Aer Lingus: HRM Practices, Employee Relations, and Legal Compliance

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Aer Lingus, an airline company based in Ireland. It examines the purposes and functions of HRM, including workforce planning, job analysis, recruitment, training, performance appraisal, and industrial relations. The report also evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of internal and external recruitment approaches, and the benefits of various HRM practices on both management and employees. Furthermore, it assesses the effectiveness of HRM practices, such as resilient working options, training and development, performance appraisal, and employee retention, in raising profits and productivity within Aer Lingus. The importance of employee relations and the impact of employment legislation on HRM decision-making are also discussed, along with a practical application of HRM practices in a work-related context, including job specification, candidate CV, interview notes, and a job offer.

HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMEN
T
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
OVERVIEW OF THE COMPANY.........................................................................................................4
LO1...................................................................................................................................................5
P1 PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE PLANNING AND
RESOURCES IN AER LINGUS.........................................................................................................5
P2 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS OF VARIOUS APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND
SELECTION....................................................................................................................................7
LO2...................................................................................................................................................9
P3 BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES ON THE MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES OF AIR
LINGUS.........................................................................................................................................9
P4 EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN AER LINGUS IN RAISING PROFITS AND
PRODUCTIVITY...........................................................................................................................10
LO3.................................................................................................................................................12
P5 IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEES RELATIONS IN AER LINGUS WITH RESPECT TO INFLUENCING
HRM DECISION MAKING............................................................................................................12
P6 KEY ELEMENTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION AND THE IMPACT IT HAS ON HRM
DECISION MAKING IN AER LINGUS............................................................................................14
LO4.................................................................................................................................................16
P7 APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES IN WORK RELATED CONTEXT........................................16
1. JOB SPECIFICATION.....................................................................................................16
JOB PORTFOLIO AT AER LINGUS................................................................................................17
2. CV OF THE CANDIDATE.......................................................................................................18
3. INTERVIEW NOTES..............................................................................................................19
4. JOB OFFER TO SELECTED CANDIDATE................................................................................20
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5. AN EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS AND THE RATIONALE FOR CONDUCTING APPROPRIATE
HR PRACTICES............................................................................................................................22
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................23
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................24
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource department plays a crucial role in the growth and development of any
company. HRM performs all the activities in an organization like selection and hiring,
management, appropriate allocation etc. that leads an organization to success. It manages all
the key roles in an organization that reduces chances of conflicts, or any issues that may arise
within in an organization which results in effective working of the organization. This assignment
will critically evaluate all the activities of HRM within an organization and the key
responsibilities of HR manager that binds all the functional departments within the
organization.
The organization chosen for this assignment is Aer Lingus which is an airline company in
Ireland, UK. Aer Lingus is the second largest company in Ireland that provides airline services
and was initially established by the government of Ireland and later was privatized International
Airlines Group. The HRM department of Aer Lingus plays a very important role in its constant
success as it looks after all the major activities of the company. This report will explain the
effectiveness of key factors of HRM in Aer Lingus along with the practices the HR manager of
Aer Lingus performs that benefits the company in terms of both profitability and productivity.
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OVERVIEW OF THE COMPANY
Aer Lingus which is an airline company in Ireland, UK. Aer Lingus is the second largest company
in Ireland that provides airline services. Aer Lingus was founded on 15th April 1936 at Ireland
UK. It was initially established by the government of Ireland and later was privatized
International Airlines Group between the year 2006 to 2015, which owned the company
completely. The headquarters of Aer Lingus is situated in Dublin Airport, Ireland and the
company mainly focuses on cities like Cork, Belfast-City and Shannon. Aer Lingus generated
revenue of €1,766 million in the year 2016 and the net income of the company was founded
about €205.5 million in the year 2016 (O’Connell and Connolly, 2016).
Figure 1: LOGO OF AER LINGUS
{Source: http://customerservicecontactnumbers.co.uk/aer-lingus/}
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LO1
P1 PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE
PLANNING AND RESOURCES IN AER LINGUS
There is wide range of purposes and scope of HRM in Aer Lingus that the HR manager of the
company has to perform these scope are encouraging the employees, recruitment and hiring,
managing human resources, relation within the same industry, providing salary, manpower
planning, training and development, employees relation, appreciation on good performance
and understanding the view of employees (Fay, et al. 2015).
FIGURE 2: SCOPE OF HRM
{Source: http://ispatguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HRM.jpg}
PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM IN AER LINGUS ARE AS FOLLOWING:
 HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING: It is the process that helps Aer Lingus to calculate the
vacancy of jobs in several departments and helps the company to understand that
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whether the employees in a company are more than they need or less than the
requirement.
 JOB ANALYSIS DESIGN: The HRM in Aer Lingus helps to analyze the job profile needed
for the vacant seats in the company and provides a detailed description of every job in
Aer Lingus.
 RECRUITMENT AND HIRING: Depending on the information about the employee
requirement based on job analysis the HRM department of Aer Lingus makes various
advertisements and spread them through several media like social media, print media
etc. and all this comes under recruitment (Azeem, et al. 2016). After the recruitment
process, several candidates apply the HRM department conducts a proper interview
and chooses the appropriate employee and hires them and this process comes under
selection or hiring.
 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: The selected employees in Aer Lingus are provided
with the various training session which helps employees in performing in the best way
they can. Aer Lingus spends a lot amount in these training and development programs.
 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: The HRM department in Aer Lingus provides performance
appraisal on timely bases after evaluating the performance of the employees. These
appraisals are based on the growth in employee’s performance and depending on the
growth the HRM department of Aer Lingus provides bonuses, incentives, holiday trips
etc. to their employees so as to keep them motivated.
 INDUSTRIAL RELATION: The most important function of the Human Resource
department in Aer Lingus is to maintain a healthy relationship with the union members.
This will help Aer Lingus to avoid the strike actions by the employees of the company
and provides the surety of efficient working in Aer Lingus.
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P2 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS OF VARIOUS APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT
AND SELECTION
There are various types of recruitment and selection methods that are used by the human
resource department within the company depending upon the situation to hire new employees
for the company. The methods are dependent on either traditional method of selection or on
the modern ways by using technologies. There are mainly two types of methods that are used
by companies to find the potential and skilled employees for their company based on the job
requirement. The two approaches to recruitment and selection are internal recruitment and
external recruitment (Breaugh, 2017). Aer Lingus uses both the methods depending on the
need and situation of the company and both the methods have strengths and weakness. The
weakness and strengths of both the approaches for recruitment and selection in context with
Aer Lingus are discussed below:
INTERNAL RECRUITMENT
It is the method in which the ability of candidates is identified from within the organization.
There are both formal and informal ways that are utilized to understand the skills and
capabilities of the internal candidate that helps the HRM department to understand that the
employees within the company are capable enough to responsibly perform the new role
assigned to them or not. Aer Lingus does not give much importance to this method as there are
various departments in airlines companies which need only experts. The weakness and
strengths of internal approach in Aer Lingus are discussed below:
STRENGTHS
 It reduces the cost of hiring and also takes lesser time as compared to other methods.
 The Company clearly knows the capabilities and qualities of employees and also the
employees are aware properly of the working structure of the company (Bibb, 2016).
 Employees are highly motivated as they get an opportunity to explore their new skills.
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WEAKNESS
 Internal recruitment restricts the area for the more skilled and capable candidates.
 It becomes the reason for conflict among the employees in the company as other
employees may have a negative effect of the same.
EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT
External recruitment is the process in which the candidates from outside the company are hired
by proper recruitment and selection process (Fox, 2015). Aer Lingus uses this method more
often as the airline company needs employees with expertise in their field as it is more about a
technicality in the airline's industry. The weakness and strengths of external approach in Aer
Lingus are discussed below:
STRENGTHS
 It opens the gates for new and fresh ideas which may help a company to change their
perspective in working process.
 People with more experience could be allowed to join the company that will result in
more productivity.
WEAKNESS
 It is a time taking the approach as well as needs a big sum of money to carry out the
complete process of selection and recruitment.
 Only selection method may not disclose the capabilities of the candidates which may
result in a selection of lesser deserving candidate according to the job profile.
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LO2
P3 BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES ON THE MANAGEMENT AND
EMPLOYEES OF AIR LINGUS
There are several benefits of the HRM practices to the management and employees in Aer
Lingus that is responsible for the effective running of the company. The benefits of HRM
practices on the management are as following:
HIRING AND TRAINING
It is the most important responsibility of the HRM department and that benefits most to the
management of Aer Lingus as they prepare a proper job description and hire an appropriate
candidate that benefits the management as they have skilled employees to deal with.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
There are many situations when there is disagreement in employees and management the HR
acts as the mediator between both the parties and tries to resolve the problems so that the
management can maintain good relationships with the employees.
Benefits of HRM practices on the employees are as follows:
The major advantage of HRM practice is laid on the employees of the Aer Lingus such as the
encouragement that the HR department gives to the employee’s results in more loyalty by
employees towards the company and also the employees perform their work with full efforts
(Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). The employees start feeling confident after the training and
development session as their skills are enhanced and also they discover new abilities within
themselves. It improves the employee’s competencies to put best by proper training those
results in satisfaction among the employees regarding their work.
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P4 EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN AER LINGUS IN RAISING
PROFITS AND PRODUCTIVITY
It is necessary to analyze the effectiveness of different types of HRM practices in Aer Lingus so
the company can evaluate its profit rates and productivity as compared to existing position.
Various models are also used to analyze the effectiveness of HRM practices like Hamblin model
of evaluation, Warr’s Framework of evaluation etc. (Caligiuri, 2014). The effectiveness of HRM
approaches in Air Lingus is discussed below:
EFFECTIVENESS OF RESILIENT WORKING OPTION
When there is a flexible working atmosphere in the company it provides employees satisfaction
that results in an automatic rise in productivity rates. In Aer Lingus, the HR department
provides employees resilient working that makes the working atmosphere comfortable for their
employees. The flexible working style encourages the employees to perform an effective
manner and complete their work with full dedication that increases the productivity and
profitability in Aer Lingus.
EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES
Training and development are one of the essential HRM practices that are provided to the
employees at Aer Lingus and there are several benefits of effective training practice in raising
profits and productivity at Aer Lingus and these methods are Fresher’s Training, soft skills
training, quality training, managerial training, team training etc. All these trainings provide
employees give them the knowledge about the work and how to practice those work effectively
in order to increase profits and productivity (Ford, 2014).
EFFECTIVENESS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AND WORKPLACE DESIGN
The Human Resource Management of Aer Lingus evaluates the performance of the employees
on timely bases and provides them rewards according to their growth in work that motivates
the employees to result in more productivity for the company that automatically results in
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more profits margins. These performance appraisal and workplace structure also improve other
actions like employees attentiveness in the company, less employee’s turnover in Aer Lingus,
employee’s satisfaction and motivation.
EFFECTIVENESS OF EMPLOYEES RETENTION
Every company wants there trained and experienced employees to retain as much as they can
in the company and so the Aer Lingus performs all the possible activities that help employees
retention so as to increase profitability and productivity of the company. Many methods are
adopted by the HRM department of Aer Lingus like healthy competition within the company
and prices like special holiday pack or bonuses in order to encourage their employees. All these
ways result in a reduction of employee’s turnover and they stay for longer time in the company
and increase the productivity and profitability of Aer Lingus.
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