HRM Report: Analyzing Human Resource Management at British Airways

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at British Airways. It begins with an introduction to HRM, emphasizing its role in recruitment, selection, training, and employee relations. The report then delves into the specifics of British Airways, examining the role and purpose of HRM within the airline, including forecasting, recruitment processes, employment contracts, training and development, and employee relations. Task 1 explores the role and purpose of HRM, including forecasting, recruitment, and training. Task 2 focuses on the current state of employment relations and the impact of employment law. Task 3 details job descriptions, person specifications, and a comparison of selection processes in different service industries. Task 4 examines training and development within the service industry. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and providing recommendations for improving HRM practices at British Airways.

HRMSI

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Role and purpose of human resource management...............................................................1
1.2 human resource plan..............................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Current state of employment relation...................................................................................5
2.2 how employment law affects the management of human resources .....................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Job description & person specification..................................................................................8
3.2 Comparison of selection process of different service industry............................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
4.1 Training & development in service industry.......................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management refers to a function of business which deals with process of
recruitment and selection, training & development and performance appraisal. Candidates are
hired on the basis of their skills and intelligence. HR department is responsible for organisation's
growth and development. Policies and laws are formulated by HR team to have good employee
relation in workplace. HRM has a responsibility to motivate employees for winning competition.
A specified format is prepared by HRM team which contains all roles and responsibility criteria
to hire a right candidate.
Present study will emphasis on British Airways. It is second largest airline in terms of
flag size and number of passengers to be carried. It was founded in 1974. It is headquartered in
Waterside, UK. Its slogan is “to fly, to serve”. It is categorized under international airlines group.
This report will discuss the role and purpose of human resource management. It frames the
current state of employee relationship British Airways. It also discusses a job description and
person specification for a job role. Two industries are compared on the basis of HRM function of
selection process. It also outlines the contribution of training and development activities to have
effective operation.
TASK 1
1.1 Role and purpose of human resource management
Human resource management is analyzed to be a strategic approach in organisation
where management team of HR deals with the process of recruiting, selecting, training,
developing, reward managing, appraising performance, formulating policies, maintaining
employee relation and motivating. HRM team helps organization indirectly to win competition
by the process of selecting right candidate who works for the welfare of organisation (Noe and
et.al., 2017). HRM includes following concepts:
Forecasting and planning
Forecasting refers to a process of predicting the situations for the future. HR predicts the
supply and demand in organisation. They deal with requirement of number of employees to have
effective work performance which increases profitability. Strategic goals are set by the
management team of British Airways. HR discuss with management team and make a plan for
recruitment ad selection process to choose right number of candidates who will fulfill the
requirement of British Airways.
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Recruitment process
It is a main function of HRM management. It deals with recruitment and selection
process in organisation. Roles and responsibilities are discussed and a proper specified format is
prepared by HR manager. Then, a process starts of selecting right candidate from the list of
candidates. A selection process is adopted by British Airways to have a skilled candidate and
leads airways to a big level.
Contracts of employment
This concept in HRM deals with employment contracts within organisation. Certain
policies are made by HR team to win competition. For example, to keep data safe and private in
British Airways, a contract is signed by its employees at time of joining in which they are not
authorized to share industry airline data to any other people. If they found guilty anywhere,
British airways has a right to take actions against them. Such contracts of employment are
categorized under HRM (Cascio, 2015).
Training and Development
This concept is to improve the work performance of employees. Employees who joined
company are not perfect in their field that they can do any work and achieve the objective.
Proper training is required to improve their skill area and their understanding level. Regular
training are provided by HRM team as per feedback from other units. This training procedure
develop the work performance of employee and make them efficient in their work. This
increases productivity and profitability of British Airways.
Employee relationship
To achieve business objectives, employees plan to work in a team. Conflicts can occurred
between them to make a decision. But if employee relation is good then fewer conflicts will
occur. British airways HRM team organizes events and activities at end of every month to have
effective relationship between employees and they get a chance to have interaction with all team
members (Bratton and Gold, 2017). It also relieves stress and produces an effective workplace
environment. Relation between managers and employees and also between employees, both are
important has their individual importance.
Role
HR managers in organisation has responsibility to make and suggest strategies to have
commitment of employees and building trust towards organisation. This is starts form the initial
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step of recruiting and selecting procedure. HR behavior is analyzed by candidates and it shows
the background of organisation. So, HR role is very important in every organisation and to
maintain level of organisation.
Purpose
Purpose of HR is to maintain the workplace environment healthy. They have
responsibility to provide training to employees for their development in their work procedure.
Their main role is to hire right candidate for British Airways who works for the welfare
(DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst, 2016). Skills trainers are arranged to train hostess in such a
manner that their way of attitude and their interaction skills with customers are improved.
Similarly, for cabin crews, they are trained with specialized trainers to improve their work
performance.
Soft HRM
This type of HRM deals with employees as the most important part of organisation.
Employees needs are fulfilled by soft HRM and they make plan and strategies to achieve the
requirement of employees. They have featured of long term planning. Performance related
appraisals in British Airways are given to employees by soft HRM. Flat organisation structure is
followed under soft HRM.
Hard HRM
This type of HRM treats employees as resource only of a business unit. They are linked
to have strong planning in corporate business and they make it in such a manner that it will be
efficient and cost effective too. They do not have more communication, they have limited
conversation with employees. Taller organizational structure is followed by hard HRM of British
Airways. Autocratic leadership style is suited on hard HRM.
1.2 human resource plan
Human resource planning refers a process to forecast the requirements of candidates for
achieving the business objectives. HRM team determines the capacity of employees in
organisation to fulfill their requirements. Forecasting is done to know appropriate requirement
of number of persons and at specified place and time. It helps them to prevent organisation from
falling to trap (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018). A change is requirement of every sector of every
organisation. Employees are needed to meet the challenges, competencies and objectives. By
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identifying goals and challenges, HR plan to hire candidates with exclusive talent and HR
manages follow a strategic procedure to recruit and select employees.
Important of HRP
This will be striking up balance between demand for and supply of resources HRP helps
in optimum usage of resource and also reducing the labour cost.
Factors affecting HRP
HRP is very influential several consideration and there are factors affecting it like that of
type and strategy of organisation, organizational growth cycle, planning and environmental
uncertainties.
British Airways is starting its new flight to Mandeira for which following will be requirements:
Number of staff- 2 flight attendants, one pilot and 1 co-pilot
Working hours- Flight attendants work nights, weekends, and holidays. Working 12-14 hours in
shift.
Job analysis
Before taking a decision, it is necessary to know job specification first. HR team has
responsibility to take information from each department about the requirement of candidate and
their specified area. In airline industry, HRM asks ground sector as well as flying sector. Ground
sector includes cabin crew, ticket booking, security department, operation department,
controlling unit and all. These departments analyze the work scenario and lead to a data of
candidate’s requirement to make their work efficient. Similarly, for flying sector, it has analyzed
that experienced persons are needed because they take risks of many people's life. Flying
department is categorized under air planes. In this, they analyze the requirement of responsible
candidates for the future purpose if any new airplane is about to be introduced or any other
reasons (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016). But, here a criteria is fixed of having five year
experience in their job profile.
Forecasting supply and demand
It is second step of human resource planning. In this, demand and supply of employees
are forecast by management team of HR. as per analysis of job from each sector of airline
industry, HR identifies the data and prepare a list of number of candidates required for the
specifies role and responsibilities. They forecast the demand in such a way that work do not get
stopped. Now time come is of supply candidates. They plan a strategy to select candidates who
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are interested to join airlines. HR managers are so much active to select a candidate as per
requirement of different units. Then they supply candidates to specified unit when they have
commitment between selected candidate and industry. In this they also forecast the training
requirement in airline which is needed by employees to improve their work performance. It is
also a type of supply and demand in human resource planning.
Labor turnover
This step is to evaluate the cost that made in supplying candidates to desired department.
HR has responsibility to manage employees in limited cost. They meet the demand in under
budget. They make a criterion to provide salary according to their experience level and skills.
Higher year experience candidate cost high compared to fresher one. Airline industry also seem
to have more profitability. These employees' salary are considered under investment cost
(Brewster, Mayrhofer and Morley, 2016). So, HRM makes contract with selected candidates to
be retentive for at least two year to have more outcomes because initially training cost is also
involved in starting period.
Resourcing
This step is to find the interested candidates to meet the supply and demand of airline
industries. HR keeps hard working to aware candidates about their vacancies in British Airways.
They make advertisement on job portal sites so that if any candidate is searching for a job, they
can access through portal. British airways also seen for campus placements to get fresher
candidates for the required unit. They interact with candidates either through telephonic
conversation, taking interview through video call or by face to face. They explain roles and
responsibilities to every candidate so that they are aware about their wok in starting only. They
also prepare a specified format of job specification to clarify the doubts of interested candidate.
For example, for a new flight service to Madeira, number of staff required is 150. These 150 are
divided under separated departments for grounding and flying. 9 hours of work is specified to
them and these to be regular one. A suitable process is followed for selecting a candidate. HR
team makes them understand about industry policies and laws or about any agreement.
Supply and demand of labour-
The labour market will include supply of labour by household and demand for labour by
firms. Supply of labour mean the total number of hours during which the worker is wishing to
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work that too at given real wage rate. While the demand of labour would include the quantity at
which labour is producing.
TASK 2
2.1 Current state of employment relation
Employee relation refers to efforts of management team of organisation in maintaining
relation between employer and employee. A good employee relation provides high dedication
level to employees for their work. They get more loyal towards their organisation. It also
increases their interest toward their specified area of work. It helps to take decisions easily
because good employee relation has healthy discussion to share information. It makes easy for
managers to make out decisions (Schumacher and et. al., 2016).
Structure
Organizational structure refers to a system in organisation which activities are directed to
achieve the business objectives. Activities are die under responsibilities of individual one.
Structure defines the process of transferring information from one level to another level. This
specified structure maintain employee relation good and this makes them trusted towards airline
industry that they do not making any partiality within organisation. Centralized organizational
structure is adopted by British Airways in which information is transferred from top level to
bottom level or vice versa.
Culture
Organizational culture also maintain employee relation in airline industries. Culture can
be referred to job satisfaction too. This makes them stress free and makes their mind in comfort.
Stress leads to bad employee relation. So, British airways HR team manages employee need to
make them satisfied and to improve their work performance.
Communication
This factor is very important in maintaining relation between employer and employee.
Organization has procedure to share information and this required effective and efficient
interaction between employees. HR has role in this to hire only those employees who have good
communication skills. Interaction is very important feature in employee behavior. It can resolve
conflicts and negotiations between employees (Ali and et. al., 2015). At the time of taking
interview in British Airways at the time of selection procedure by HR managers, communication
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skills are checked and also their talking behavior and attitude. This plays an important role in
maintaining employee relation.
Negotiation
This factor deals with the negotiations that is created in the minds of employees. It can be
a thinking of partiality, or related to discrimination work place environment or any other issue
but solving and reducing these negotiations, it is responsibility of HR. Employees who joined
British airways in ground sector, has negotiation in their mind about scope for the future. HR
managers of British Airways has role to explain and makes them understand about the scope,
purpose and all. This make employees retentive for long time and make them believe that British
Airways is free from any discrimination.
Employee participation
This factor is to have involvement employee in any activity or event that is organized by
HR team. HRM has responsibility to maintain employee relation. That's why they arrange some
activities in working hours to negotiate the problems of interactions. At that time, employee can
interact with each other irrespective of their work. This increase their interest towards British
airways and make their employee relation good. Individual involvement and their active
participation is important to have efficient process of sharing important information which help
supervisors and leaders to make decisions for welfare of airline industry (Heckscher, 2018).
Conflict management
This factor is to manage conflicts that are occurred between employees regarding taking
decisions. Employees who have same experienced and are on same level always get conflicted in
their thought procedure to make a decision. It is also a responsibility of HR team of British
Airways to manage such conflicts by giving responsibilities to supervisors to make a division
without any partiality. They go through all conditions of situations and make a decision. Conflict
management is necessary to make employee relation good otherwise it leads to stress and make
work worst which indirectly leads to less profitability.
Disciplinary procedure
This factor is to make workplace environment disciplined. Structure which is adopted by
British airways needs to be followed by employees in disciplined way. Top to bottom approach
or vice versa is a disciplined way to share information from one employee to another employee.
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In doing activities or team work, it is necessary to maintain discipline. Behavior with seniors is
also categorized under disciplinary procedure.
2.2 how employment law affects the management of human resources
Human resource managers has the responsibility of organisation as well as employees.
So, to manage them, they make policies laws and regulations for employees in favor of
organisation. These policies and laws maintains discipline in work environment and results in
effective productive and profitability. Certain policies and laws are explained below:
Employment relation act
This act is adopted by British airways to maintain employee relation in workplace
environment. This act includes participation of employee in every training, seminars, activities
and events to have good employee relation. This helps managers to have easy decision making
procedure because of only effective information sharing procedure (Chen, Leung and Evans,
2016).
Employment rights act
This act deals with the rights of employees in organisation. Employee rights are
explained at the time of joining only by the HR managers to selected candidate. They have rights
to take actions against those employees who act in discrimination order and doing partiality.
They can inform HR team about it.
Contract of employment
This policy is made by HR team of British Airways to win competition. It can be related
to health and safety contract or data privacy contract. Airline industry make law for employees to
keep their mobile phones out of workplace area to keep their data private and they do both have
rights to leak information to any other people.
Redundancy procedure
This policy is regarding the leaving criteria for the candidates who are working in British
Airways. This is also explained at the time of joining only by the HR managers. They make them
understand that they are in bond of one year and if they want to leave the industry then they have
to pay £400.00. It is like a penalty for them (Radda, Majidadi and Akanno, 2015).
Maternity and paternity rights
This policy deals with leave system at the time of maternity and paternity. Maternity
leave facility is provided by airline industry to make them comfortable in their difficult
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situations. Approximate 6 months leave is granted at the time of maternity and for paternity 15
days leave is provided.
Advisory, conciliation and Arbitration service (ACAS)
It is categorized under public body of Government, UK. It refers to improve
organizational culture, structure, and work by having strong industrial relations. Industrial
relation refers to having good relation between employees and also between employer and
employee. To resolve conflicts or disputes between employees, leaders take a way of conciliation
to make employee relation good. These regulations to make employee relation good and healthy
(What is employee relation, 2019).
TASK 3
3.1 Job description & person specification
Job Description
Job Description (JD) is a written document prepared by organisation's HR manager to
give detailed information about a specific job role such as roles & responsibilities for that
specific job role, salary and qualification required for that specified job role.
Job Description of British Airways (BA) gives information about job role of Cabin Crew
London City, this job role is required in City Flyer Department of BA and according to this job
description this role is non managerial. This job description also discusses purpose behind
joining Cabin Crew London City Position according to which employees placed at this position
earn an opportunity of enhancing their skill and it also helps employees in their overall
development. There is also an opportunity of being a part of London-city team of company and it
further helps in building relationship with customers by providing quality service to them
(Hartmann and Jahren, 2015).
After discussing purpose, this Job Description of BA includes accountabilities principles
in which company shows its concern about health & safety of its employees at works-place and
British Airways is responsible if any injury is caused to its member while performing job of
Cabin Crew. In accordance with accountability principles given by BA it complies with
provision of all legal legislation applied to company such as EASA. Organisation also focuses on
offering best services and company also need to follow all the corporate policies & procedures.
Company also ensures safety & satisfaction of its customers while offering various services.
Person Specification
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Person Specification is also a written document like Job Description which gives
description of skills, abilities, knowledge, ideas and qualities required in applicants of British
Airways to perform job role of Cabin Crew. It also gives information about qualification
required for performing a skill. Person Specification play a vital role in recruitment & selection
process and it helps company in acquiring and retaining right application for specified job role.
Person specification helps British Airways in making effective interview process, enable
applicants that they are applicable of job role of Cabin Crew or not and it is also beneficial for
company in forwarding opportunities and provisions of legal laws & legislations. It also help BA
in treating all its employees equally because rules and requirements given by company is same
for all as it clearly published on website of company (Guo, Wang and Jin, 2018).
Person Specification Document of British Airways includes required skills for cabin crew
position according to which employees have to ensure safety and security of its customers and
services provided by them are satisfactory for customers. Candidates applying for position of
cabin crew has to show their dedication of offering services and they need to build relationship
with its customers so that they can get attracted. Applicants for cabin crew position also need to
develop a skill which helps them in resolving contingency situations. They also need to follow
all rules and guidelines given by company and they are required to adapt all type of changes in
technologies and legal guidelines which affects their operations. Thus, this all skills are required
in candidates applying for position of cabin crew in BA.
British Airways also discussed qualification required in its person specification document
related to position of cabin crew in city of London. In accordance with person specification given
person below the age of 18 years cannot apply for this job role, applicants must be fluent in
English speaking & writing, having a passport so that they can offer their services in United
Kingdom, applicant also have an apparent evidence regarding any fraudulent activity committed
by them in preceding five years. Person Specification also shows that candidate applying for job
is able to work in shifts or at anytime in a day. Applicant have to maintain discipline at work
place and required to wear uniform of British Airways. They are not allowed to have tattoos and
piercing on their body.
Experience related to offering customer services in service industry such as hospitality or
travel industry is required as per person specification given by British Airways in Person
Specification Document.
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