A Report on Equality and Diversity Practices within Ryanair's HR

This report examines Ryanair's approach to equality and diversity within its HR management practices. It begins with an introduction to the importance of diversity in the modern workplace and provides an overview of Ryanair's objectives and definition of equality and diversity. The report then delves into Ryanair's current HRM practices, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and analyzes its equality and diversity initiatives, including the gender pay gap compared to competitor EasyJet and the airline industry. Furthermore, the report critically evaluates the alignment of Ryanair's policies with UK government regulations and its overall business strategy. The report also includes justified recommendations for enhancing its current equality and diversity practices to improve its competitive advantage. The report concludes with a summary of findings and analysis and references relevant sources.

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY (HR MANAGEMENT)
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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Findings and Analysis.................................................................................................................................3
1. A research into the organisation’s policies on Equality and Diversity.................................................3
Ryanair’s objective..................................................................................................................................3
Defining Equality and Diversity..............................................................................................................4
Current HRM practices of Ryanair..........................................................................................................4
Strength and weaknesses of the HR practices..........................................................................................5
Equality and diversity at Ryanair.............................................................................................................5
Gender pay gap inthe airline industry and at Ryanair and competitor EasyJet........................................6
2...............................................................................................................................................................7
a. Critically evaluate how the organisation’s policies align with the UK Government’s regulations on
the subject of equality and diversity........................................................................................................7
b. Critically discuss how the organisation’s equality and diversity strategy aligns with its overall
organisational business strategy...............................................................................................................8
c. Present the organisation with justified recommendations on how to improve its current equality and
diversity practice in order to enhance its competitive advantage.............................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References...................................................................................................................................................9
Appendices................................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
According to Kumra and Manfredi (2012) human resources are amongst most crucial assets in
organizations driving them towards success hence, making it imperative in managing them
effectively for optimizing their productiveness. The 21st century human resource force across the
globeis characterized by the trends revolving around increasing diversity in the workplace. The
differences that might be existing between the companies’ workforces are relatively
acknowledged by the effective management of workplace diversity to implement practices
creating the environment of inclusion for employees. Universally changes in workforce’s
demographic characteristics are enforced by the globalization of markets. Diverse workforces
according to Ashikali and Groeneveld (2015), belong to unique cultures having different needs
and desire of getting respect at work. For averting workplace tensions and conflicts, these needs
should be comprehended by the management to maintain harmony for enhancing productivity.
With globally managers focusing on workplace equality for discarding allusions and comments
like “us” verses “them” has resulted into mandating diversity and equality policies across all
organizations. The key aim of report is to comprehend equality and diversity management in HR
and presenting an effective diversity management strategy for chosen organization Ryanair,
which founded in 1984, is a low-cost airline having main operational base at Dublin and London
Stansted airports, serving 37 countries and characterised for it rapid expansion.
Findings and Analysis
1. A research into the organisation’s policies on Equality and Diversity.
According to Diaconu (2012), operating in airline industry, passenger transportation services is
provided by Ryanair to numerous in Ireland and internationally besides catering other services
like online car and hotel booking, travel insurance, and rail services for both corporate and travel
customers. With headquarter in Swords, Ireland; it is a subsidiary of Ryanair Holdings plc that
functions on low fare strategy pioneering the model in Europe in early 1990s.By serving point to
point short haul destinations over the years Ryanair has carved a name for itself as a scheduled
low cost carrier airline, was ranked top by IATA as the leading airline in 2008 for carrying
record breaking international passengers.
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Ryanair’s objective
Establishing the brand as a leading passenger aircraft in Europe with continuous betterment and
expanding its minimum-priced offerings is the objective of Ryanair.
Defining Equality and Diversity
According to Kirton and Greene (2010), equality and diversity have no one universal definition.
One can describe equality as to create a fairer workplace environment where everyone is given
similar opportunities for fulfilling their potentials and participating, supported by legislation
addressing unfair discrimination like Race Relations Act 1976, Sex Discrimination Act 1975,
and Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Diversity on other hand, creates culture and practices
recognizing, respecting and valuing differences for cultivating a productive working
environment by generating a workforce that is given value, respect and fully utilizing their
potentials for meeting the organisational goals. According to CIPD (2005),equality in the UK is
to facilitate and provide each individual the right to be different without being discriminated, to
be given value, choice and dignity with a right to own faith while diversity is more of nurturing a
culture that values each person’s distinctiveness for benefiting community, person and
enterprises.
Current HRM practices of Ryanair
According to Lakshman, Dupouët and Bouzdine-Chameeva (2017), employees at Ryanair are
widely contemplated as factor of production and expense of getting business done instead of
resources that turn production factors into wealth. They are perceived as passive, provided and
deployed as numbers and skills at the right price rather than sources of creative innovation,
which researchers claim as a hard model of HRM. Moreover, the focus of the airlines
employment-relations strategy is on reducing costs by minimizing wage, commanding and
controlling employees and avoiding union. Employees have to pay for trainings and uniforms,
which of late has increased complaints creating issues within the human resources at Ryanair
besides high staff turnover. According to Madera, Dawson, Guchait and Amanda (2017),
although employees are not encouraged to leave, neither effort is made for stopping them
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because of available of easy replacements. The reflect of its low cost fares business strategy is
seen on its HRM strategies where performance dependent reward process that are related with on
board sales and co-related commissions are implemented for controlling employee related costs.
Flexible working hours are supported by the management for not risking the productivity – based
incentive system. According to Gurkov, Morgunov and Saidov (2017),conferring to the
corporate website of Ryanair, employees are given ample opportunities for achieving career
development. For adjusting the HR activities and procedures to its minimal – cost tactics, the
airline has overseen for creating the image of “stringiest” employer. Moreover, CEO’s Michael
O'Leary decision of pay freeze for all staffs has made it distinctly possible to eliminate
employment positions further adversely affected the employee relations. Despite of represented
by unions, the employees are discouraged to utilize company’s website for anonymously writing
their dissatisfaction from the HR practices.
Strength and weaknesses of the HR practices
According to Wadhwa, P and Guthrie (2018), Ryanair’s hostile HR practices implementation
towards its workforce has resulted into an increased turnover rate particularly amongst junior
pilots and cabin crews making it a key weakness. Although talents are attracted by high salaries,
the condition of self-paid training and the pilots retraining for skills enhancement for flying new
aircrafts, perceived as approach for their constructive dismissal with the phasing out of old
aircrafts is another weakness. According to Kandola and Fullerton (1998), different employee
behaviours are implied by different competitive strategies fitting best to the strategic HRM
where HR activities and procedures customised to strategies like minimal cost leadership, low
employee pay packets and short-term performance base incentive schemes unfavourably affect
employee relationship and internal repute, which is a weakness. Further, the HR practices
strength revolves around recruiting right candidates for meeting the organization goals and
rewarding system to motivate employees.
Equality and diversity at Ryanair
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According to Sharma (2016), currently diversity is managed at Ryanair by deterring perception
and promoting inclusions besides redesigning the working culture to create numerous posts for
approaching diverse talents. Efforts for cultivating the post-bureaucratic organization is made
based on communication, consensus, trust and admiration to give value to diverse employees and
integrating to all aspects of work. According to CIPD (2018), the impact of Employment
Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 can be greatly seen across the airline, prohibiting unreasonable
discrimination against employees on age factors besides working to protect staffs getting
disabled at work by complying with Disability Rights Commission for supporting their disability
strategy. Flexible working is also a significant part of Ryanair for increasing work-life balance in
employees besides encouraging the female staffs in returning after maternity leave. However,
according to Moore and Tailby (2015), lack of training and authority limits staff’s actions on
certain scenarios like the recent racism incident in the Barcelona to London Stansted flight,
causing damage to the airline. By programs like diversity and unconscious bias training staffs
can be prepared for these divisive incidents, improving its culture when coming to equality,
diversity and inclusion.
Gender pay gap in the airline industry and at Ryanair and competitor EasyJet
According to Standen (2018), universally the UK based airlines have reported that men
employees earn more comparing to the women, with high-paid roles across all operators being
dominated by the male employees. Being in the public eye gender pay gap issues, and how it is
being addressed are key concerns of aviation industry with constant media attention damaging
reputations. Aviation does not have the history of exclusively or predominantly male workforces,
which indeed part of the problem. The presence of both genders can be typically seen in specific
roles having separate pay levels. At EasyJet out of its 1493 pilots only 86 are females having a
median pay disparity of 45.5% and a mean disparity of 51.7% while 90% of top high-paid
positions are held by males and 70% lowest pay quartile are females, substantially affecting the
gender gaps given that the salary of a pilot is five times more than a cabin crew members. Under
UK’s Gender Pay Gap Regulations, according to Topham (2018), at a gender pay disparity of
72%, case of Ryanair is worst in the sector- with female staffs making only 3% of the top quarter
of earners. Its median hourly pay for women is 71.8% lower compared to men whereas median
bonus pay is lower by 3%, having a mean difference of 21%. From 554 UK-based pilots only
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eight are female and making up for over two-third of low-paid cabin staffs. No concrete
programs are taken by Ryanair in recruiting more women into higher paid positions. According
to easyJet plc (2018), its strategic objectives revolve around budgeted flying, quality, speedy
customer services, dependability and flexibility enabling them in gaining competitive factor.
Being an equal opportunities employer fair treatment is given to staffs and applicants heedless of
their age, gender, sexuality, full or part-time status, disability and marital status. Believing in
contribution in continuous success, diversity and inclusivity is valued by the carrier, which
employs from 50 different nations it operates in besides working with Outstanding for promoting
equality and inclusion at work. The airlines also is an endorser of “think, act, report” program
advocating equal possibilities for women at work to cultivate opportunities for them across all
management levels. EasyJet’s equality and diversity policies fits with its low cost objective by
providing training to pilots in how to consume minimal fuel while flying the aircrafts exhibiting
its flexibility in accommodating with the unforeseen economic and business environment
changes to create competitive advantage. The policies have also fit in with the objectives of
promoting diverse workforce and fair employees and applicants. Female staffs regardless of their
service length or hours worked each week are entitled to 26 week period of maternity leave.
2.
a. Critically evaluate how the organisation’s policies align with the UK Government’s
regulations on the subject of equality and diversity.
Ryanair’s policy does not completely align with UK Government equality and diversity
regulations like Equality Act 2010. Although both genders have presence in the airlines the
gender gap is high with an average pay gap of 67% between men and women. According to
Downes, von Trapp and Nicol (2017), all high-paid job are held by males, from its 554 UK pilots
only 1.4% (eight) are females while in 586 UK cabin crew, 69% are females. In 12 non-
executive directors only two are females. This is the picture despite its current Gender Pay report
stresses Ryanair as an equal pay employer and emphasizes that its UK gender pay is affected by
the lesser availability of female pilots. However, with increase in female pilots applying to
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Ryanair, it is committed to reduce the gender gap. In-line of its policy of 30% female
membership in board appointments, the plans are to increase this number to four by 2018 end.
b. Critically discuss how the organisation’s equality and diversity strategy aligns with its
overall organisational business strategy.
According to Akron, Feinblit, Hareli and Tzafrir (2016), Ryanair’s equality and diversity
strategy does not aligns much with its overall business strategy of attaining low-cost faresby
getting integrated into the strategic planning revolving around recruitment, learning and
development, employee engagement and retention.Its pay freeze practice, self-paid trainings,
chargeable meals and uniforms, misaligned employee engagement, trainees chargedhefty fees to
work with the airlinesetc. has earned it bad employer reputation.For gaining cost efficiencylow
pay levels, particularly with female staffs negatively affects its equality and diversity strategy.
c. Present the organisation with justified recommendations on how to improve its current
equality and diversity practice in order to enhance its competitive advantage.
As a Consultant to improve the current equality and diversity practices it is recommended that
Ryanair’s CEO develops an HR Diversity management framework, alternative model to
traditional Equal Employment Opportunity policies and practices for providing a legally tenable
position against discrimination charges. According to Spencer (2006), this model will emphasize
on the positive aspects of differences among employees besides valuing and harnessing the
differences like such as individual characteristics, backgrounds, orientations and religious
beliefs, for fully utilizing the talents to meet organizational goals for enhancing the competitive
advantage.Focus should also be on cultivating a culture that not only supports diversity but takes
concrete measure in promoting equality at work, leading the example from senior management
by appointing senior diversity champions for involving into activities like network groups, gay
pride and diversity awards besides committing to providing equal opportunities, fair and equal
treatment to all applicants during the recruitment process. Additionally, gender distribution
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should be monitored and complied with local legislation to promote gender equality between
men and women and reducing the pay gap.
Conclusion
From the above study it can be concluded that the terms equality and diversity are widely used
for defining and championing the values of human rights within a society, including the
workplaces. By giving equal opportunities to every individual for attaining their potentials sans
the involvement of any kind of discrimination and biasness, the relevance of these terms and
legislations enforcing their acceptation stand in place for advocating and promoting the true
sense of equality and opportunity for all. It has evident from analysing the case of Ryanair whose
equality and diversity policies fail to comply with the government regulations and the hostile HR
practices have negatively tarnished its reputation as an employer. Hence, the airline is in urgent
need of a good diversity programme with similar benefiting impacts on both employees and the
organization.
References
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Appendices
1. Gender pay gap in airlines
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