Analysis of HRM Strategies and Employment Relations at British Airways

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes British Airways' HRM strategies.

Human Resource Management for Service Industries
1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................9
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................12
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................16
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19
Reference List................................................................................................................................20
2

Introduction
The success of a service-based company depends on the way they satisfy employees through the
provision of outstanding service. The importance of human resource is more in the service
industry as compared to the product industry due to the involvement of direct interaction with
customers. Human resources are the individuals working in the business process. It is an
important aspect of the managerial process to manage the human resources and HRM function
undertakes this responsibility. The report covers HRM activities concerning British Airways or
BA. The components of HRM such as the purpose of HRM, employee relation, training and
development, and others will be studied in this report.
3

Task 1
Introduction
The overview of HRM functions along with their importance in the service industry is being
analysed in the task. With an analysis of demand and supply of service sector business, an HR
plan will be prepared and justified.
Analyse the role and purpose of human resource management in a selected service industry
(AC 1.1)
With an increase in the popularity of human resource management, its purpose has been
changed. The purposes of below sub-functions of HRM are as analysed below.
Employee Resourcing
It addresses the key areas of HRM such as recruitment, selection, redundancy, talent
management and HR planning (Taylor, 2018). It intends to design approaches to be used by BA
for resourcing employees. The function provides a way for determining top criteria for selecting
employees suitable for working in an airline company. Employee resourcing function takes care
of termination of employees if it found employees are not performing up to mark. Talent
management makes use of key succession planning with a purpose of recognising, developing
and retaining talents within BA. It identifies the internal talent pool within the organisational
premise and transfers their knowledge to others.
Reward Management
The purpose of reward function is to reward people by formulating and implementing strategies
in accordance with British Airway’s value. It aims to operate the reward structure designed by
HR specialists. The structure mainly consists of minimum wage, team and individual reward, pay
practice and policy and payroll administration (Sparrow, 2013). It guarantees that the effort of
employees is valued and rewarded. The function intends to increase the willingness of employees
to the work and enhance their productivity.
Performance management
4

The purpose is to improve the performance of departments, individuals, teams, organisational
processes, and services. It ensures accomplishable and realistic goals have been set and met
effectively. It aims to deliver BA’s operational and strategic goal by overseeing and evaluating
employee performance. A correlation exists between an effective performance management
system and organisational success (Aguinis, 2013). Therefore, the function ensures that
employees are carrying out their duties in a satisfactory manner for which they are employed in
different roles.
Training and Development
It deals organisational activities aimed at improving the job performance of employees and teams
in a particular organisational setting. The purpose is to develop an educational process through
which skills, attitudes, and knowledge of employees sharpen (Wood et al., 2014). The function
builds unique attitude and value among employees, who are the continuous contact with
customers.
Employee relation
Employee relation is the major area in which all workplace concerns are discussed and managed.
It investigates into ranges of workplace issues including employee complaint handling and
management of allegations made by employees against discriminatory practices of BA. It takes
care of labour management issues including employee grievances and collective bargaining
interpretations (Kalemci Tuzun and Arzu Kalemci, 2012). Managing employee satisfaction is
another purpose of employee relation function. The specialists working under this function
conduct employee satisfaction survey to measure their satisfaction towards the working policy
designed by BA.
The job duties performed following HR roles are as follows.
 Training and development specialists: The specialists organise training activities for the
overall development and career progression of employees. Recruiters: They place job advertisements on behalf of all departments of British
Airways and find out desired candidates.
5

 Job analysts: They prepare person and job specification and job description to make
applicants understand their job roles. HR business partners: They support staff of specific departments of the organisation.
Hard and Soft HRM
The two sorts of HRM approaches used in organisations are “Hard” and “Soft” HRM. The hard
approach has a strong relationship with corporate business planning. It does not treat employees
well. The communication used in this method is top down, which is transferred from top
managers to bottom line employees. However, British Airways applies soft HRM in which
employees and their requirements are given maximum importance. The HR specialists prepare
an effective workforce planning through which strategic needs of employees are being
accomplished (Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013).
Create an HR plan (AC1.2)
The continuous process of identifying and analysing the organisation’s needs in terms of
developing policies suitable for the long-term efficiency of the business is known as human
resource planning (Kearns, 2012). BA has entered into an agreement for launching its flight
services to Madeira. The number of flights to be flown is four and 3 in the peak summer season
and off-peak season of the year.
HR plan (Peak Summer season)
Parameters Cabin Crew Ground Staff Pilot Co-pilot
No. Of employees
required
4 6 4 4
Hours of
working/Day
4 6 4 4
Preparation
time/Day
4 2 4 4
Staff Turnover 1 0 2 2
Employee
absenteeism due to
sickness
1 2 1 1
6

Table 1: Human resource Plan
(Source: Created by the learner)
HR plan (Off-Peak season)
Parameters Cabin Crew Ground Staff Pilot Co-pilot
No. Of employees
required
2 4 3
Hours of
working/Day
4 6 4 4
Preparation
time/Day
4 2 4
Staff Turnover 0 0 1 1
Employee
absenteeism due to
sickness
1 2 1 1
Table 2: Human Resource Plan
(Source: Created by the learner)
Justification
The roles required for the new flight service to Madeira are pilot, co-pilot, ground staff, and
cabin crew. Pilots and co-pilots are responsible for the aircraft operation and without them the
safety of passengers cannot be assured. The cabin crewmembers will ensure a comfortable
journey of passengers. They ensure all safety rules are followed by passengers. Ground staffs
assist in baggage checking, plane cleaning and arranging refreshments in aircraft. These roles are
crucial for a successful flight service. In summer, peak travel time starts and more number of
people travels to different places to spend their summer vacation and enjoy tourism destinations.
As the number of flight services to Madeira is more in this period, the number of employees for
each role is more to fulfil the travel needs of customers. In rest seasons of the year, less number
of people travel. Therefore, the number of employees in each job role is more to operate three
flight services to Madeira.
Conclusion
7

The number of employees for working in different positions has been identified for both business
seasons of a year. Each function of HR department fulfils different requirements of employees in
different functional departments.
8

Task 2
Introduction
Employment relation is the practice of developing the relation between individuals in the
workplace. The task assesses the present scenario of industrial or employment relation in the
chosen sector. Employment laws applied in BA along with their influence are being specified
here.
Assess the current state of employment relations in the airline industry (AC 2.1)
Employee relation is the newer version industrial relation, as it defines the strong and positive
relation between the key people of the organisation and employees. The components of
employee relation include individual as well as the collective relationship.
For collective bargaining process in the airline industry, a committee has been developed. The
committee consists of the Civil Air Navigation Organisation, Airport Council International and
International Air Carrier Association (Belobaba et al., 2015). The committee has developed a
framework that applies to employees in civil aviation. It regulates minimum monthly rest, annual
rest days, annual working days and leaves. The airline industry’s collective bargaining structure
is complex for which bargaining takes place in organisational and sector level. The major issues
associated with collective bargaining in the UK’s airline industry are related to pension,
redundancy right, sick pay and others. The airline sector of UK is facing industrial conflicts due
to continuous changes in business approaches and a large amount of restructuring. Additionally,
the complication found in the industrial relation structure and increase in the number of trade
unions have posed many strikes and conflicts in the industry. British Airways has witnessed such
strikes in the past when it has introduced an automated clock system during starting and ending
of shifts.
Currently, airline companies including British Airways are adopting the following practices to
build develop and improve employment relations in the workplace.
Employee Participation
9

It involves encouraging employees to help in running and development of business operation and
processes. The company recognises individual opinions and views so that employees are able to
understand the management views. It is making employees feel that they are valuable and special
for running the business.
Negotiation
It is the process adopted by BA to allow workers and the management to participate in a
decision-making activity, where each of them will discuss their problem and try to accomplish an
agreeable outcome. The airline company wishes to the occurrence of negotiation between the
staff and management.
Empowerment
It involves enabling employees independent that they can oversee their own responsibilities
without other’s guidance. BA informs and educates employees regarding team building and
problem-solving strategies. This makes employees identify problems of their own.
Other approaches taken by British Airways to enhance employment relation include conflict
management, disciplinary and grievance procedure. ACAS is an independent governing body
that handles the conflict occurred between the management and workers. If current and old
employees are lodging any tribunal case, they will first consult with ACAS to get several ways
for resolution of conflict (Acas.org.uk, 2019).
Discuss how employment law affects the management of human resources within British
Airways. (AC 2.2)
The employment laws applied in the workplace of BA are as follows.
GDPR 2018
The principles stated in GDPR include data minimisation, integrity, confidentiality, storage
limitation and others (wired.co.uk, 2019). The managers of human resource encourage
employees to minimise the storage of physical or digital data. They ensure the security and
confidentiality of data used by workers in British Airways. The managers have the right to ask
employees about the purpose based on which they are using business data. With the
10

implementation of GDPR 2018, HR managers have succeeded in keeping employee and
passenger data secured.
National Minimum wage regulation 1999
The Act makes human resource officers decide the number of wages for paying workers below
the age of twenty-five (Gov.uk, 2019). The management of HR stays updated with the minimum
wage reviewed by the low pay commission.
Equality Act of 2010
It is a suitable element to avoid discrimination in HR decisions related to learning and
development opportunity, career progression, reward management and others (GOV.UK, 2019).
The managers are required to give the equivalent opportunity to applicants applied for a job role
without considering the characteristics that differentiate them from other applicants. The age,
gender, race, and other attributes are being covered under this Act.
Health and Safety, 1974
The Act ensures that health and safety parameters are used for workers’ well-being. HR
managers are required to review all safety policies on regular basis and make employees work
comfortably in a safe environment (Hse.gov.uk, 2019). They are required to check the working
of all tools used in the workplace. They should arrange safety training for mitigating workplace
hazards.
Conclusion
The task concludes that HR managers to follow the employment norms and policies for safe
organisational processes. Conflict management, employee empowerment, and grievance process
are the best way to develop employee-employer relation.
11

Task 3
Introduction
The job description provides a detailed description on a particular role, whereas personal
specification is the portfolio of skills, personality, and experience of new employees. Both
documents will be discussed for the recruitment of BA’s Cabin crew position. The task will
identify the different selection processes used for different positions.
Discuss the job description and personal specification for Cabin Crew, BA (AC 3.1)
JD or job description is a descriptive document on the daily tasks and duties or responsibilities
for a specific position (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). It may have other aspects such as
functional department, in which the selected employee will work, and salary range,
qualifications, and others. The job description designed by the HR specialists of BA for Cabin
Crew has divided into three important parts including role information, principal accountabilities
and job purpose. The role information presents the department, band, and title of the job. As per
the description, the band of the Cabin crew will be non-management and he or she will work
under the department of BA City Flyer. The title for this position is Cabin Crew London City.
The next part of the description document is job purpose. Under this part, the primary
responsibility of Cabin Crew has been provided. The person will be liable for giving customer
service in an outstanding way. It is mentioned that the cabin crew will get maximum opportunity
to excel his or her career through the development of new skills. The last part of the document
involves the principle things for which the concerned cabin crew will remain accountable. The
major accountabilities are as follows.
 Ensuring operational safety in compliance with EASA or European Aviation Safety
Agency
 Delivering unique service at every time with recency training
 Following the uniform standard designed by BA to act as an ideal for customers and
colleagues
12