Human Resource Management in British Airways: A Comprehensive Analysis

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes British Airways' human resource management.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
1

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................4
LO 1 UNDERSTAND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT............................................................................4
1.1. ANALYZE THE ROLE AND PURPOSE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN A SELECTED
SERVICE INDUSTRY..................................................................................................................................4
1.2. JUSTIFY A HUMAN RESOURCES PLAN BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR A
SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY BUSINESS.................................................................................................7
TASK 2........................................................................................................................................................10
LO2 UNDERSTAND THE EFFECT OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND EMPLOYMENT LAW ON SERVICE
INDUSTRIES BUSINESSES...........................................................................................................................11
2.1. ASSESS THE CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN A SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY...11
2.2. DISCUSS HOW EMPLOYMENT LAW AFFECTS THE MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN A
SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY BUSINESS...............................................................................................13
TASK 3........................................................................................................................................................15
LO3 Understand the recruitment and selection process...........................................................................15
3.1. DISCUSS A JOB DESCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION FOR A SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY
JOB.........................................................................................................................................................15
3.2. COMPARE THE SELECTION PROCESS OF DIFFERENT SERVICE INDUSTRIES BUSINESSES.................17
TASK 4........................................................................................................................................................19
LO4 Understand training and development in service industries businesses............................................19
ASSESS THE CONTRIBUTION OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES TO THE EFFECTIVE
OPERATION OF A SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY BUSINESS...................................................................19
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................21
REFERENCE LIST.........................................................................................................................................22
2

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the process of efficiently and effectively utilizing the human
resource of the organization to achieve the objective. HRM is the process of recruiting,
selecting, hiring, compensating, training, motivating, orientation, appraising the performance of
employees and all other activities related to human resource in the organization (Noe et al.,
2017). HRM describes the formal structure of the management of people within the
organization.
About British Airways
British Airways (BA) is a part of International Airlines Group and is one of the world’s leading
global premium airline and the largest international carrier in the UK. BA is the second largest
airline of the UK and its headquarter in Waterside, Harmondsworth, United Kingdom. BA
employs most talented and skilled crews in the air and also on the ground. Currently, the
company has approximately 45,000 employees which include 16,500 cabin crew and 3,900
pilots. These crew members and pilots have minimum experience of 15 years in this industry
and also 4,700 engineers have an average experience of 19 years. The most attractive offer that
the BA provides is that the company gives opportunities to graduates and also has more than
145 places for apprentices every year.
3

TASK 1
LO 1 UNDERSTAND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
1.1. ANALYZE THE ROLE AND PURPOSE OF HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT IN A SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY
Definition of HRM
According to Armstrong (1997), “HRM is a strategic approach of motivating, guiding,
developing, acquiring and managing the commitment of organization’s important resource i.e.
the people who work for it and in it.”
The HRM department of the BA is the heart and soul for success in achieving the corporate
objectives (Bratton and Gold, 2017). For instance, the company provides proper training
through apprenticeship programs that encourages and motivates the employees to contribute
more in achieving the organizational objective. The training program provided by BA to
employees are ‘putting people first’ helped the employees to understand the importance of
satisfaction of people in the service industry. The need for training and development can be
identified and fulfilled through the HRM department of the organization.
Role and functional activities of HRM
 HR strategy
The HR strategy in the BA includes planning and analysis of human resource of the
organization’s most valuable assets. To achieve the objective of HR planning the HR
department follows the stages: identify the present employee's supply, forecasting the
labor demand and then finally balancing the demand with the supply to achieve the
organizational goals (Lepak et al., 2017). Every department of BA consults and provides
information to the HR department related to the number and type of the employees
needed in their department.
 Recruitment and selection
4

Recruitment acts as a link between the job seeker and job giver. The aim of the HR
department is to attract competent and qualified employees in the organization. BA also
uses different advertising media such as television, radio, newspaper and online
platform to attract the qualified applicant.
Selection is also known as the screening process. It is one of the functions of the HR
department to choose the most talented and skilled employees from the pool of the
candidates who can be eligible to perform the task.
 Reward
A reward is something that motivates the employees of the BA to put extra efforts for
the organization. The BA is known for its competitive wage structure and also for
providing good benefits to the employees. The HR department of the organization
decides the salary, incentives and benefits of the employees according to their position
and additional efforts in the BA.
 Performance management
The HR manager of the BA uses performance management tools to measure the
performance, maintaining the product groups and identify and allocate the workforce to
achieve the company's performance standards (Yim et al., 2018).
 Training and development
Training means changing the nature, behaviour, skills, knowledge and attitude of
employees to make the employees more efficient in their work. Training generally
focuses on fulfilling the future need of the organization.
Development means that with the help of the organization, the individual goes under
different training programs to enhance or acquire new skills and knowledge for
achieving an organizational and personal goal.
Purpose of HRM
The purpose of the HRM in the BA is as follows:
 Making employee satisfied
5

It becomes quite difficult for the company to retain and sustain the employees in the
organization due to rising global competition. Thus the importance of HRM department
in the BA increases due to lack of skilled personnel. Therefore, the HR policies,
procedures and strategies are designed in a way to improve the cohesiveness in the
organization.
 Maintaining good working conditions
Another important issue related to HRM is to maintain good working conditions in the
air as well as on the ground. The workplace of the employees should be positive and
friendly so that they enjoy doing work with the organization. Management must
develop proper strategies to provide financial and non-financial benefits to crew
members as well as staff (Ibrahim and Zulkafli, 2016).
 Managing employee relation
The concept of employee relation is a very broad concept and important function of the
HRM. Employee relation influences their behaviour and increases output. The
management of the BA organises the activities that help the employees to grow
professionally and personally. It acts as an important key to organizational success.
6

1.2. JUSTIFY A HUMAN RESOURCES PLAN BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY
AND DEMAND FOR A SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY BUSINESS
HR planning
Human resource planning is the systematic approach to forecast the requirement of employees
in the future and to determine the capacities of the present employees can be used to fulfil the
requirement of the organization. This process helps in meeting the future requirement of the
organization (Singh, 2018). HR planning involves the following four stages:
1. Current HR supply: The first and foremost step is identifying the current availability of
the human resource in terms of number, type, skills, competencies, experience and so
on.
2. Future HR demand: The second step of HR planning is to analyze the future HR demand
in the organization. The manager considers all the factors such as promotion, transfer,
retirement before deciding the requirement of employees.
3. Demand forecast: In the next step, the HR manager match the demand with the supply
and develops a demand forecast.
4. HR sourcing strategy and implementation: The HR manager prepares the plans to meet
these gaps and manager communicates with the existing employees and thus the plans
are implemented to fill the gaps.
Importance of HR planning in the BA
HR planning is done to identify the future needs of crew members or pilots in the BA to
avoid the situation of surplus or shortage in the organization. HR planning ensures the
continuous growth of the organization. If the HR manager successfully carries out the HR
planning then there the organization should incur any loss due to shortage or surplus of the
workforce. The major issues in this business are that the turnover rate of employees is very
high due to voluntary quits, marriages, promotion, seasonal fluctuation, discharges etc. HR
planning is also required in cases of expansion or contraction of the business.
Difficulties in producing an accurate HR plan
7

The following are the reasons where the HR manager fails in producing an accurate HR plan
are:
1. The HR plan is prepared by analyzing the current situation and the manager cannot
predict the future as the future is uncertain.
2. The HR planning is done for the current period and the manager cannot calculate
the immediate gains in the current year’s profit.
3. Traditional methods of forecasting are not suitable to predict the actual demand and
supply of the workforce in the BA.
Demand for labor
Any organization whether it produces goods or services requires a workforce to convert the
inputs into outputs. The demand for the labor directly depends on the demand on the firm's
output (Ehrenberg and Smith, 2017). The demand for labor is more in service marketing as
compared to product marketing because the BA requires the workforce to deliver the services
directly to consumers.
Supply of labor
Supply of labor means different types of employees of a given type who offer themselves at
different wages and benefits. The supply of labor can be categorized into two categories:
supply of labor to industry and supply of labor to an economy. If the industry wants the supply
of labor it can hire from other industry at a higher wage rate (Dustmann et al., 2017). On the
other hand, the supply of labor for an entire economy depends on the economic, political,
social and institutional factors.
HR planning affected by supply and demand for labor
The HR planning of BA is affected by the supply and demand for labor. There can be a situation
when there is a demand for labor in the organization but the company does not get proper
supply of workforce. Or the situation may arise when the company easily gets the workforce
but it does not have the demand. In both the situation, the company faces the shortage or
8

surplus of labor in the organization. Hence, it becomes difficult for the manager to predict the
accurate HR plan.
9

TASK 2
Introduction
Employee relations refer to the relationship of crew members or pilots or other staff members
with other colleagues in the organization or workplace. The relationship can be with anyone in
the organization either with their colleagues, superiors or subordinates. The positive employee
relationship is essential to realize the goal of BA. They share a healthy relationship with each
other to give their best performance in the organization (Jennings et al., 2017).
According to Armstrong (2003), employee relation includes all those areas related with human
resource of the organization dealing with the staff members directly or through collective
agreements in the form of trade unions (Law teacher, 2018).
Importance of employment legislation for employers and employees
The employment legislation is important to protect the employees against discrimination in the
entire journey with the organization. It also protects employees from unfair dismissal. The
employment legislation also prevents the employer to adopt any unfair practices in the
organization. The employment legislation dictates how employees can communicate with their
employees.
10

LO2 UNDERSTAND THE EFFECT OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND
EMPLOYMENT LAW ON SERVICE INDUSTRIES BUSINESSES
2.1. ASSESS THE CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN A
SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRY
Employee relations in the airline industry and key trade unions
Good employee relations in the airline industry helps in increasing productivity and to easily
solve the problems at the workplace. BA has more than 45,000 employees worldwide. Thus the
company requires good employee relation to avoid the interruption of the industry and its
impact on the organization. It is essential that the relationship between the employees and
employers should be harmonised for becoming a market leader and to fulfil the objectives of
the organization.
The trade unions for the pilots are known as BALPA, BASSA represents the cabin crew members
and Unite the Union represents all other employees of BA (UK Essay, 2016).
Views from staff
The views from staff on the strike/ industrial action that affect the employee relation in the BA
are due to the conflict in negotiation, poor communication, overtime-bans, incentives or
performance appraisal, working hours and interval timings. Any of these reasons affect the
relationship between employees and employers (Calder, 2017).
Views from trade unions
The main objective of the trade union is to reduce the communication barrier between the staff
members and employers in order to maintain a better and positive relationship to increase the
understanding in every difficult situation. The trade unions demand to organize the seminars to
improve the relationship. The reason for the disagreement between the trade unions and
employers is that company amends the employee’s contract and continuously cut down the
jobs to face the global crisis (Henzy, 2005).
11

Views from airline operators
There will be a huge loss of BA as the productivity of the company declines and also the
reputation of the company would be negatively affected. Furthermore, the customers of the
company would be lost and cash flow would be hindered due to strike.
Changing the nature of the sector
Global competition
The global airline industry is highly competitive and it is due to its capital-intensive nature, low
entry barriers and requirement of fixed cost. The global competition in the airline industry is
very high due to liberalization and entry to barrier exists in the industry, as a result of
globalization. The competition in the airline industry increases because new companies started
to enter into the market and also the existing companies expand their services in the existing
market. The existing company gets the benefits of economies of scale and also the huge
number of the slots on the airport. The main reason of increasing competition in the airline
industry is that the switching cost for the customers is low; however, the loyalty program of
airline industry helps to retain the customer but the number of loyal customers is very less.
The employees can have better opportunities in other competitors if they were not treated
properly. Thus it is necessary that the BA should treat their staff members in a fair way so as
they remain loyal to the organization.
Growth of low-cost airlines
Due to increasing global competition, customers have lots of options to choose from. The
reason for increasing global competition is the less entry barrier and liberal trade policies in
other countries due to liberalization. As a result, the prices in the airline industry decreases and
the profitability of the organizations decrease that forces the companies to cut down the
employment cost (Tsui, 2017).
Changes in technology and nature of jobs
12