British Airways HRM: A Report on Employment Relations and HR Planning

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR
SERVICE INDUSTRIES
IN CONTEXT OF BRITISH AIRWAYS
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................4
1.1 ROLE AND PURPOSE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMETN IN AVIAION INDUSTRY.................4
1.2 HR PLAN BASED ON ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND...........................................................6
LO2..............................................................................................................................................................9
2.1 CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATION AT BRITISH AIRWAYS................................................9
2.2 HOW EMPLOYMENT LAW AFFECTS THE MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES WITHIN THE
BRITISH AIRWAYS..................................................................................................................................12
LO3............................................................................................................................................................14
3.1 DISCUSS JOB DISCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION FOR AIRLINE INDUSTRY JOB...................14
3.2 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE SELECTION PROCESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS (CABIN CREW MEMBER)
AND TRANSPORT FOR LONDON (CUSTOMER SERVICE ASSISTANT IN VICTORIA COACH STATION).......16
LO4............................................................................................................................................................18
4.1 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT FOR SERVICE INDUSTRY.................................................................18
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................21
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the management of people or employees in any industry.
Human resource management manages all matters related to employees of the organization
from hiring to retiring (Baum, 2016). In service industry human resource management plays
very important role. HR department is responsible for talent management, recruitment and
selection of employees, retention of employees by giving various benefits and motivation etc.
After the selection of employees, HR department is responsible for placement of employees at
the right place and designation, training & development of employees, payroll management for
employees, attendance management of employees, salary management and all other works
which are related to employees in the organization (Baum, 2016).
For conducting the study British Airways is chosen as the organization. British Airways is the
largest international carrier in the UK and the company is the member of international airlines
group. Company serves 123000 customers everyday with quality services and the choice of
customers. British Airways founded in 1972 in Heathrow, the world’s busiest international
airport. British Airways serves in more than 75 countries across the globe. British Airways
approximately serves 45000 employees, which include 16500 cabin crew, 3900 pilots and
47000 engineers. The first air service of British Airways was on August 25, 1919 and company
will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2019(Airways, 2017).
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LO1
1.1 ROLE AND PURPOSE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMETN IN AVIAION
INDUSTRY
HR department plays very important role in airline industries such as British Airways. HR
department is responsible for major operations in effective manner to achieve the goal and
objectives of the company. HR department plays an important role in British Airways. HR
management is responsible for putting right people at the right place in the organization and
satisfying the customers (Airways, 2017). There are two types of training programs are given to
HR department:
 Putting people first: HR department is responsible for putting right people at the right
place.
 Managing people first: HR department is responsible for satisfying customers and giving
them delight services (Baum, 2016).
Major roles of HR department in British Airways are as follows:
HR planning: In service industries such as British Airways HR department is responsible for
human resource planning. HR planning is the process of forecasting the future needs of human
resources in the organization. HR planning is necessary in airline industries because there is
high employee turnover and the HR manager of aviation industry is responsible for current HR
supply wherever required such as recruitment of crew members, flight attendant,
administrative support, operation agent, flight dispatcher etc. HR planning include identifying
future vacancies and making plan to fulfill that vacancies (Bratton and Gold 2017).
Recruitment and selection: This is a core activity of HR department to recruit and select
employees. HR department is responsible for talent management in aviation industry such as
British Airways. It is very crucial task because the image of service industry is fully depend on its
staff. A punctual staff is very necessary to understand the views of customers and for making
the flow of the business (Bratton and Gold 2017).
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Training and development: HR department is responsible for training and development of
employees. After the selection of employees British Airways provide special training to its staff
member that how to manage specific tasks and satisfied customers without making any mistake
(Bratton and Gold 2017).
Managing customer satisfaction: HR department is responsible for managing customer
satisfaction by providing best training programs to its old employees as-well-as its newly
recruited employees. Customers can only satisfy with good, effective and happy services of
service industries. HR department of aviation services is responsible for providing different
training program to different designation employees in the company.
Compensation and reward management: HR department is responsible for compensation and
reward management of employees. Compensation and reward is the only factor by which
employees are motivated to give delight services continuously to the customers and fulfilling
the needs and demands of customers (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018).
Motivation to employees: British Airways’ HR department is responsible for motivating
employees to continuously providing best services to the customers. HR managers motivate
employees by different schemes such as profit sharing, share ownership and motivate
employees. These schemes make employees feel valued in the organization so that they work
effectively.
The main purpose of HR management in British Airways to successfully meeting the objectives
of the company and continuously satisfy customers by providing best training programs to its
employees and staff members. In service industries employees play very important role
because they are responsible for providing best services to customers, delighted them with
services, surprise them with wonderful services and maintaining good public relations
(Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018).
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1.2 HR PLAN BASED ON ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Human resource planning is an important task to identify the future demand of employees in
the organization. Human resource planning is the process of forecasting current and future
employee demand ofthe company. British Airways human resource management is responsible
for human resource planning for new flight services from Heathrow to Madeira.
For making an effective HR plan there are some factors which are to be recognized by HR
department. These factors help to make the future operations effective and successful. Factors
are as follows:
 Identification of objective of the organization
 Identify demand and supply of human resource whenever necessary
 Estimate the gap between demand and supply of employees
 Making strategies to fill those gaps
 Evaluation and controlling
Human resource plan is based on these five factors and only made after the analysis of these
factors. Human resource plan can be made on different basis such as demand forecasting, work
study technique, Delphi method, ratio trend analysis, supply forecasting and competency model
(Cohen, 2017).
STEPS INVOLVED IN HR PLANNING FOR NEW FLIGHTS OPERATION
Analyze objectives: The objective of British Airways to start 7 new flights from Heathrow and
seven returning flights fromMadeira per week in the summer season and after summer season
four flights from Heathrow and four returning flights from Madeira per week in the rest of the
year.
Inventory current human resources: After analyzing objective British Airways HR department
employees make the list of old employees and their designations and identify those employees,
who can help in new operations of the flight. It will save the cost of the company. Company can
pay extra to old employees for extra work (Cohen, 2017).
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Forecast demand: After the inventory of current staff members, HR department will use the
forecasting method to forecast future demands to start new operations. HR department will
make the list of staff members with their designations, duty timing, and number of staff. After
the evaluation of employees HR department will identify the gap between old employees and
required employees (Cohen, 2017).
Role of staff member Number of required staff
members
Working hours (per week)
Captains (3 per aircraft) 42 53
First officer (3 per aircraft) 42 53
Flight attendants (9 per
aircraft)
126 48
Cabin staff 70 48
Pilot 20 42
Engineers 20 42
Formulate plan: A basic structure for implementing the plan will be made as per the
requirement after the consultation with different departments.
Implement plan: After the successful formulation of plan, it will be successfully implemented in
the current scenario.
Monitor, control and feedback: After successfully implementing the plan the process of
monitoring and controlling the plan is started and proper feedback will be taken in continuous
equal gaps of time (Cohen, 2017).
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Figure1: Human resource planning
(Source: Cohen, 2017)
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LO2
2.1 CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATION AT BRITISH AIRWAYS
Employment relationship refers to the relationship between employer or manager and
employees. Human resource department plays very important role to maintain good
relationship between managers and employees in the organization. HR department provide
training to both employees and employer to behave very effectively in different situations of
the organization. Employment relationship can be maintained by providing soft skills training to
employees (Coller et al., 2016).
People are always important for any business because of adopting various challenges in the
organization. A business cannot run without skilled employees or human resources. That’s why
employment relations are so important for the future development of the companies. Healthy
employment relationships are necessary to resolve problems of the organization easily and it
also improves the productivity of employees in the organization (Coller et al., 2016).
Airways industries are one of the largest industries in the world. British Airways is one of the
largest airline industries in Airline companies and in the UK. BA has more than 40000
employees across the world, so maintaining good employee relationship is very necessary for
the organization to avoid industrial disputes and conflict between employees. British Airways
maintains good employee relationship between employees and it affects the growth of the
company and help to increase profit. In British Airways different unions represents different
departments in the organization such as BALPA represents pilot, BASSA represents cabin crew
members, and Unite the Union represents other employees of the organization (Coller et al.,
2016).
BA has a team of company’s employees; the team is responsible for making employment
relationship plan. In the current scenario employment relationship between employees and
managers is very positive. Employees and managers of BA mutually lead the company in
different difficult situations.
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Most of the companies in the global market affected by economic crisis into financial difficult
situations as-well-as workplace disruptions. At the time of economic crisis different actions
taken by British Airways to strengthen the relationship between labors and managers and also
re-develop workplace innovation schemes for them (Coller et al., 2016).
T5 BUSINESS CHANGE TEAM
The team is dedicated to focus on the delivery of clear industrial relations plan to communicate,
consult and negotiate the change, which is required and identified by trade union members.
The team manages happy relationship between manager and employees by fulfilling the
requirement of staff members after consulting with their representatives.
FIT FOR 5 EVENTS
This is the annual briefings attended by all HCS staff members, which helps to develop their
understanding on T5 business change team and improve the customer experience as-well-as
working experience of employees.
DIVERSITY PROGRAMS
Diversity programs designed for managers of British Airways to manage diversity of employees
and help them to manage them in different environment. Diversity related to age, gender, race,
religion and disability (Cui and Li 2017).
RELIGION PROGRAMS
The program started for different religion people to feel included in the workplace
environment. Every month a guide religious festival is produced to help employees to
understand different religion and practices. It helps to improve employee relationship in the
organization (Cui and Li 2017).
HARASSMENT AND BULLING
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British Airways signed a joint partnership with trade unions to completely end harassment and
bulling at workplace. BA communicates with employees against these cases and provide
training related to this issue.
PAY AND REWARD
British Airways uses different variety of indicators to benchmark pay and other rewards against
the external labor market. This strategy helps to maintain the relationship between
organization and employees (Cui and Li 2017).
HEALTH AND SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES
British Airways takes care of employee’s health and safety. BA creates safety culture that uses
behavioral risk management. British Airways contracted with external training company Marsh
to improve the safety culture for employees at workplace and reduce the risk of injured at
workplace. This programme make employees feel valued and improve relationship between
employees and organization.
EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
British Airways start employee feedback programme (EFP) to track employee satisfaction and
motivation at workplace.
All these programs improve the relationship between employees and the organization and help
British Airways’ employees to meet with the objectives and goal of the organization.
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2.2 HOW EMPLOYMENT LAW AFFECTS THE MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN
RESOURCES WITHIN THE BRITISH AIRWAYS
Employment law extensively affects the service industry such as aviation industry. Employment
law affects the management of human resources within British Airways. Different laws related
to employees of British Airways are discussed below, which affects the decisions of HR
department in the organization:
LABOR RELATIONS: British Airways protects employees’ rights. Airline industries are mostly
dependent on collective bargaining system. Employees of international airline industry try to
resolve conflict through collective bargaining and mediation with employer. However collective
bargaining fails than employees can go on strikes. It helps to maintain the relationship between
HR department and employees (Dekker, 2017).
MINIMUM WAGES: Most of the airline industries manage minimum wages criteria for
employees of different departments. British Airways provide £13079 per year to new
employees with all allowances. Minimum wages law affects the recruitment program of British
Airlines.
OVERTIME RULES: Employees of British Airways are paid for overtime duties at airlines and it
helps to motivate and retain employees in the organization. It helps HR department to make
strategies to retain employees and manage good relationships with employees in the
organization (Dekker, 2017).
MANAGING DISPUTES: Airline industry employees have right to manage dispute with the help
of labor courts. Employees can file case against underpay or violation of minimum pay. This law
helps HR department to manage conflict in the organization.
Employment laws related to employees and HR department also related to employees so
definitely some or all laws can affects the management of HR department in different sections
such as HR managers make rules for employees as per the laws of the country, recruitment of
new employees fully based on labor laws, basic salary which is decided by HR department also
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