Human Resource Management in British Airways: A Case Study

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SERVICE INDUSTRIES

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INTRODUCTION
One of the most valued assets of any organization is its human resources. Without the
employees, the business organization will be paralysed to work efficiently and fulfil the needs of
the customers. This then will result in difficulty in its survival or growth. In this highly
competitive era, it has become essential for each organization to adopt this coherent and
strategic approach that is human resource management in order to effectively manage its
workers for their individual and collective contribution in achievement of business objectives
(Lu et al., 2015). This assignment takes into consideration a scenario of British Airways to gain
acquaintance on the role as well as the purpose of management of the human resource,
employee relations as well as employment law affecting businesses of the service industry. This
assignment also depicts the processes related to recruitment and selection for a particular job
profile in the service industry. At last, the contribution of activities of training plus development
for effective operations of service business is assessed and illustrated.
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TASK 1
INTRODUCTION
This report is presented to the line manager by the trainee HR officer at British Airways with the
objective of understanding the purpose as well as the role of HRM within British Airways. Also,
an HR plan is to be developed for British Airways for their new flights between Madeira to
Heathrow considering the demands and supply of staff members.
1.1
CONCEPT AND PURPOSE OF THE HRM WITHIN BRITISH AIRWAYS
According to the Harvard model, the employees of the organization are viewed as resources but
as being fundamentally different from other resources as they cannot be managed in the same
way. An element of mutuality is recognised by the Harvard approach in all businesses (Aryee et
al., 2016). The significant stakeholders of an organization other than groups such as
shareholders and customers are its employees who have their own needs and concerns.
The sustainable competitive advantage or excellent customer services are achieved by HRM
which is a strategic approach in managing the employment relations along with emphasizing on
leveraging the capabilities and commitments level of the people within British Airways. Like any
other form, the management focuses on managing the human resources by placing the
responsibility on all the supervisors and managers (Knies et al., 2015). It is required by the HR
manager to ensure that their aims and objectives are effectively met by selecting the right
people with the right capabilities at the right time. It also integrates the gamut of employment
policies plus practices with the corporate strategy of British Airways.
ROLE OF HRM WITHIN BRITISH AIRWAYS:
The employees play an significant role in delivering effective and outstanding services to the
customers within the service industry due to the significance of customer satisfaction (Popli and
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Rizvi, 2015). The success and prosperity of British Airways depend on the high customer
satisfaction level. Below are some of the roles and duties played by the HRM of British Airways:
JOB ANALYSTS: the team of HRM of an organization plan and forecast the requirements of the
employees and focus on collecting the information about the different job for preparing job
descriptions (Popli and Rizvi, 2015). The HRM of British Airways focuses on gathering as well as
analysing the information related to the job so as to prepare the job descriptions as effective
job descriptions ensure the selection of right and eligible employee within British Airways.
RECRUITERS: different methods and techniques are adopted by British Airways to recruit and
select the capable and proficient employees for the businesses (Andrews and Ashworth, 2015).
The HRM of British Airways is requisite to undergo the process of captivating, screening and
selecting the competent and potential candidate who can fulfil specific of objective criteria.
COMPENSATION MANAGERS: compensation plans are developed by the HRM of British
Airways. Their major role is to handle benefit programs for the employees. The HR budget is
prepared by the HRM of British Airways so as to perform HR activities and develop a
compensation plan for each employee.
EMPLOYEE RELATIONS SPECIALISTS: the pillars of British Airways or any organization are its
employees. It is vital for British Airways to foster effective employee relation so as to influence
their behaviour and work outputs (Andrews and Ashworth, 2015). The HRM of British Airways
organizes activities to understand the employees ta both personal and professional level. It
helps them further foster the healthy and British Airways lanced relation between the
employees and British Airways.
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS: the training activities are planned, organised and
directed by British Airways in order to boost the current and future skills and capabilities of
their employees (Andrews and Ashworth, 2015). It helps in improving the performance and
productivity of both the employees and British Airways.
PERFORMANCE EVALUATOR: this role is played by the HRM of British Airways to evaluate the
performance of employees British Airways based on indicators. The performance of the
employees is evaluated annually to identify the gap between their actual and standards
performance (Popli and Rizvi, 2015).
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STOREY’S HRM MODELS
2 version of models that are hard and soft approaches are identified in the HRM model of
storey. Under the Michigan model, the hard approach focuses on employees as a resource like
any other resources of the organization and manages them from a cost perspective. It is a
traditional approach with a major focus on the task (Lu et al., 2015). Under the Harvard model,
soft approaches focus on employees as the human element. It emphasises on the significance
of investment in training as well as development so as to gain the commitment of staff.
The competition in the service industry that is tourism and hospitality organization is
continuously increasing, therefore, British Airways must not use the hard approach as it will
have a negative impact on the employees. It is required for British Airways to adopt a soft
approach in order to manage the employees and increase their competence through
continuous learning activities. This will help British Airways to successful deliver outstanding
services to customers.
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1.2
BRITISH AIRWAYS’ HR PLAN:
BRITISH AIRWAYS’ OBJECTIVE STUDY:
The purpose of creating an HR plan for British Airways is the initiation of new flight services to
and fro from Heathrow and Madeira. During the peak summer season, there will be 4 flights
between the locations while in the course of the rest of the year, there will be 3 flights British
Airways back and forth.
DEMAND AND SUPPLY PREDICTION: since new flight services are being initiated between
Heathrow plus Madeira, the HRM of British Airways need to predict the requirement of
workforces by using Markova analysis through demand and supply (Wirtz and Jerger, 2016).
CURRENT STAFFING OBJECTIVES AT BRITISH AIRWAYS: the HRM of British Airways aims to
fulfil the demand of the staff members through a steady supply for effective performing the
flight's operation between Madeira and Heathrow.
MANPOWER GAP ESTIMATION: the current employee turnover within British Airways helps in
determining the HR demand and supply by getting the information related to workforce surplus
or deficit. HR surplus signifies the need to deploy the additional staff while HR deficit signifies
the need for additional staff (Gatenby et al., 2015).
HR ACTION PLAN FORMULATION: the decision to either recruit or deploy the employees
depends on the determination of the HR surplus and deficit.
CHECKING, CONTROLLING AND FEEDBACK: the HR plan helps the British Airways to control and
monitor the recruitment and deployment of the employees and provides the feedback on staff
surplus and deficit (Bowen, 2016).
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Job
Profile
Current
Demand
Staff
Member
Turnove
r rate
(%)
Remaining
staffs
(supply)
Differenc
e between
demand
plus
supply
(staff
required)
Operational
hours in peak
summer
season (per
individual)
(in weekly
hours)
Operational
hours during
the rest of the
year (per
individual)
(in weekly
hours)
Cabin
Crew
25 20 20 5 61 58
Pilots 10 10 9 1 56 48
Ground
Operati
ons
Agents
30 20 24 6 62 51
Cargo
Operati
ons
Project
Manage
r
12 17 10 2 62 52
Cargo
Handli
ng
Agents
20 25 20 5 58 48
CONCLUSION
The human resource department within British Airways comprises all the activities in relation to
acquisition, exploitation, management or departure of the human resources along with some
complex tasks such as employee relation, employee engagement and so on.
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TASK 2
INTRODUCTION
This written report is presented to the line manager of British Airways by trainee HR officer so
as to understand the effects of employees’ relations on businesses of service industries. It also
discusses the effects of laws related to employment on HRM of business organizations such as
British Airways.
2.1
The HRM of the British airway is focused in different operational areas such as recruitment and
selection of the eligible candidate, provision of compensation and benefits to employees along
with their training and development to improve future performance (Milliman et al., 2018).
One of the major roles to be played by the HRM of any organization is the management of
employee relations. It is essential for the business organization such as British Airways to
maintain the effective relationship between the employees, union and British Airways.
Employee relation is a replacement of industrial relations and defines the relationship between
the employees and employers. In today’s business environment, employee relationships are
interpreted as individual and collective workplace relationships (Tepeci and Pala, 2016).
Effective employee relations within the workplace of British Airways build the reputation of the
company while leveraging the performance and productivity of its employees. It is been
observed that being a state-owned carrier, British Airways continues to be embedded in unions.
PRESENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS WITHIN BRITISH AIRWAYS
Effective employee relations had been a serious issue within British Airways as the operations
and customer relationships were affected by the pension issues occurred between the
employees and British Airways in 2003. The strikes by the employees over various issues such
as pensions, benefits, low pay and job redundancies frequently affected the business
operations of British Airways. Around 2,900 crew members went on strikes over ‘poverty pay’
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in early 2017 (Darlington, 2017). Also, around 1400 crew members threatened to go on strike in
mid-2017. Poor employee relations between the crew members and British Airways resulted in
services disruption leading to flight cancellation and affect the brand image of British Airways
(Harvey and Turnbull, 2017).
The factors that affect employee relations within British Airways are given below:
CULTURE: the organization culture of British Airways affects the relationship among them and
employees as the company does not involve or connect the employees with the airline success
according to the trade unions (Solnet et al., 2015).
UNIONISATION: unionisation is the group of employees working for a common goal that is for
the betterment of employees. 25,000 employees of British Airways are signified by Unite,
Unions British Airways Balpa and GMB. British Airways Balpa represents British Airways’ pilots,
Unite represents Cabin Crew and GMB represents Ground handling and IT staff and others
(Darlington, 2017).
STRUCTURE: earlier, a hierarchical structure was followed by British Airways restricting the
employees in decision making and communication (Tepeci and Pala, 2016). Nowadays flexible
structure is adopted by British Airways to ensure effective communication, involvement in
decision making and other operational activities.
CONSULTATION, COLLECTIVE BRITISH AIRWAYS BARGAINING AND NEGOTIATION: in order to
handle the disputes and end the strikes, the HRM of British Airways is focused on consulting
and negotiating with the unions
INVOLVEMENT AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: the HRM of British Airways is involved with the
three trade unions supporting the employees of British Airways. The company engaged in the
conflict manager with the employees over various issues such as poverty pay, benefits,
pensions and others (Milliman et al., 2018).
EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT: the roles and duties of the employees at
each job profile are defined by the HRM of British Airways by involving and increasing their
participation in decision-making as well as other operational activities (Luu, 2017).
DISCIPLINARY AND GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE: different policies and procedure concerning the
issues of discipline or grievance are formulated by British Airways. In case of failure to follow
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any code of conduct or guidelines, formal or informal meeting is organized by British Airways’
HRM involving the trade unions (Tepeci and Pala, 2016).
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2.2
Different laws and acts are enforced by the United Kingdom government in order to manage
and protect the employees of any organizations including British Airways and other services or
products industries.
CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT: it is the agreement between the employees and the employer
such as British Airways binding them legally. It comprises of a combination of both implied and
expressed terms in relation to the employment (Luu, 2017). The essential elements of the
written statement of employment particulars are included in one document such as date of
beginning employment, names of both employers and employees, scale of remuneration along
with calculation method, job title and description, terms and conditions in relation of hours of
work, normal working days and entitlement to holidays and so on.
EMPLOYEE RELATIONS ACT: the employee relations act in 1999 was amended in the years
2004. Numerous new rights at work including unfair dismissal of strikers, industrial action
British Airways ballots, maternity leave, parental leave, trade union recognition, employment
tribunal awards, time off for dependents, equality in part-time work and also a right to be
accompanied in hearings of discipline and grievance, were established in this act (Ozturk and
Tatli, 2016).
EQUALITY ACT: the equality act 2010 aims to prevent discrimination by providing more
consistent, simpler, as well as a more effective legal framework (Jaworski et al., 2018). A
number of equity legislations were replaced by this act and covered the group on protected
characteristics such as age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sexual
orientation, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership.
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATIONS 2018: storage limitation, accountability, accuracy,
data minimisation, integrity and confidentiality, purpose limitation and lawfulness, fairness and
transparency are the seven key principles set out in the GDPR (Jaworski et al., 2018). The data
and information collected by the individuals must be protected under this act by British Airways
WORK AND FAMILIES ACT 2006: this act extends the maximum time period prescribed in the
regulation for statutory adoption pay, statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance,
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