Human Resource Management Practices at British Airways

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HRM for British Airways
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
LO1 Understanding of the HRM for the British Airways...............................................................3
1.1 Role and the purpose of the HRM in British Airways...........................................................3
1.2 Creation of the HR plans that is based on the supply and demand........................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................7
LO 2 Understanding the effects of the employee relations as well as the employment for the
British Airways................................................................................................................................7
2.1 accessing the current state of employment relations in the airline industry..........................7
2.2 Employment laws affecting the HRM of the British Airways..............................................8
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................9
LO 3 Understanding the recruitment as well as the selection process............................................9
3.1 Discussion of the job description and the personal specifications for the Cabin Crew of the
British Airlines.............................................................................................................................9
3.2 Selection process comparison of the British Airways and the Transport for London.........10
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................13
LO 4 Understand training and development in service industries businesses...............................13
The activities of the HRM development in British airways..........................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................17
Appendix........................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
The practice of the recruitment, deployment and the management of the employees of an
organisation are the responsibility of the HR department of the organisation. This is the
department that is responsible for the development and implementing the various policies that
are governing the employees and their relationship with the employees. In this report, the four
things have been discussed. Firstly it is started with a basic understanding of the HRM followed
by the employee relations as well as employment law for British Airways in the second part.
Thirdly, the selections, as well as recruitment processes of the British Airways, are described in
this report. Finally, this report is completed with the understanding of the different training as
well as development in the British Airways. The British Airways has become a successful
industry in the airline sector and is attracting many travellers from the establishment of the
company. The company is established in the year of 1947 and it is a merging of BOAC as well as
BEA.
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Task 1
LO1 Understanding of the HRM for the British Airways
1.1 Role and the purpose of the HRM in British Airways
As an Assistant HR officer of British Airways the roles and the purposes of the HRM in British
Airways will be discussed below:
Scope of the HRM for the British Airways includes a broader approach if compared to the
personnel management. The personnel management only sees the different functionalities of the
organisation like the evaluation of the jobs, planning for the labor, recruiting as well as
appraisals. The HRM of the British Airways is concerned with the core strategies of British
Airways that is not only integrated with the said activities or the aspects (Eaton, 2017). However
it is associated with the various activities like developing the culture of British Airways,
leadership, employee motivation and many more activities.
The main approach of the HRM is with the values as well as the mission of the company along
with the personnel management that has been attached with different norms as well as the
practices that were established within British Airways. The approach of the HRM is proactive as
human resource management is combined with the various corporate goals as well as creativities.
In compassion to the personnel management, the HRM has the minimum ranks as well as the
specific path for a career that is associated with the different initiatives as well as creativities
(Karami, 2017).
The major roles of the HRM for the British Airways have implemented various strategies in
order to developing the existing human resource and the three main areas in which the
development is done are as follows:
 Training as well as development
 Management of the rewards
 Appraisals of the employee performance
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Management of the workforce is the major role of the HRM department for British airways. This
process of the management will include the various recruitment processes for hiring appropriate
candidates for the different vacancies in British Airways. The major part of this process is the
planning that gives the HR a clear idea for the quality as well as quantity of the different
candidates for hiring them (Momin, 2018).
The major roles of the HRM are as follows:
Development of various skills that can be utilized in the future
For the development of skills for the employees, the HR executives as well as the managers work
together. In the British Airways, majority of the employees are shifted into the different
functions of the business that will be based on the different priorities as well as preferences of
the business (Taylor and Woodhams, 2016).
Developing loyalty as well as commitment
The HR executives of the organisation also develop certain strategies that will enhance the
commitments of all the employees of British Airways.
Developing pipeline of talents
The HR teams of the British Airways helps the company to gain the competitive advantage that
involved with the capacity building for the BA that can deliver the ultimate service to its
customers or passengers.
Staying competitive
The HRM of the company requires the planning for addressing the organizational changes along
with shifting the company with competition as per the job market.
1.2 Creation of the HR plans that is based on the supply and demand.
The major roles of the HR department are to forecast the present as well as the future
requirements of the workforce and to take the necessary steps for meeting the requirements. The
British Airways HR department always does a proper forecasting of the supply as well as
demand for recruiting the required number of employees (Bułat, 2019).
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Forecasting of the recruitment
After the present context is analyzed, there is a forecast of hiring 6 staffs for 8 up and down
flights from Madeira to Heathrow, UK in the summer and total 6 flights in the entire year. There
is need of hiring 4 employees as the cabin crew along with 2 pilots for handling the total
operations of the flight. With the forecasting, it is stated that a minimum of 32 hours of team
work is required for delivering the flight service to Madeira that will be in the summer season.
Apart from this, 24 hours is needed per week for the work in the rest of the year.
Planning of the recruitment
The planning for the recruitment can be done by doing a job analysis and it is the integral part of
the HR management. This planning will include the process for information gathering as well as
the different skills required for the job role (Banfield et al., 2018).
Cabin crew roles
The key role of the cabin crew team is to deliver best services to the passengers and ensuring the
flight to be safe as well as comfortable for all the passengers. They have to handle the various
emergencies and providing first aid to the required passengers (Lange et al. 2015). Another
responsibility of the cabin crew is ensuring the functioning of the emergency equipments before
departure.
Roles of the BA pilots
The roles of the pilots are associated with the different functionalities of the airplane as well as
the passenger’s security. They are also responsible for making important decisions in the flight.
They also maintain an effective communication with the ATC and cabin crews (Muhammad et
al., 2018).
Process for the recruitment
The process of the recruitment can be done by the consultancies, social media, and online web
portals as well as within their own premises. The recruitment process will get a great response by
the skilled candidates for the post of cabin crew and the pilots in British Airways, as the
company is a leading airline company with high reputations.
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Process of short-listing
This process is done on the basis of the merits and the skills of the candidates. The company also
sees their attitude as well as work experience for the selection of six posts.
Interview and security check
The interview will be conducted by telephone or face-to-face or via video conferencing for the
determination of the experience of the candidates. After the selection, they will be handed with
an offer letter and if they accept, they will get the joining letter (Petrović et al., 2018). This will
be followed by the necessary security checks like checking of the criminal records and other pre-
employment checks.
Salary of the Cabin Crew
The annual salary of the cabin crewmembers will be £22,000 to £27,000 and will be effective
from 01.03.2019. The beginning salary of the cabin crew will be £ 14,500 per annum.
List of facilities that will be provided to the Cabin crew and the pilots:
Cabin crews:
 25 annual leaves and can be raised to 30 in future
 Unlimited discounted airfares for family
 Admission to health services provided by the British Airways
 Life Insurance
Pilots:
 Healthcare plan
 Life Insurance
 Admission to health services provided by the British Airways
 Discount for the Heathrow flights
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Task 2
LO 2 Understanding the effects of the employee relations as well as the employment for the
British Airways.
2.1 accessing the current state of employment relations in the airline industry
The connections between the employee and the employers have faced a huge change in the past
few years. After the association of the trade union for the airline industry start to diminish, the
relations of the employees is now focusing on the different entitlements that include better pay,
balance in the work-life with different appreciations. The staff works for the better compensation
whereas the employers focus on the actions related to cost cutting for increasing their profits.
These actions have created various disputes as well as non-cooperation among them and
sometimes it has been escalated to strikes. The main players for the employee relations in the
airline industry are the companies itself, workers, trade unions, courts, government, as well as
the tribunals (Moore and Tailby, 2015). To provide the insights to both the parties, the trade
unions are responsible if there is any kind of unending dispute between the employees and the
employers. One of the trade unions like the British Airline Pilot’s Association or BALPA acts as
the employee spokesperson for the negotiation with the company. Their main intension is to help
the staffs with the changes in the working environment and to make it a better place for them.
Although the British Airways is considered as the international business, the various trade unions
are leveraging the measures like the strikes as well as the MP influencing. In the last few years
there are some changes from national supervision to international supervision and it got
diminished the potentials regarding the negotiations. When the Brexit have not happened, the
British Airways is considered as the European airline in spite of the national airline. As the
European airlines shares the program of the “open skies” with different countries, the outcome of
the globalization has made the companies to ease the leveraging of the employment laws in an
international level. This leveraging has made the trade unions to become weaker (Tan et al.,
2017).
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Some other factors also have the influence in the different conditions of the connections for the
employment in the same industry. In the recent times, this industry is going through a high
competition and apart from this; the company is having the evolution in the low cost aircrafts.
This situation is forcing the company to implement the actions of cost cutting for retaining the
profits as well as market share.
2.2 Employment laws affecting the HRM of the British Airways
The HRM or the management of the human resources of British Airways is required to be
conducted with the various considerations for ensuring the company is following to all the
regulations of the laws. Apart from this, any violation of the laws will be also ensured by the
HRM. One of the laws like “Work and Families Act 2006” gives the maximum profits to the
employees on the basis of maternity or any kind of the adoption leaves. With this context, the
HRM needs to meet the requirements for filling the gaps of 26 to 52 weeks by the employee. The
department of the human resource of the British Airways has kept extra vigilance for updating
the various changes that happens in the laws for the different complexities. Apart from this, with
the “Equality Act 2010,” the company is focusing the implement the different honor senses due
to the employee diversity. Several methods are developed by the company and then implemented
for developing a comfortable environment in which all the employees can get the fair treatment
as well as equal chances for their progress and development. In accordance with the
“Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006,” the training programs for the different
managers are carried out for the initiation of the diversity. In this context, British Airways allows
the same-sex couples for registering the issues on their online portal and the database that
provides the privileges in the laws for the same-sex couples with the “Civil Partnership Act”.
The “General Data Protection Regulation 2018” within the company changes the changes in the
human resource management as it delivers maximum scrutiny for the department of the HR in
British Airways. This is done for the checking and handling the crucial as well as the
confidential data that are related to its employees (Wolf, 2018). With the implementation of this
law, the employee data has been safeguarded and the department of the HR will do the best for
ensuring the acts all the time.
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Task 3
LO 3 Understanding the recruitment as well as the selection process
3.1 Discussion of the job description and the personal specifications for the Cabin Crew of
the British Airlines
The selection as well as the recruitment procedure will have to meet all the legal requirements
and there is need of reviewing all the procedures by the HRM of British Airways. In this report,
the differences in the selection procedures of the Cabin Crew as well as the customer services for
the Victoria Coach Station.
The Cabin crew of the British Airways has enough capacity for expanding as well as delivering
the quality services to the passengers on the behalf of the City Flyer that is totally owned by the
British Airways and it is the subsidiary of the company. The main aim of the Cabin Crew is
delivering the quality services to the customers. The job roles of the City Flyer Cabin Crew are
as follows:
Job Roles:
 The safety as well as the security of the passengers to be ensured. Delivering the passengers with high quality services Maintaining the safety compliances all the time and the procedures for the safety and the
equipments (Mills, 2017) Maintaining proper ethics as well as decorum within the flights They have to ensure that all the policies as per the legislations are maintained.
Specification of the Job as well as the legal requirements along with industry standards
There are many legislations as well as laws for the British Airways City Flyer for ensuring the
selection as well as recruitment procedures. The legislations related to the employment will
ensure the implementation of the “Health and Safety Act 2010” in all the processes. This act
supports the employee rights and at the same time, it avoids the employee discrimination in the
different aspects of the age, sex, disability and the orientation of the employee. The law will also
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prevent the different types of harassment for the working employees in order to develop the
working environment (Efthymiou et al. 2019). The specification of the City Flyer Cabin Crew
will make sure that the employees have to work 24 x 7 and 365 days a year by the
implementation of the specific strategies. Apart from this, the uniform of the Airline will have to
meet the ethical standards.
3.2 Selection process comparison of the British Airways and the Transport for London
British Airways
The different steps for the selection procedure of the Airport Operations Manager and the
Transport for London are as follows:
Step 1: Submission of the Online Application
In this process, there is need of the online submission of the application that will contain an
updated CV or a resume in the Docx or Pdf format. For the online application, there is no
requirement of the photographs or the cover letters. The online system will scan and analyze the
eligibility of the candidate.
Step 2: Online Assessments
After the submission of the CV, the form will be scanned and if the required skills are met with
the requirements then an email will be sent for the online assessment that has to be done by the
candidate (Rouncivell et al. 2018). There will be various crucial questions in the online
assessment. There are mainly three elements for the assessment that are:
 Personality test
 Aptitude test
 Reading as well as comprehension test
The required instructions will also be sent to the candidates for properly completion of the
assessment by the candidate.
Step 3: Assessment day
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After the completion of the online assessment the student will receive the result within 3 working
days by the company. The candidates who will be selected are called for the assessment day in
the BA headquarters, Heathrow Airport.
Step 4: Final Interview
The shortlisted candidates will be called for the final round of the interview. The interview will
last for 25-40 minutes (Villar et al. 2019).
Step 5: Security vetting
In this step the BA will check on the different background of the candidate along with the
previous work as well as financial history.
Step 7: Medical
In this step, the candidates will have to submit the different medical reports for the various
procedures in the recruitment process.
Transport for London
The different steps for the selection of customer service executive for the Transport for London
are as follows:
Step 1: Online application
In this step, the candidates have to fill online application and after the filling of the form there
will be several questions those are needed to be addressed by the applicant.
Step 2: SJT
In this step, there is need of successful submission of the online application and after the
submission, there will be a SJT link sent to the candidate. This SJT will not have any kind of the
deadline for the submission and apart from this; there will be enough guidance for the process.
Step 3: Written test
There will be two types of tests those are to be completed by the student:
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