An Analysis of Strategic People Management at EasyJet: A Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of strategic people management at EasyJet, a British low-cost airline. The introduction highlights the importance of human resource management and its strategic areas, specifically focusing on leadership and management, training and development, and talent management within the context of EasyJet. The main body delves into performance management, defining its processes and the practices that underpin it, such as leadership styles, with a focus on transformational leadership and its impact on employee motivation and innovation. The report further examines training and development programs, including the 70:20:10 model, and their role in enhancing employee skills and performance. Finally, the report explores talent management practices, emphasizing the importance of attracting, developing, and retaining talented employees to maintain low costs and high-quality performance at EasyJet. The conclusion summarizes the crucial role of effective performance management and the significance of the discussed underpinning concepts and practices in the airline's overall success.

3 Strategic People Management Areas
in a Case Study Scenario

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Leadership and Management.......................................................................................................4
Training and Development..........................................................................................................5
Talent Management.....................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
People management also known as human resource management is one of the most
important functions which are carried out in an organisation. Human resource management is an
function which consist of many other functions in it. Human resource management when carried
out strategically in a organisation these function of HRM are known as strategic area of people
management. One such area is performance management, it is an important function of human
resource management. This report will discuss about performance management and
underpinning leadership and management, training and development and talent management.
This discussion will be carried out in context of Easy Jet, British low-cost airline. This company
was founded in 1995 and is headquartered at London, UK. Easy Jet operates on domestic and
international schedules on about 1000 routes in around 30 countries. In context of people
management Easy Jet employs around 15000 employees to carry out all the functions of the
organisation.
MAIN BODY
Performance Management can be defined as a process through which it is ensured that
activities that has been determined by the organisation for individual and group meets the
objective of the organisation. This process focuses on performance of organisation, its
department, and employees to manage tasks and ensure that they are linked with objectives.
Performance management includes a process and this process starts from planning, planning
goals and objectives and later defining performance outcomes and activities to be done by
organisation and individuals (Bititci, Cocca and Ates, 2016). Followed by this is another process
includes developing, this means developing individual skills that are required to perform task
assigned. This later is followed by monitoring, this means regularly monitoring performance of
the employees in order to rectify mistakes on its earliest and ensuring that employees are not
having any difficulty in performing their task. Monitoring also include that individuals are
guided to improve their performance. Evaluation is next stage in performance management, this
means analysing performance of individual against standard performance of individual which
they were expected to perform. Lastly two functions are carried out one in which reward is

included in case when employee has performed according to standards and in case there is gap in
standard and actual performance development planning is developed. This is a complete process
of performance management that is followed at Easy Jet. There are several practices that impact
performance management at Easy Jet. In all these areas that underpin performance management
leadership and management, training and development and talent management will be discussed
here.
Leadership and Management
Leadership and management is one of the most important area that underpin performance
management in the organisation (Tseng and Levy, 2019). Performance management at Easy Jet
also is underpinned and significantly affected by leadership. This is because process of
leadership starts with developing objectives of the organisation. This is one of the important
function of leadership that they develop objectives of the performance. Easy Jet employs several
functional areas in the organisation and this is why all the functional areas are leaded by their
head and they develop performance objectives of their respective department and functional area.
Similarly as leadership is important and plays important role in performance management. This
is because leader has function to develop objectives and determine strategies but to facilitate
functioning is the job and function of the manager. Manager in Easy Jet ensures that employees
are able to effectively perform on their respective task. Development planning is also done by
managers and functional managers also play important role in performance management because
performance management in Easy Jet is not limited to any particular area of the organisation.
Leadership in organisation is affected by style of leadership which is followed in the
organisation. Leadership style that is followed in the organisation is transformational leadership
style.
Transformational leadership Style
Encouraging, inspiring and motivating employees to innovate in order to improve
existing practices of the organisation is main characteristics which define transformational
leadership. Easy Jet is a low cost airline and along with that also provides good services to its
customers and to do both these together requires that company focuses on the practices to
improve and find ways through which they can reduce the cost (Hartinah and et.al., 2020). This
becomes more important when cost is increasing and company still operates on low cost basis.

Transformational leadership style make different impact on performance management as
focus in performance does not remain limited to effective completion of the work but it gets
extended to motivating employees that when they are working they find innovative ways to
improve their performance. In this performance expectation from employees are higher and they
are also rewarded for their successful innovations and changes that add value in exiting practices
of the organisation. Performance expectation gets increased and along with that process of
performance appraisal also become difficult for the employees. In this style of leadership leaders
also adopt to some distinct characteristics and they are inspiring and motivating. Moreover
leaders are risk takers and thoughtful thinkers and this means that in such performance
management system risk taking is considered positive. This is because taking risk is also
important for innovation and without taking appropriate risk employees cannot change anything
or innovate anything whether it is managerial practice or technological innovation.
In transformational leadership another positive aspect in the performance is that employees are
never criticised publically and their criticism is also known as constructive criticism.
Along with this one further benefit of this leadership for employees and performance is that
leadership involves individualised consideration. This means that employees are rewarded for
their creativity and innovation (Armstrong, 2016). Other than this they are treated differently
according to their talent and skills. This means that employees are given task and performance
according to their talent and capabilities. This contributes in improving efficiency of the
performance and employees are also satisfied with their job role. This also removes performance
ambiguity and performance anxiety which can be due to uneven match of skills and job role.
This discussion suggests that success of Easy Jet is also a result of its effective leadership
and leadership style that has been employed in the organisation.
Training and Development
Training and development can be defined as activities that are aimed at enhancing
existing skill, knowledge and experience of the employees and along with that also providing
them new skills, knowledge and experience (Younas and et.al., 2018). Training and development
of employees help them in improving their performance and is a measure which is taken by
organisation to equip employees with knowledge and skills so that they can perform effectively

and efficiently. Performance management is aimed at ensuring that performance of the
employees and organisations lead to achievement of the goals and objectives and this is possible
when employees are able to perform on the roles that has been assigned to them. Employees will
perform their assigned role when they are equipped with adequate knowledge and skills to do so.
Regular training and updating employees with knowledge and skills will not only help them in
completing their assigned job but employees will be able to improve quality of their
performance. Training and development in performance management are integral part of the
performance management process which is known stage of development in performance
management. Training and development both are aimed at enabling employees to work and
improve their performance both these are different on the basis of their nature (Rodriguez and
Walters, 2017). Training is directly linked with performance and job requirements of the
employees, job at which employee is presently placed. Development on the other hand is directly
not linked with current job role of the employee. Development contributes in preparing employee
for future roles that they will take in the organisation. in context of Easy Jet pilots are provided
training so that they can complete their function which is to fly the plane. Once they require all
the knowledge and skills so that they can fly the plane. Later providing them training will enable
them to fly different types of flights and manage the flight in difficult and crisis situation.
Development on the other hand can be of a functional manager so that when they overtake
position of functional leader they are able to perform at that job. In this they are not learning for
their present job but their learning is based on their future role. Training and development
programs of Easy Jet are very effective and in their approach of training and development are
known as 70:20:10. This means 70% training of the employee takes place on the job, 20%
training takes place informally through coaching and mentoring and 10% through formal face to
face learning.
Training and development is important activity of the Easy Jet and this requires management to
have certain competencies and skills that are setting standard for performance. Analysing and
evaluating standard performance with actual performance of the employees (Boadu and et.al.,
2018). This is a difficult task and requires that managers are competent enough performance of
the employees.

Talent Management
Talent Management can be defined a practice or commitment of the organisation to
recruit, develop and retain most talented and superior employees that are available on job market
(Almohtaseb and et.al., 2020). Talent management can also be considered as a strategic approach
to get the right and talented people in organisation, later helping them to grow and develop. This
is followed by using their optimal potential and motivating them through different means so that
they retain in organisation. There are several benefits for organisations to practice talent
management. Talent management process starts with identifying talent gaps in organisation,
recruiting and hiring right kind of talent in the organisation, developing the talent through
training and development and motivating them to retain in organisation. This is a important
practice for Easy Jet because effectiveness of organisation gets significantly affected by the
employees who are performing the job of the organisation. Talented people contribute in
effectively carrying out organisational task and that lead to effectiveness of the organisation.
Talent management also includes succession planning of the organisation, this is also a way to
retain talented people in the organisation. Regarding talent management underpinning
performance management these both are integral part of the organisational human resource
management (El Masri and Suliman, 2019). Talent management is basically focused on future
talent requirements of the Easy Jet whereas performance management is focused on present and
how performance standards can be achieved. But while doing so talent management focuses on
attracting and hiring high performing employees and performance management ensures how
their potential can be utilized to best. Talent management practices are important as talent
management enables organisation to get best talent and they are subsequently developed so that
they are able to utilize their utmost potential while performing. Performance management sets
standards of performance and when organisation has talent they can set high standard of
performance and this will be productive and profitable for Easy Jet. Easy Jet is a low cost airline
and this is why talent management and development and retention all these are very important
for the company in order to maintain low cost and providing high quality in performance output.
Talent management is an important and crucial activity and this requires that management
carrying out the activity possess the knowledge and skills to understand adequate talent needs
and is able to identify right talent for the organisation (Johennesse and Chou, 2017).

CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that performance management plays
crucial part in overall success of the organisation. There are several benefits of having efficient
performance management in the organisation and this gets affected by many practices and these
also become basis for effective performance management. For effective performance
management three underpinning concept and practices were discussed in the analysis that are
leadership and management, training and development and talent management in the
organisation. These three practices are important and well managed practices can contribute in
getting effective results of performance management in Easy Jet and management also requires
possessing adequate and required skills so that performance can be effectively managed.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Performance: The Moderating Role of an Effective Performance Management
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Armstrong, M., 2016. Armstrong's handbook of management and leadership for HR: Developing
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Tseng, S.T. and Levy, P.E., 2019. A multilevel leadership process framework of performance
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Younas, W S and et.al., 2018. The impact of training and development on employee
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