Analysis of Human Resource Management Strategies in British Airways

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes HRM in service industries using British Airways as a case study.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR
SERVICE INDUSTRIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
LO1 UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT..........................................................4
1.1 ASSESSMENT OF ROLE AND PURPOSES OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN BRITISH
AIRWAYS.................................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 JUSTIFICATION OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANS BASED ON SUPPLY AND DEMAND ANALYSIS
................................................................................................................................................... 6
LO2 UNDERSTANDING EMPLOYEE’S LAWS AND RELATIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON AIRLINE
BUSINESS....................................................................................................................................... 7
2.1 ANALYSING THE CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN AIRLINE INDUSTRY.....7
2.2 EFFECTS OF EMPLOYMENT LAWS ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN AIRLINE
INDUSTRY...................................................................................................................................9
LO3 UNDERSTANDING THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS..................................................................10
3.1 DISCUSSING THE JOB DESCRIPTION AND SPECIFICATION IN AIRPORT OPERATIONS
MANAGER IN BRITISH AIRWAYS.............................................................................................. 10
3.2 COMPARING THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR A JOB POSITION AT BRITISH AIRLINES AND
TRANSPORT FOR LONDON.......................................................................................................12
LO 4 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN SERVICE INDUSTRIES BUSINESSES.................................14
4.1 THE CONTRIBUTION OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES TO THE EFFECTIVE
OPERATION OF TRANSPORT OF LONDON................................................................................14
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 17
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................18

INTRODUCTION
Human resource is the most valuable resource of a business and growth and efficiency of the
entire business is governed by an effectively managed human resource in place. Basic functions
of human resource management (HRM) include recruiting, training and retaining human
resource within the organisation. In the case of the service industry, all the necessary functions
are directly operated by people, unlike the production industry where machines have taken a
significant amount of responsibilities. In service businesses, many scenarios require direct
interaction of customers and company representatives and other officials, in such case, it is very
important that the human resource of the company is well trained in professional
communication and business ethics to handle customers with expected care and delicacy. This
report is prepared to understand and analyse the role and importance of human resource in
running a successful service industry and in order, a case study of the airline industry will be
conducted. The main tasks of the report will focus on management approach in human
resource management, employability laws and regulation and how they affect HRM, how
recruitment and section process is conducted in the service industry and what are the major
contributions of training and development activities in human resource management.

LO1 UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
1.1 ASSESSMENT OF ROLE AND PURPOSES OF HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT IN BRITISH AIRWAYS
Human resource department is the backbone of every service industry. In airline industries,
where from aircraft pilot to ground staff responsible for air traffic control and customer service,
everything is in the hands of the employees of the airline which are governed by HRM of the
airline. Airline industry works incorporation with their customers or passengers and the
majority of staff remain in direct interaction with these customers (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
This part will cover the roles and purposes of human resource management in reference to UK's
biggest airline in terms of fleet size, British Airways. BA went international in 2011 when it
merged with Iberia, a Spanish airline, creating the world’s third largest airline fleet called
“International Airlines Group”. Within such a large business entity, there is a number of
different functions works simultaneously to provide the best travel experience and
transportation services to its customers. All these functions require highly skilled and efficient
workforce, where the role of human resource management comes up (Eaton, 2017). Some of
the basic roles of HRM in British Airways are as follows:
SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT OF PERSONNEL
British Airline has the following five functions where skilled and experienced candidates are
required, line personnel, maintenance staff, reservation and ticketing, operations, sales and
marketing and legal staff. According to the required level and position in the structural
hierarchy, a selection process is conducted for recruitment which may involve physical and
intelligence tests, PIs, group discussions and other post specified evaluation.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Next task in the sequence is introducing these selected candidates with the real-time
environment of the airline where they'll observe the operations, skill requirement and where
they stand on these requirements (Lange et al., 2015). Also, a distinct training session is

conducted for these candidates to develop the necessary skills and compatibility criteria’s in
them. At the end of the training session, the well-performing candidates are recruited at their
concerned department.
ASSESSING AND RECORDING PERFORMANCE OF THE EMPLOYEES
This task is performed by the HR managers of BA, to ensure that whether the employees within
a function are performing up to the requirement and if not, what can be considered to improve
their performance accordingly. This assessment is performed on every person involved in airline
business which is being paid from revenue earned by the airline (Eaton, 2017).
PAYMENT, APPRAISAL AND RECOGNITION TO EMPLOYEES
All employees who have worked up to the company’s requirement and standards are eligible to
get a reasonable compensation from the HR department of the airline and those who have
gone beyond the expectations are rewarded with appraisal, bonus and promotion etc. British
Airways has found to be quite concerned about the well-being of their employees and can be
observed in many cases, giving attractive bonus and rewards to their employees (Eaton, 2017).

1.2 JUSTIFICATION OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANS BASED ON SUPPLY AND
DEMAND ANALYSIS
As depicted by case scenario, British Airline is about to start its international flight from
Heathrow Airport to Madeira. The flight duration will be 4 hours with 6 up and down between
Heathrow and Madeira a week in peek time of the year, in summer and 3 regular flight
schedules through rest of the year. Based on this new flight schedule, there will be a need for a
significant number of new employees to work in shifts in different functions at BA. The
following HR plans can be utilised by the human resource department of British Airways to
conduct efficient operations:
 A 4 hours flight 6 times a week in to and fro pattern will give 48 fly hours give or take
and considering aircraft and ground maintenance task hours, this proposed flight will
require a nearly dedicated aircraft. With that, there will be need of a completely
dedicated staff as in, aircraft pilot, crew members and flight attendants; also, there will
be an increased workload on reservation and ticketing staff along with the ground
maintenance and aircraft maintenance staff.
 This increased workload will call for the need for a complete set of employees dedicated
for this Heathrow to Madeira flight operation. So, in sequence, the HR department first
will try to adjust employees working currently in some different operation and may
report having enough slack time.
 In otherwise case, the HR department will issue a hiring notice in public domain and
concerned institution which are in collaboration with BA to provide required manpower.
After receiving a sufficient number of applications, they will conduct and scrutiny and
based on their standard selection process, candidates will be selected to take a position.
 After the peak time passes, the workload will reduce to half and in that situation,
significant slack time may be generated for employees completely involved in Heathrow
to Madeira flight operation. This can be resolved by repositioning some staff from other
flight schedules to current proposed schedule on peak time in the first place.

LO2 UNDERSTANDING EMPLOYEE’S LAWS AND RELATIONS AND THEIR
IMPACT ON AIRLINE BUSINESS
2.1 ANALYSING THE CURRENT STATE OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN
AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Airline industries are the largest businesses at a global level and are the most efficient and
reliable means of passenger and good transportation. Various functions operating within an
airline, work in a synchronous environment and with an efficient channel of communication in
between (Pfeffer, 2014). In such a complex environment and with such high values at stake,
every employee in an airline business must be fully attentive and responsible for his/her duty.
Employee relations in an airline industry can be understood as a set of communication and
value sharing channel which create a link between employees and employer with different
functions involved in the loop. In general employment relations can structure in 4 basic
elements, these are
OPERATIONS: Airline industry has a number of different operations and each of them is equally
important in terms of efficiency and consistency. The employee is related to these operations in
three aspects, level of operations where there is the engagement of employee is mentioned at
different levels, second is the process of operation and the third one is the style of operation
(Tyson, 2014).
PARTIES: Parties in an employee relationship are the persons of importance or the people at
senior position and positions at cascading levels in the airline operations, such as managers,
junior managers, executives, employee representatives etc.
STRUCTURE: Structural relationship can be considered a way of conduct based on the company
ethics and code of standards. All employees working within the company environment in airline
are bound to obey and follow a general code of conduct. This builds a link in relationship
management.
SUBSTANCE: These are the formal elements, with legalities and obligations related to job
designation, communication process, career growth, cultural values etc. There is another aspect

to it called collective substance which involves terms and legal agreements such as joint
agreement, service bonds and machinery agreement.
These four elements create a framework for employee relations within the airline industry. The
employment relationship in an organisation such as the airline industry exists at different levels
(management to employees and managers to individual employees or their representatives). So
relationship management must be in harmony with all of its subsets (Bailey et al., 2018).

2.2 EFFECTS OF EMPLOYMENT LAWS ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN
AIRLINE INDUSTRY
The basic law obligations of employers in an airline industry include the litigation to pay wages,
provide relevant work, take expected care of the well-being and safety regards of the employee
and cooperates with the employer (Belobaba et al., 2015). Employees in accordance are
obligated to cooperate and support the employer wherever needed or deemed necessary,
show trust and loyalty to the employer and take required care in performing their duties. The
UK has well-established statuary law, called UK’s labour Law which states the basic legality of
employment regarding pay, work hours and health and safety regulation by employers. It also
mentions the employment contract obligations which are common in airline industries.
 These laws and regulation help human resource management to simplify the
compensation process and plan for deciding work hours and basic pay of employees
(Tyson, 2014). However, in case of British Airways, it has been noticed to also create
difficulties when there is high workload on airline and employees refuses to work
overtime or put little extra effort towards their job, in the shadow of these employment
laws.
 These laws may also create problems in providing basic holiday entitlement and putting
employees on night hours shifts. Because these requirements are often encountered in
airlines by human resource management, it makes them challenging to handle with
common procedural activities.
 Employment laws are regulated by labour act which is a legal entity run by the
government, however, there are also a set of laws and regulation which is prescribed by
the airline industry to ensure that employee abides by these rules in order to create a
recognizable work culture and desired efficiency. So human resource management of BA
ensures that both of these laws work in a cordial way with each other, and employee
and employer could get their desired results and benefits in the process.

LO3 UNDERSTANDING THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS
3.1 DISCUSSING THE JOB DESCRIPTION AND SPECIFICATION IN AIRPORT
OPERATIONS MANAGER IN BRITISH AIRWAYS
Airport Operations Manager position at British Airways is an executive level position and
requires a high level of skillset and experience in relevant field of business operation. British
Airways imposes lots of responsibility handling requirements and personality traits along with
basic standard skill and educational requirements. There are some basic elements which are
key factors in selecting a person for the job at BA. These are,
ESSENTIAL EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE
These necessities begin with basic educational requirements such as a master level degree or
qualification in operation management or related airline operations specific course. With that,
there are a requirement of high-level decision-making skills and prioritisation, deep knowledge
of airfield operations, team handling and people management skills and great leadership
approach and techniques (British Airways, 2018).
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR THE JOB
These requirements are born of airline’s own code of conducts and obligatory requirements
such as customer handling standards, matching with service hallmark targets, punctuality
targets, security and safety precaution awareness, target achievement requirements and
customer NPS.
PERSONAL CAPABILITIES REQUIREMENT
According to these requirements prescribed by BA for airline operation manager, a person
should have collaborative and team building skills should be willing to take initiative for
performance improvements, should be motivational and with a positive approach towards
challenges and should be able to work within pressure and high workloads.