Semester 2: BUNI Travel Agency People & Performance Case Study

This case study examines BUNI Travel, a UK-based travel agency, and its challenges in achieving optimal organizational performance. It explores various tools and techniques, such as 360-degree feedback, KPIs, reward programs, and training initiatives, that the new human resource manager can implement to improve performance and employee motivation. The report emphasizes the critical role of employee well-being in driving motivation and productivity, highlighting the importance of fostering a positive work environment and implementing effective human resource management practices. The analysis also incorporates a PESTLE analysis to provide a comprehensive understanding of the external factors influencing BUNI Travel's operations and strategic decision-making.

Business Management
BMP4006
People and Performance
Assessment 1
Case Study: BUNI Travel
Semester 2
Submitted by:
Name:
ID:
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
What tools and techniques will help improve organizational ..................................................3
performance?.............................................................................................................................3
The role of employee well-being in improving motivation .......................................................6
and performance........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8
Appendix.....................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Business organizations are required to evaluate the performance of their
businesses to take corrective measures to improve it and for increasing the
productivity level of the business. To face the competition in the market and develop
access to a wide range of customers, they are required to evaluate external
environment to measure its impact on the business of the company. It is imperative
to keep the employees of the organization motivated so as to make them committed
to the goals of organization (Dey, and et.al., 2022). This report will explain the
aspects relating to improved organizational performance in context with BUNI
Travels, a Travel Agency in Bolton, England, UK; engaging in the business of
traveling and ticket booking for several holiday destinations on a global basis to
access the customers from various countries. The report will cover the tools and
techniques required for improving the performance of business and how employee
well being contributes to motivation and increased productivity. It will also cover the
PESTEL Analysis of BUNI Travels.
What tools and techniques will help improve organizational
performance?
For improving the performance of business, it is imperative to ensure optimum
utilization of financial , functional as well as human resources. The management can
use various tools and techniques for improving the organizational performance. It is
required to have a strong leadership to motivate the employees for increasing
productivity and thereby economies of scale for the business (Gai, and et.al., 2022).
To gain the competitive advantage, it is needed to have strong internal structure to
face the challenging market. In context with BUNI Travels, it is facing an ineffective
organizational performance because of old and traditional techniques of performance
appraisal. The new human resource manager in BUNI Travels can use the following
modern tools and techniques to improve the performance by considering the
motivational aspects for employees.
 360 degree Feedback : It is modern tool for evaluating the performance of
employees by getting feedback from the peers and managers regarding their
performance. In this method, the feedback forms are given to the managers to
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give written comments for rating the performance of the employees. It
includes various questions regarding their activities and functions and how
they handle them. These forms are given to the employees as well for self
rating to get their feedback on their own performance and how they can
improve it. It provides better understanding to the management regarding
strengths and weaknesses of employees. The human resource manager of
BUNI Travels can use this method to obtain feedback regarding all the
departments such as customer service department, Ticket Booking
Personnel, Travel Staff etc. from their respective managers to make the
business competitive by improving the services.
 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) : KPIs are the essential tools to monitor
the performance of individual employees, business units and departments to
measure the level of their contribution in achieving their respective goals and
overall objective of the organization. Its main target is to support effective
decision making and data related conversation of performance. But
organizations should not consider it only the form of communication regarding
performance (Jedwab, and et.al., 2022). They should use it as a performance
appraisal tool. BUNI Travels can use this tool to ensure effective decision
making for achieving its mission. It can use various KPIs such as finance
focused, customer focused and process focused etc.
 Efficient Services : To face the competition, businesses need to develop
cost effective methods while providing quality services. It should focus on
making the customers satisfied and provide them with nice experience. BUNI
Travels need to ensure effective services to the customers while traveling. It
should offer quality meals and dinners to its customers via traveling.
Businesses should prepare a budget for setting tariffs for the services. BUNI
Travels should provide convenience to its customers while booking tickets
and give them effective traveling experience. While maintaining its budget, it
should strive to access the customers globally from various locations to
develop a large customer base and big market share to ensure profitability
and improved performance.
 Reward and Recognition Programs : Organizations should employ reward
and recognition programs to motivate the employees for working in the
interests of the organization while considering their own interests as well for
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receiving rewards for effective performance. It will facilitate increment in
productivity for the business. So, businesses are needed to employ rewards
and punishments to bring motivation in the workforce to make them adopt
more tasks. BUNI Travels can also conduct these programs for its staff to
make them committed to the goals of organization and improve its
performance.
 Training and Development : Businesses should concentrate on providing
training to its staff according to their area of specialization. It should strive to
improve the educational skills of employees, managers and other staff
members for increasing the productivity of their respective departments. To
make the work conducted in more efficient manner and for ensuring increased
revenues, it should conduct training and development programs in the
organization on frequent basis (Justin and Joy, 2022). In case of BUNI
Travels, it can conduct training for its IT staff that engages in booking tickets
for its customers to make them specialized in developing connectivity network
with holiday destinations and travel lines to provide efficient services to the
customers. It can also conduct financial training for preparing effective budget
for the organization.
 Optimum use of Human Resources : Organizations should focus on hiring
the eligible and skillful workforce in the organization and must ensure its
optimum utilization. Employees are the most essential asset for the business.
Companies should hire the professional individuals for the effective
implementation of marketing and financial strategies. BUNI Travels can also
utilize its employees optimally by ensuring employee well being and providing
motivation to increase productivity for the business.
 Performance Appraisals : Organizations can employ different performance
appraisal programs. BUNI Travels can undertake a promotion system based
on the effective performance of its workforce. It should introduce a system to
offer high pay to the top performers so as to make employees contribute more
for the success of organizations.
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The role of employee well-being in improving motivation
and performance
Businesses around the world have benefited very well from the advent of
globalization which has led to the blurring of boundaries between countries that has
resulted in easy facilitation of cross border movement of personnel, technology as
well as products and services. This new business landscape requires firms to display
diligence in their market operations and performance which depends on the quality
of their workforce in a major way. The flow of talent and human resources in a
company is it's life force as all the major elements and departments which constitute
a firm require human touch and handling to execute in a functional manner. The
concept of human resource management is one of the most important facets of
business as it is concerned with the proper and structured management of the
workforce of a company and leading important approaches to managing people such
as designing a compensation package, talent management and training the staff for
succession planning (Ma, and et.al., 2022). BUNI travels would do well to
understand that despite employing a relatively small workforce, in order to increase
it's performance and stay atop the travel industry and become a reputed player in the
market, it's human resource function must prioritize employee well being and work
towards motivating them to the best extent possible. Motivation refers to the
emotional drive which compels people to dedicate themselves towards a particular
goal or activity to satisfy desires which may be both external and internal in nature.
Intrinsic motivation refers to the feeling of emotion which comes from within the
people employed in the workforce such as a desire to get appreciated by peers and
superiors and to feel like an important wheel in the company's operations and
extrinsic motivation refers to the drive which occurs from the outside environment
and are often materialistic and monetary in nature such as a need for earning for
money (Oyewo, 2022). BUNI travels being a relatively small company looking to
grow and expand should make sure that they employ systems that motivate their
workforce both in an external manner as monetary and fringe benefits helps
employees feel motivated. By properly compensating employees and taking care of
their well being, the organizational efficient and performance of BUNI travels can
increase considerably due to reasons highlighted below.
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 High team morale – Teams can only function optimally if all members
involved are taken care off in a proper manner as even a single demotivated
employee can bring down the productivity of a large team. Taking care of
team members also helps in promoting harmony and friendship between
employees while keeping the competition healthy instead of toxic.
 Generating company loyalty – Employee well being affects performance
and is a factor important for the growth in this avenue as it helps keep
employees loyal and friendly towards the company which is a prerequisite for
expanding without experiencing staff absence (Shou, Shan and Li, 2022).
 Reducing absenteeism and turnover – BUNI travel's current size and
stature cannot justify turnover costs and lazy employees as the cost could be
too much to bear for a small company. Focusing aspects of human resource
management towards employee well being can make sure it doesn't endure
much of these issues.
Conclusion
In the above concluded report, there was a detailed discussion on the various
aspects of human resource management along with the functions played by the HR
in supplementing a small firm's growth and expansion aspirations. The various tools
and techniques available with a firm and it's HR department in order to improve
performance were duly explained along with the role that focusing on the well-being
of the workforce plays in increasing performance and motivation in small scale travel
companies. There was also a detailed PESTLE analysis done on travel companies in
Boston and it was concluded that people management and HR functions are very
key factors which must be present for growth and expansion to occur.
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References
Books and Journals
Dey, and et.al., 2022. Ethical leadership for better sustainable performance: Role
employee values, behavior and ethical climate. Journal of Cleaner
Production, p.130527.
Gai, and et.al., 2022. Users’ view on urban park’s cultural ecosystem services: An
importance-performance analysis of a Beijing case. Anthropocene,
p.100323.
Jedwab, and et.al., 2022. Understanding nurses’ perceptions of barriers and
enablers to use of a new electronic medical record system in Australia: A
qualitative study. International journal of medical informatics, 158, p.104654.
Justin, E. and Joy, M.M., 2022. Managing the most important asset: a twenty year
review on the performance management literature. Journal of Management
History.
Ma, and et.al., 2022. On the bright side of motherhood—A mixed method
enquiry. Annals of Tourism Research, 92, p.103350.
Oyewo, B., 2022. Contextual factors moderating the impact of strategic management
accounting on competitive advantage. Journal of Applied Accounting
Research.
Shou, Y., Shan, X. and Li, L., 2022. The roles of JIT supply chain practices in new
product ramp-up: the moderating effects of IT integration. International
Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, pp.1-18.
Vargas-Hernández, J.G., 2022. Organizational Greening Strategy in Times of
Pandemic COVID-19. In Handbook of Research on Changing Dynamics in
Responsible and Sustainable Business in the Post-COVID-19 Era (pp. 35-
57). IGI Global.
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Appendix
A PESTLE analysis for BUNI Travel
BUNI travels operates in the travel and tourism sector of The United States Of
America with it's specialty being in scheduling and managing domestic travel in
Boston which is a very cutthroat industry with many disruptions and intense
competition. A thorough analysis of the firm's external environment is crucial in
planning it's eventual phase into growth and expansion which will be done with the
help of a PESTLE analysis given below which is a major tool of strategic
management and market research which divides the external business environment
into various dimensions for easy analysis.
 Political – Travel sector has been hit hard by the pandemic and the various
regulations enforced on it by governmental authorities. In the U.S., the travel
restrictions are slowly easing out and companies like BUNI travels have a
great opportunity to capitalize on the newfound demand for domestic tourism.
 Economical – Even though the economy of the United States Of America has
stayed traditionally robust when it comes to tourism, the ongoing pandemic
has strained the economy considerably (Vargas-Hernández, 2022). BUNI
travels needs to be careful in their planning for expansion as the average
income, rate of inflation and massive price hikes might deter people to travel
for leisure.
 Social – Boston is a diverse place where many nationalities live together
mostly in harmony and in order to reflect that, the city's authorities have come
out with all inclusive tourism package to make people experience different
cultures and landmarks. BUNI travels should also participate and come p with
unique and diverse travel packages.
 Technological – Tech tourism is a major part of domestic travel in the US
and BUNI travels should use Boston's rich legacy of tech startups and various
innovation labs to entice and promote local travel.
 Legal – BUNI travels should keep clear transparency and ethical priorities
while planning for growth as the sector has been marred with many
controversies such as malpractices in medical tourism and prevalence of
bribers in local travel clearances.
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 Environmental – There has been a considerable push by both the Boston
officials and the ruling party in US to commit towards a sustainable future and
BUNI travels must promote green activities and undertake measures to curb
their carbon footprint.
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