International HRM Practices and Challenges at Qantas Airways

This essay provides an illustrative discussion on the international trends in the external supply of human resources, focusing on Qantas Airways. It addresses the company's challenges in employee retention and quality business practices, highlighting issues related to international HRM. The essay explores key trends such as recruitment and retention of young employees, work-life balance, and workplace diversity. It examines the impact of globalization and technology on employee commitment and work-life balance, particularly within a multicultural workforce. The role of HR in implementing effective measures to resolve these issues is also addressed, emphasizing the need for revised recruitment processes, employee engagement plans, and a focus on diversity to enhance organizational proficiency. The essay concludes by suggesting strategies for Qantas to adapt to changing trends and set better HRM practices. It also emphasizes the importance of fair treatment, teamwork, innovation, and stakeholder involvement in achieving successful outcomes. The essay aims to develop a brief and direct relation between the HRM practice and the recruitment practice and organizational environment that will facilitate a better workplace culture within Qantas.

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Qantas Airways is Australia’s largest airlines with enough international flight
destinations across the world. The organisation was established in 1920 and encapsulating 65%
of the Australian domestic market in course of time. There are more than 80 destinations where
the Qantas Airways operated profoundly. In this regard, it can be stated that the organisation has
a number of expatriate employees. Therefore, the company had to plan an international HRM
practice in order to incorporate both the domestic and international employees. However,
currently there are huge problem that the organisation is facing related to the employee retention
and quality corporate business practices. From the research of Fernando (2018) it can be derived
that the Qantas failed to identify the international trends in dealing with the human resource
availability. Therefore, this essay aims to deal with the practice of making an illustrative
discussion on the international trends in external supply of human resources. In addition to this,
the role of the HR in terms of implementing effective measures to resolve the issues are also
addressed in the essay.
As far as the international trends in the external supply of human resources is concerned,
Tung (2016) argued that there are three key change that the multi-national organisations are
witnessing in the recruitment and retention landscape especially in the context of the retaining
the young employees. On the other hand, from the research of Cascio and Boudreau (2016) it
can be pointed out that the role of the work-life balance is also a complex trend that the
international business organisations are witnessing these days. Apart from that Voegtlin and
Greenwood (2016) opined that workplace diversity is a challenging aspect that the global HR
managers are facing in course of establishing multicultural workforce.
The recruitment and retention process is considered to be a serious and most crucial part
for the business organisations because the success factor of an organisation is relied on the

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workforce. Therefore, recruiting people who have no skill that can be used for the organisational
development will make the entire recruitment practice futile. Moreover, Liu et al. (2017) argued
that like the importance of the recruitment process retaining the employees has become a
challenging part for the HR managers nowadays. There are a bunch of factors that can be the root
causes of the high turnover in international supply of human resource. In this context,
Navimipour and Charband (2016) opined that the young employees were highly fluctuating and
having a high anticipation but no effort to achieve it. It is a very important aspect to consider
because the advent of globalisation and use of social media leaves a great deal of impact on
young minds and they are now becoming less committed and reluctant to do the same task daily.
This kind of unstable mentality creates huge problem for companies like Qantas to retain a
workforce that can usher the proficiency of the organisation. As a result of that it affects the
recruitment and employee retention policy of Qantas significantly.
A new trend has been emerged in the form of work-life balance in the international
business environment. Deery and Jago (2015) argued that the paradigm of work life balance is
not a new thing in professional world but the actual problem laid on the complexities of the work
life balance. According to Zheng et al. (2015) one of the major cause behind such problem is due
to the extensive use of technology. The most recent concepts of remote workplace poses huge
problem for the international companies to cope with the situation as both the workplace and
living place remains the same and the organisations cannot decide the flexible working hour. In
fact, the geographical differences also created enormous problem to set proper working time for
the employees. It reflects a direct impact on the work-life balance where the HR managers are
facing huge challenges. It is also associated with using high technological assistance that
heightens the workplace complexities further. For Qantas also this is a serious problem for the

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HR managers to adapt the high tech tools in workplace. Moreover, the additional training
practices are also led to a lengthy process of employee engagement that creates huge impact for
the organisational development for Qantas.
Diversity in organisation is considered to be one of the major aspect for the companies to
practice healthy workplace environment. It is associated with the cultural diversity that the
organisations are practiced in order to enhance the organisational proficiency. However,
globalisation ushers new perspective in the organisational context. Lambert (2016) advocated
that due to the advent of globalisation, diversity in organisational culture has been shaped from
bicultural practice to multiculturalism. As a result of that the HR policies are also transforming in
a rapid pace by focusing on the multicultural organisational practice. It includes the gender,
ethnicity, culture, geography and experience of different countries. From the research, it was
confirmed that dealing a number of employees belonged to different nation and culture was
really a tough job to do as the HR managers had to implement a measure that should not be
contradicted with any cultural ethos of the employees (Trax, Brunow & Suedekum, 2015). It
requires special training and in-depth understanding of the entire HR practice of dealing with the
multicultural workforce. For Qantas also the diverse workplace culture is highly intertwined
with the organisational proficiency. Employing expatriates and foreign nationals into the
organisational spectrum creates a challenge for the Qantas HR department to formulate and
execute proper HR policy that can ensure the safety and security of every employees irrespective
of their cultural differences.
In this regard, the HR of Qantas has to develop a better HRM plan that will be resembled
with the changing trends in the global supply of human resources. In this regard, the HR manager
has to focus on the diversity plan that is associated with the multicultural organisational

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environment. According to Davis, Frolova and Callahan (2016) the fair treatment and equal
opportunity will be contributed in the organisational practice effective management of the
multicultural policy making. In addition to this, it is also pertinent for the HR manager to take a
follow up on the team work and collaboration among different employees. The purpose of such
measure can be identified as a process of developing better communication between the
employees so that they can perform effectively. Moreover, Hatipoglu and Inelmen (2018)
articulated innovation and creativity are the key component for an organisation in order to bring
strategic advantage in the market positioning of the organisation. The empirical studies proved
that the multicultural workforce has more efficiency than unicultural workforce. As a result of
that putting emphasis on using innovativeness in the multicultural workforce activities will bring
more proficiency into the business of Qantas. As a matter of fact, incorporating the stakeholders
in the practice of procuring an effective multicultural diversity practice is also essential for the
organisation in order to bring a successful change in progress.
As a matter of fact, the HR manager has to implement a new recruitment and selection
process for not only appointing efficient people into the organisational context but also people
from diverse culture. For the recruitment and selection process it is important for the manager to
illustrate the job description clearly so that the aspirants can get a clear and transparent picture of
the expectation of the organisation and the company is going to offer for that job position.
Besides this, Stariņeca (2015) mentioned that an effective interview round had to be created for
the employees that not only included the academic qualification of the employee but also a
psychological analysis that create better understanding of the motive of the employee to appear
into the recruitment drive. Based on this understanding the HR manager can perceive clear
perception regarding the interests of the aspirants which is also a pertinent aspect for the

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organisation to focus on. Apart from that an eligibility test has to be conducted in order to get
clear perception about the ability and skill of the aspirant in pressure. From the research of Ma,
Hartmann and Vechsamutvaree (2018) it can be remarked that the role of the eligibility test in
the recruitment drive helps the recruiters to identify the ability of the aspirant to work in pressure
situation.
In association to this, the engagement and retention is also a key responsibility for the HR
manager because high attrition rate of the organisation can bring more proficiency into
organisational productivity. For high attrition rate it is essential to prepare an employee
engagement plan that is associated with the organisational view point regarding the importance
of the employees. For Qantas it can be stated that the reward and recognition strategy will be an
effective culture that not only retain the employees but also highly motivated them to bring more
efficacy into the organisational; proficiency. Employee satisfaction is the most crucial part in this
regard and money in terms of financial benefit is a lucrative measure that can push the
employees to stay with the organisation. from the perspective of Gîlmeanu (2015) the role of
reward and recognition not only motivated the employees but also shapes a transparent
organisational practice so that a trust can be build up among the employees and in result they
will be stay with the organisation.
Based on this understanding it can be stated that all those practices are highly effective
for Qantas to set a better HRM practice with the changing trend in the international human
resource supply and their high aspirations. The essay try to develop a brief and direct relation
between the HRM practice and the recruitment practice and organisational environment that will
facilitate a better workplace culture within Qantas. From this point of view it can be concluded

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that the essay rightly addresses all the trends and related strategies that the Qantas HRM will
implement in order to mitigate the issues effectively.

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