, the report
will provide suggestions to reduce the drawbacks of human resource management and to
improve the effectiveness of human capital in Qantas Airways.

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Qantas Airways
The Qantas Airways was founded on 16th November 1920, and it is the third oldest airline
company is the world; currently, it is the flag carrier and largest airline of Australia based on
international destinations offers, overseas flights, and fleet size. The “Qantas” is an acronym
made by the corporation for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”. The
company started its international passenger flights services in May 1935; now the company
has a total of 118 fleets, and it provides services in more than 85 countries (Qantas, 2017).
The head office of Qantas is situated in Mascot, Sydney, Australia and its secondary hubs are
in Dubai International Airport, Adelaide airport, and Perth airport. In 2015, the corporation
accumulated revenue of AU$16.2 billion and an operating profit of AU$1.03 billion (Ong
and Letts, 2016).
Qantas Airways has more than 33,826 employees. The subsidiaries of the company include
Impulse airlines, Qantas link, Australia Asia airlines, Jetconnect, Jetstar Airways and
Network aviation. Qantas Airways is one of the top ten largest airlines in the world, and it is
the number one domestic airline in Australia (Rosen, 2017). The company comprises multiple
activities through its front and backstage operations. Qantas Airway’s human resource
department focuses on recruiting professionals and providing them extensive training to
ensure that they provide excellent services. The productivity and performance of the workers
are refined by exceptional training programs that are arranged by the organisation. Qantas
management hierarchy includes three levels which are top level, secondary level, and ground
level.
The top-level management consists of eight members that are headed by a president; the apex
level is divided into various departments that manage and formulates policies for various
functions such as nomination, audit, recruitment, remunerations, environment, health,
security and many others (Day, 2009). The secondary level comprises various executives that
look after the policies established by the top level management. This level is divided into 12
central departments which include IT, legal, domestic, finance, loyalties, resources, and
others. These departments include managers and air professionals that provide necessary
training to workers from ground level in order to develop their skills and abilities. The ground
staffs consist of employees that work at ground level such as runways, airports, planes and
other places. The diligence and hard work of ground staff allow organisation to provide a

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high level of service to its customers and sustain their future growth (Sarina and Wright,
2015).
Strengths of Human Resource Frame
Qantas Airways focus on attracting the best talent and developing their skills to ensure they
perform at their maximum capacity and provide high-quality services to its customers; the
human resource department of the company is highly efficient while selecting professionals
and providing them appropriate training (Latemore, 2013). Following are some strengths of
Qantas Airways human resource frame.
Effective recruitment process
Qantas Airways has a robust recruitment process that focuses on hiring professional and
qualified candidate for different posts. The HR department thinks outside the box while
selecting candidates for the job; they look for extra value in employees rather than just
focusing on their credentials (Weller, 2007). To assess unique qualities of candidates, HR
department conduct various exercises that provide necessary information which can be
utilised while assigning candidates in different positions. Below is a diagram of Qantas
Airway’s recruitment process:
Recruitment Process of Qantas Airways
Submission of Online Application
Interview
Psychometric Testing: numerical reasoning,
personality tests, verbal reasoning, etc.
Assessment Centre
In-Tray Exercises
Reference & Background Checks: Citizenship, Visa,
Residency and Medical Check
Selection

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Diversity in Qantas
According to Hewett (2016), the CEO of Qantas Airways Alan Joyce provided that
maintaining diversity in top-level management assisted them in remaining strong during
difficult times. The HR department is committed to maintaining a diverse environment which
provides equal respect, value, and compensation to people from different background and
gender. The HR department also establishes policies to promote and support recruitment of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples in Australia. As per the diversity report of
Qantas Airways, following are the diversity policies of the company (Qantas, 2016):
 Training employees to treat each other with dignity and respect.
 Developing inclusive leaders that promote and value diversity in team and
environment.
 Developing diversity programs to ensure employees work at their highest potential.
 Communicating organisational diversity policies and its growth with workers.
 Identifying and creating new partnerships that promote and develop diversity in the
organisational environment.
 Building an including culture that is flexible and provides services to all employees.
Women Workers
Qantas Airways has a long history of promoting and nurturing their women workers and
providing various services for their development. Following facilities are provided by HR
department to women employees (Qantas, 2016):
 Equal opportunity, harassment, and anti-discrimination policies
 Talent management in order to put women in leadership positions
 Increasing female engineers
 Female pilots in advertisement and promotion for recruitment
 Women @ Qantas development program
 Flexible work, safety, and other benefits
Employees Talent Programs
Qantas Airway’s human resource department has implemented various talent and education
programs that are focused on improving knowledge and skills of its employees. The company
provides scholarships and loans to employees who decided to study further in order to
enhance their knowledge (Bamber, 2015). These programs attract a large number of qualified

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candidates in the recruitment procedure of Qantas Airways. Following are few programs
provided by the corporation to its workers:
 Harvard leadership program
 Graduate program
 Women @ Qantas Development Program
 Emerging Leader program
 Indigenous careers @ Qantas team
 University cadetships and School-based traineeships
Training and Development
Qantas Airways provide world-class training to its employees and professionals to improve
their productivity. The company focus on self-learning policies and foster it by establishing a
flexible environment. The self-assessment assignments, tasks, and evaluation techniques help
the employees to dwell deep and enhance their capabilities and skills (Gittell and Bamber,
2010). The training programs are divided into four main sections to fulfill the requirements of
each trainee; this segregation allows employees to learn comfortably, and it reduces the
feeling of discrimination. The trainers provide training based on the readiness of employees
and motivate them to improve their performance.
Weaknesses of Human Resource Frame
Along with several strengths, there are few weaknesses in HR frame of Qantas Airways due
to various challenges faced by them.
Lack of New Talent
More than 95 percent of the Qantas Airways operations are situated in Australia, in order to
reduce cost; the company hires workers from local cities (Haynold and Rosander, 2006). The
use of local recruitment policy narrows down the scope of the organisation to select talented
and skilled employees. The number of airlines professionals is also low, which increases their
bargaining demand at the time of recruitment. Qantas Airways provide training to improve
the performance of employees, but workers without any knowledge or degree in airline find it
difficult to learn new topics. New and talented employees bring new ideas with them that are
beneficial for a corporation’s growth. Therefore, lack of talented employees is significant
weaknesses of HR frame of Qantas Airways.

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High Employee Turnover
Qantas Airways is known for the benefits provided by them to their employees, but in return,
they constantly put high pressure on them to perform better. Especially in peak season, the
employees face a high level of workload that can be dangerous for their physical and mental
health. The company also provide flexible hours to its employees, but still, many workers do
long shifts during both day and night (Pauka, 2016). These factors increase the employee
turnover ratio, and HR department find it difficult to retain workers in the organisation.
Employee Engagement
In Qantas Airways, most of the employees find it difficult to engage with top-level
management due to lack of effective HR policies; it is difficult for low-level workers to
communicate their problems directly to the senior management of the company (Oxenbridge,
Wallace, White, Tiernan and Lansbury, 2010). The HR staff also failed to effectively assess
the requirements and needs of their workers which made employees disconnect from the
organisation and it reduced their productivity as well.
Lack of Ability to Change
The human resource frame of Qantas Airways lacks the ability to change their policies as per
the marketing requirements. The HR frame has rigid traditional policies that are not enough
to fulfill the requirements of modern employees (Healey, 2016). The company has
implemented various modern policies regarding diversity and discrimination, but there is still
space for more. The HR department did not incorporate modern technology into their
functions which reduces their ability to assess qualities of candidates using digital methods, it
increases the time of recruitment and did not analyse the full potential of candidates (Allen,
2006).
Recommendations
Overall Qantas Airways has an efficient Human resource frame, but it includes few
weaknesses as well. Following suggestions can assist the company in reducing their
weaknesses and improve the effectiveness of their processes.
 The company should start international recruitment processes that allow them to
attract and hire talented employees from all over the world. Using this strategy will

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widen the choices for company, and they will be able to hire employees as per their
specific technical requirements.
 The company should recruit part-time employees during their peak season to reduce
the pressure from their employees. They should also establish a positive environment
in the workplace by assessing the requirement of their workers and fulfilling them.
 The senior-level HR management should enhance their engagement with low-level
staff; the employees must be able to tell their problems and feel like a part of the
family. A quarterly meet up program should be established which allow workers to
give their feedback to top-level management, and in return, management motivates
the employees.
 The HR department should implement modern technology into its operations to
enhance their efficiency. For example, using digital assessment methods to measure
capabilities and knowledge of the candidates will reduce the recruitment time and
assist in selected of suitable candidates.

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Conclusion
From the above observations, it can be concluded that human resource frame deals with
human capital of an organisation. Effective management of human capital is necessary to
sustain future development of a corporation. The HR frame of Qantas Airways has several
strengths along with few weaknesses. The strengths include diversification in the workplace,
equal opportunities to women, effective recruitment process that focus on selecting the best
talents, talent programs for workers and high-quality training programs.
The weaknesses include high turnover ratio, lack of implementation of modern technology,
shortage of new talent, and low employees’ engagement. The company can adopt various
policies to reduce its weaknesses such as international recruitments, hiring part-time workers,
quarterly employees’ engagement program and using modern technologies in recruitment
procedure. These strategies will benefit organisation by increasing the effectiveness of HR
frame and sustain their future growth.

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Companies, 58(1), p.51.
Bamber, G.J., 2015. Low-cost airlines’ product and labor market strategic choices: Australian
perspectives. Members-only Library.
Day, Q.I., 2009. Alan Joycee, Ceo Qantas. Retrieved July, 5, p.2010.
Gittell, J.H. and Bamber, G.J., 2010. High-and low-road strategies for competing on costs
and their implications for employment relations: international studies in the airline
industry. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(2), pp.165-179.
Healey, B., 2016. How did Qantas improve its human resources management?. [Online]
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