Human Resource Management in Service Industries: BA Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within the service industry, specifically focusing on British Airways. It explores the core concepts of HRM, including managerial and operative functions like planning, organizing, directing, controlling, recruitment, selection, training, development, and compensation. The report examines British Airways' HRM plan, detailing objectives, situational analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), forecasting demand, estimating skill gaps, and outlining HR action plan strategies. It also assesses the current state of employee relations at British Airways, highlighting improvements in employee satisfaction and the implementation of reward systems. Furthermore, the report investigates the impact of employee relations and employment law, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, Health and Safety Act, Civil Rights Act, Equal Pay Act, and Family Medical Leave Act, on the airline's operations and the strategic decisions made by the HRM department. This comprehensive overview provides insights into the challenges and strategies employed by British Airways to effectively manage its human resources and maintain a competitive edge in the service industry.

Human Resource
Management for Service
Industries

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management refers to the practice and techniques for the effective and
efficient management of the people for achieving success and growth of organisation in present
and the future market conditions. The management of the human resource focuses on the
selection, recruitment, training and development, motivation of the employees in the company.
This file focuses on the human resources management of the service industry like British
airways. In UK British airways is the flag carrier airline company which is second largest airline.
Headquater of the British airways is at the London, UK. This file involves the analysis and the
evaluation of the roles and responsibilities of HRM in the British airways. There are various
plans of the human resource which helps to improve the performance of the employees. In this
report there are lots of laws and legislation in the service industry. Human resource management
have various selection and the recruitment process in the service industry of the British airways.
It also includes the training and development of the new and existing employees for the effective
functioning of the business of the British airways.
1 Understanding of HRM
1.1 Concept of human resource management:
Management of human resource make the strategic plans for the effective management of
the people as the resources of the business of British airways. For achieving profitability goals
and targets of the British airways the human resource management recruit and select the
candidates with the effective skills and talent which leads to the successful operation of the
business in the British airways (Guest, 2017). In order to achieve the success of the British
airways the human resource management follows various functions like operative functions and
managerial functions which is described below:
Managerial functions:
Planning: Planning is the most important functions of the human resource management in the
business to determine the things get done on time or not. Effective planning in the British
airways leads to the successful operations of the business and get the success in the future. The
manger of the human resource in the British airways should be aware of the markets of the job
and effective objective to make the forecasting of the demand and supply (Raza, and et.al.,
2017).

Organizing: In this functions human resource manager design and develop the structure of the
British airways for the effective functioning of the business operations. The employees of the
British airways are grouped into activities and positions to perform well. Manager of the human
resource allocate the various functions to different employees of the British airways.
Directing: To achieve the goals and objectives of the business in the British airways the manger
inspire and encourage the employees and gives direction towards the goals of the business (Talib
and Faisal, 2016). The effective directions to the employees by the human resource manager in
the business of the British airways improves their services.
Controlling: In this function the human resource manager controls the activities and planning of
the employees which leads to the achievement of the goals in the British airways.
Operative functions:
Recruitment and selection: The human resource manager organize the activities and process to
get the skilled sand talented employees in the British airways. Development of the description of
the job, publish the post of the job, organizing interview and making the offer of job are done by
manager of human resource for the selection of the skilled and talented employees in the British
airways.
Training and development: The purpose of the training and development by the human
resource manager to improve the level of performance of the employees in the British airways
(Nieves and Quintana, 2018). By the effective training the employees understand about the
process and the purpose of the British airways, and they become focuses about the goals of the
business.
Benefits and compensation: the human resource manager gives various advantages to the
employees so that they get motivated and works to achieve the objective of the British airways.
Benefits like medical insurance, holiday, leaves of maternal and paternal.
Maintaining good environment: for the success and growth of the business the manager of the
human resource focuses to maintain and manage the effective and efficient working environment
(Shamim, and et.al., 2016). The British airways provide the good conditions of the working to
the employees, so they work in the business of British airways.
1.2 Human resource plan:
Objectives: To develop an effective human resource for an organisation in order to meet

current and future needs of the British Airways.
Situational Analysis:
Internal Factors
Strengths
 Highly Skilled workforce
 Strong distribution
 Strong Brand
Weaknesses
 Low employee satisfaction.
 Bad reputation due to conflict.
 Employee unions affected business
performance.
External Factors
Strengths
 Backed by UK government.
 Country invests huge amount in
technological up gradation.
Weaknesses
 Changing lifestyle and rise in
disposable income have resulted in
under penetration in global markets.
 Brexit may have negative impact on
recruitment and selection process of
company
Forecasting Demand: Company in order to meet the changing requirements have to recruit
and select number of employees with right quality and quantity in order to gain a competitive
advantage in the industry (Noe, and et.al., 2017). Company in order to demand should have
to supply required number of employees in order to offer better and quality services to their
current and potential customers. There is need of candidates who have efficiency in cross
cultural working, technical skills and communication abilities.
Estimation of Gap: British Airways need to estimate the skills and performance gap among
the selected employees. This will help the company to asses current and skills that needs to
be developed among the employees selected. At present employees of British Airways lacks
employees who have ability to cross cultural working and thus it is increasing gaps between
existing performance and desired skills needed for gaining competitive advantage.
HR Action Plan strategies: To achieve the goals of HR plan organisation will emphasis on
improving its job description and personal specifications so that talented and capable
employees can be recruited. The organisation must also improve perks and employee

rewards so that talented employees can be retained within organisation. It will help to gain
competitive benefits by improved employee retention. Another strategy which can be
adopted by organisation is that British Airways HR department will also required to conduct
training and development programs for its staff members so that their personal and
professional skills can be developed and HR goals can be achieved.
Monitoring and control: Here HR manager have need to focus on the objectives of the plan
and any kind of variations will be addressed as soon as possible (Burke and Hughes, 2018).
Entire plan will be followed in a systematic manner in order to meet the objectives on time.
For controlling and monitoring of the suggested strategies HR department must regularly
review its policies and response from the competitive perspectives. For this purpose
organisation can take feedback from its employees as well as from their customers. Feedback
will be helpful for the organisation to bring satisfactory changes to the performance of
organisation.
2 Understanding the effect of employee relationship as well as employment
law
2.1 Current state of employment in B.A
Employee relations of British Airways is far better from previous as company had to
faced conflicts due to low salary and employee discriminations. This challenge was faced by the
company due to lack of proper financial and operating environment. But company worked
continuously to address the challenges and responded fantastically. This also included working
temporarily for working part-time, no way or taking unpaid leaves. Company also worked
effectively towards resolving of cabin crew disputes and now want to work with unions in order
to create modern and new framework for effective employee relations. Now company have
introduced a proper reward system and also creates the environment where employees feel
valued and are also recognised now fairly. This has made employee satisfied with their jobs that
they do and also British Airways has also developed aim to provide high reward package in order
to encourage employee motivation work performance.
British Airways also carried 173,000 days of training and development in 2019, in order
to improve the skills and knowledge of employees. Company also continues to attract new talent

in order to provide new opportunities. Company also focuses on the diversity within the
organisation and have taken various diversity initiatives in order to maintain dignity and respect
of diverse people in the organisation.
2.2Impacts of the relations of the employees and employment law on the service industries:
The relation of the employees should be healthy so that they become more productive,
motivated and efficient in their work which helps to reach the objectives of the business. The
human resource management tries to maintain and manage the relation of the employees in the
most effective manner to achieve the success and growth of the British airways in the present and
future. So in many airlines industries the relations of the employee are very complex but in case
of the British airways the manager of the human resource focuses to decrease the dispute in the
cabin crew (Nallusamy, 2016). The current relations of the British airways is better because the
successful working shows that. The relationship of the pilots and the cabin can be measured by
the recruitment of the BA of 1000 volunteer flights with the 38000 working employees. The
relation of the cabin crew and flight deck are paramount and the relation will be undermined by
this process.
The department of the human resource management affected by the various laws of the
employment in the British airways. These laws of the government are affected the planning and
functions of the human resource management .The employment laws which affects the decision
and actions of the human resource management are discrimination, equal employment law,
labour law, and the medical leaves of absence. These laws are described below:
Fair labour standard act: this law focuses on the minimum wages, law of the child
labour and payment to the employees for their overtime i.e. working over the 40 hours in a week.
The British airways have to follow this law in their airline company to encourage their
employees.
Health and safety act: this act of health and safety protect the employees from the
unsafe environment in the business. The British airways use these laws for taking care of the
employee health by applying the services of the protection in the company. The manger in the
British airways aims to protect the employees from the happening in advance so that the if any
problem will occur they have the effective and efficient solution of that problem.
The act of civil rights: the human resource management of the British airways to protect
their employees from the discrimination in the working environment. Discrimination refers to the

colour, race, gender, religion of the employees which affects their effective performance in the
business of the British airways. In the British airways the discrimination on the colour, race,
gender etc. are illegal and if the employees get influences by these problems the human resource
manager takes the strict actions on that (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018).
Equal pay act: the roles and responsibilities of the human resource manager of the
British airways company is to pay equally to the employees as per their skills. The employees
will get the equal payment from the company will they are focused towards the goals of the
British airways. The success growth of the British airway when their employees are focused in
their work and it is possible only when they treated equally.
Family medical leave act: in this act the employees have the right to take the leaves
when they continuously worked for the twelve months (Vivares-Vergara, Sarache-Castro and
Naranjo-Valencia, 2016). The human resource manager of the British airways gives the facility
to the employees under this law if they are becoming the parents, if their spouse and parent are
seriously ill, etc.
Privacy: the act of privacy is also given to the employees of the British airways in their
workplace. This act brings the various private protections to the employees so that they cannot
get distracted and focused in serving various services to the employees. The focused employee
leads to the successful working of the business so their manager makes sure that every employee
works in the privacy.
3 Recruitment and selection process
3.1 Job description and personal specification
Job Description: The job description that has been included in the report pertains to the cabin
crew London city where the major job role would be to deliver quality customer service. The
candidate must ensure that the safety and security of the travelers is guaranteed and the safety
compliance is followed at all times. The job description also required compliance to all the
legislative requirements that have been set up and the corporate policies or procedures that were
required to be addressed in this regards. The service that is expected to be delivered by the
employees with this job role is expected to be of a world class level where the customers i.e.
fliers should privilege and luxurious. The compliance to strict uniform standards has also been
described as mandatory for candidates with this job description. However, as a member of the

cabin crew of BA CityFlyer, the candidate must always be enthusiastic about the different
products and services that are being provided by them and the customer i.e. their satisfaction
must be the top most priority that should be complied with at all times. The job description of the
cabin crew London city provides immense opportunity for developing newer and better skills
and the chances of getting recognized and rewarded will further increase the future career
prospects of the candidates. Therefore, the job description helps in signifying that the role of
cabin crew London city would require complete loyalty and extreme caution for the safety of the
passengers and ensuring that they have a good flight.
Personal Specification: As a cabin crew London city member there are multiple skills that are
required from a persona and additionally, it is also required that they have certain qualifications
in order to be selected for this job role. The qualifications necessary are that a candidate must be
over 18 years of age, be fluent in written and oral English, hold a valid passport, criminal record
check of past 5 years and given satisfactory references, obtain an airside pass and also be willing
to work in shifts covering 24 hours. The skills that a person is required to have includes the
knowledge and preference to abide by all the security rules and guidelines, passion for delivering
the excellent services and care to the customers are major skills. Additionally the candidate is
expected to have good decision making and problem solving skills in critical situation should an
of them arise, and should be able to build relationships with the colleagues and customers easily
so that customer service can be improved ultimately. Further, the candidate is expected to always
seek and learn new things related or unrelated t the profession and be aware of the different
trends and changes that are taking place and lastly, the employee must have pride in the British
Airways brand for which the work and must always abide with the policies that they have
developed.
Therefore in this manner the job description and personal specification for cabin crew London
city can be reviewed and it can be concluded that both are very comprehensive.
3.2 Comparison of selection process in different service industries
Steps British Airways Transport for London
1st steps At first company places a
vacancy on its web page.
Required vacancies are posted
on company website.
2nd step Applicants have to complete
online questions.
Applicants have to create login
and generate password for the

job vacancy page.
3rd step If applicants have answered
Yes to every question and then
they have to complete an
interest form.
Applicants select the type of
vacancy that they wish to
apply in organisation
4th step Candidate have to fill online
application form.
Applicants which meet the
requirements have to complete
online situational judgment
test.
5th step Candidate who meet the
criteria is given a log of online
psychometric tests like
numeracy, spatial reasoning
and judgment test.
In this step candidates which
have met test requirements are
being invited for written
assessment session.
6th step Candidate who passes online
test are invited for assessment
day that includes MCQ’s.
Candidate selected in 5th step
are called back for interview
and role play.
7th step Candidate has to go through
medical and background
check.
Company also takes references
and candidates have to fill
medical questionnaire.
8th step Company offers training
programs for 6 weeks
Offer for job position is made.
9th step Induction program after
successful completion of
training programs.
4 Training and development within service industry
4.1 Training and development in service industries:
Training and development of the employees are very important for the successful
operation of the business of the British airways. The effective training improves the performance

of the employees by the manager of the trainee to make sure that they will improve their work to
get the success in the present and future (Tzabbar, Tzafrir and Baruch, 2017). There are different
types training which is used by the manager of the trainee for the improvement of the
performance of the employees.
Different types of training:
Induction training:
this training is for the new employees of the British airways aims to make the employees
comfortable with the internal environment of the business. The manager of the British airways
focuses top increase the success and growth of the company by making comfortable to the
employees of the business.
Training of job instruction:
The manager focuses to give the training to the new employees so that they will work to
reach the goals of the British airways. In this training the employees gets the overview of the
entire job.
Difference between training and development:
The most critical difference between training and development is that the training is the
process of the learning of the new employees while development is the process to improve the
skills of the employees by different practices (Analoui, 2017). Training is the short term activity
to achieve the short term goals while development is the ongoing process and long term activity.
Focus of the training is on the role but development focuses on the person.
Benefits of training:
With the effective training of the employees of the British airways it will increase the
level of satisfaction and morale of the employees. The employees of the British airways get
motivated by the process of the effective training. Training of the employees will their
performance and it results in increase the success and growth of the British airways. The process
of training improves the skills and knowledge of the employees for doing the job in the British
airways.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that human resource management is the
process of the selection, recruitment, training and development of the employees in the business.

The human resource management is the effective practices from which the performance of the
employees improves and reach to the success and growth of the business.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals