People Management: Strategic Solutions for De Havilland Holidays

This report provides an in-depth analysis of people management practices within the context of a tourism company, De Havilland Holidays. The paper identifies key issues such as low growth, problems with graduate development programs, and challenges related to employee satisfaction and turnover. It explores the importance of effective communication, flexibility, and leadership skills in addressing these issues. The report recommends strategic solutions, including improving communication flow, implementing flexible policies, and fostering leadership to empower employees. It also suggests improvements to the recruitment process, training programs, and feedback mechanisms to increase employee satisfaction and reduce turnover. The conclusion emphasizes the critical role of people management in organizational success and stability, advocating for a focus on employee needs and preferences to align with company objectives, and stresses the importance of transparency and open-mindedness in building trust and confidence.

Running head: PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Tackling low growth..............................................................................................................4
Tackling issues with the development program of the graduates..........................................5
Problem with the satisfaction, development and turnover of managers................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Managing the abilities, skills, gaps and weaknesses of the most important resources of
businesses is known as people management. Managing people is the biggest and most
complicated responsibility of a manager. The businesses invest in financial and operational
resources for addressing the requirements and concern of the employees. Managers/leaders
invest in training and development programs, inspiration activities, leading employees on the
direction of goal attainment for the process of people management (Bratton and Gold 2017).
People management also includes the practices like training, evaluating, recruiting and firing.
People management aims at optimizing the skills and competencies of people with their
guidance and management skills (Eisenberger, Malone and Presson 2016). The purpose of the
paper is to discuss and analyse the identified concerns from the case study for constructing a
strategic solution for the company. The case is about a tourism company, De Havilland
Holidays, which has been found with various issues regarding human resource management.
The paper will present recommendations in association with the examples from the case
study. The paper will be concluded by summarising the identified problems and designed
solutions for the specified organization.
Discussion
De Havilland Holidays is a tourism company specializing in offering a wide range of
holiday plans in the regions of Europe. The company have faced various issues, which
deduced their decision of buyout. The problems identified in the case study are the reason of
the company’s downfall. The company have experienced low growth in the industry. De
Havilland Holidays have experienced issues with managing the development programs for
graduate. Another problem identified in the case study is the company’s inability of
developing employee performance, managing the satisfaction level of the employees.

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Management of skills, abilities, weaknesses and gaps of the human resources is
known as the concept of people management. Understanding the requirement, concern and
the need for involvement in the important business activities can be included in practice of
people management. It is the strategic and well-structured procedure of understanding people
and managing their competencies efficiently and effectively for the purpose of gaining
competitive advantage in the consumer market. People management skills of the managers
can construct the development plan of employees and reflects the ability of improving the
skills of the employees (Daft and Marcic 2016). Human Resource Management of companies
is responsible for implementing people management plan in the business environment. People
management plan includes the facilitation of training programs with the association of
employee benefits and appropriate reward management system of organization. People
management plan of the organization is based on the objective of accomplishing company
objectives with the effective contribution of human resource management.
A well-structure and efficient people management plan can be identified with the
practices involving employee engagement. People management motivates employees for
contribute in significant areas of the business. Employee tends to give back in return of the
respect, appreciation, concern and understanding they receive from the effective practices of
people management. People management reflects the capability of ensuring the alignment in
the company’s goals and objectives with the individual career goals of employees (people).
Understanding the issues of the tourism company, De Havilland Holidays, people
management is the best strategy for constructive effective response. People management will
help the company during the strategy of change management, as it will prepare the ‘people’
of the company through the practice of employee empowerment (Michie et al. 2016). The
Human Resource Management of the tourism company, De Havilland Holidays should direct
their focus towards the overall major issues regarding people management. After

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understanding the roles and responsibilities of the Human Resource Management department,
the company can construct the outline for restructuring the behaviour and skills of the
functional manager. This outline will enable the structuring of the training and development
program for the human resources or the ‘people’ element of the company.
Tackling low growth
Communication is the key for practicing people management skills. Communication
can be treated as a strategic tool for the purpose of bridging the gap between management
objective and individual goals. The tourism company have experienced low growth in terms
of financial crisis and low growth in terms of employee turnover. Communication is one of
the crucial skills of the Human Resource Management of a functional leader. Communicating
updated list of objectives amongst the employees of the company will ensure the alignment of
the employees’ goals to that of the company objectives (Noe et al. 2017). The Human
Resource Management department of the company needs to direct its focus on ensuring
effective and smooth communication flow in the business activities for responding to the
financial crisis of the organization. The changing dynamics of the business environment
requires changes in the employees’ approach in understanding the market and consumer
needs. Effective flow of communication amongst staff/team members serves as a contributor
in the process of developing productive teamwork (Leroy et al. 2018).
Handling the low growth of the company in terms of financial performance and
workforce skill development requires the incorporation of flexibility. Flexibility enables
companies to modify the policies and procedures in accordance with the changing
preferences of consumers. Flexibility will present various approaches in respect to a single
strategy. Flexibility will structure the strategies of the tourism company to attempt various
strategic alternatives for a single business opportunity or challenge. Flexibility will ensure
efficiency and optimum utilization of resources like human resources, financial resources and

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operational resources of the tourism business. The organisation must ensure that there are no
idle resources within the organisation that is increasing the cost (Baum 2016).
Tackling issues with the development program of the graduates
The tourism company, De Havilland Holidays have experienced various challenges in
order to handle the development program of graduates. The company also hired Eve Lebrun
as a people management manager of the company. The roles and responsibilities of Eve
Lebrun were to handle the existing situation. The company, De Havilland Holidays have
faced high turnover rate in terms of graduate workforce. For responding to the issue of
handling graduate development program of the company, the most important skills under
people management approach can be adopted leadership skills (Hoffman and Tadelis 2018).
Leadership skills will help in empowering employees in terms of their contribution towards
the company objectives. Empowerment is a significant practice that can contribute majorly in
the maintenance of company’s reputation. Although, the report staff of De Havilland
Holidays are loyal towards the system but the reason for unsatisfied graduates is the lack of
ability in structuring career development program (Al Mehrzi and Singh 2016). Structuring
an effective and efficient career development program for the graduates will require
leadership skills for directing their skills in the right direction. Leadership skills will include
the practice of communicating clear goals and objective and preparing the graduates for the
need of change management. Understanding the personal goals and concerns of the graduates
requires efficient leadership skills (Thompson 2015).
The leaders or the Human Resource managers of De Havilland Holidays need to learn
the art of being open minded. Being open minded for the purpose of handling and structuring
the career plans of graduates can be the best alternative. Open mind in leading youngsters
will help in considering numerous responses for a particular challenge and will include the
practice of understanding employee concerns. Being open minded for the process of

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implementing a strategic policy or/and procedure helps in the elimination of biasness and
incorporates transparency in the business (Sparrow, Hird and Cooper 2015). The sense of
transparency will allow the organization to incorporate a sense of responsibility for
developing the future of graduates along with the financial growth of the tourism company.
Problem with the satisfaction, development and turnover of managers
The case clearly states that the recruitment of the managers was only laid on the hands
of one of the former directors. The exit interviews states that most of the managers leave the
organisation either because of a better pay or because of better career development. It is to be
kept in the mind that an organisation can grow only when it can analyse the key problems of
internal stakeholders and can help the internal stakeholders develop with time. Mere
concentration on productivity will not increase the efficiency (Albrecht et al. 2015). A proper
set of team instead of one top quality person should be involved in the process of selection in
order to understand the suitability of the employee. In general the Owners, Investors,
Managers and the Employees are the internal stakeholders of a company. The company must
assess the needs of the employees and the managers initially while recruiting the managers
and analyse it with their offerings (Bourne 2016). Setting up a proper HR team can do this
and it will help in effective selection that will reduce the overall employee turnover. The
case states that the recent form of training demands setting up programmes at colleges near
the headquarters and the regional hubs. It is to be understood by the company that just by
looking after the performance of the management and providing feedback won’t make them
feel interested in their task. The company should start providing process induction, process
training, vestibule trainings and then on the job trainings. This would help the managers get
more confident on their task (Guest 2017). Other than these the company must also provide
internal job promotion offers at intervals and several other skills and qualification
development programs. The company can provide the managers to enhance their skills as per

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their own choice and provide them with certification programmes in return for a loyalty
contracts from them. This would enable the managers to increase their skills as well as make
the stay in the company for a long time. The company should also start swapping programs
for few months, which would enable the managers to visit various areas of the business
locations and at the same time gain knowledge and skills on the different policies and
procedures prevailing in different areas of the business (Cohen 2017). This will increase the
satisfaction level of the managers and they would feel that they have a brighter future and
growth in the organisation. It will also lead to a greater productivity, as satisfaction is directly
proportional to the productivity (Cuppen 2016). Feedback options and a proper escalation
matrix should prevail within the organisation so that the employees and the managers can
raise their grievances and get easy solutions. In certain cases the employees can feel it unsafe
while whistle blowing and might not disclose important facts that would lead to
dissatisfaction at workplace. In such condition a separate portal for whistle blowing, where
the name of the person blowing the whistle will not appear, can be set up. This would prevent
any wrongdoing as well as solve the internal problems, which in turn will also increase the
satisfaction level of the managers.
Conclusion
It can be inferred from the above discussion that people management is one of the
important tasks of the organisation that it should concentrate on. Poor people management
will lead to dissatisfaction and high employee turnover. People engaged in the process are
responsible for the overall growth and stability of the organisation. It is therefore necessary
for any organisation to select and recruit the employees by properly understanding their needs
and preferences with reference to the company objectives. The company must take proper
steps to keep the employees motivated and should concentrate on improving the flexibility in
order to perform better. Increased transparency and open mindedness will help in increasing

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the employee trust and confidence on the organisation. The top-level management of the
companies must look on the fact that the resources are being allocated efficiently and
effectively and there is a full utilisation of the resources. They must ensure that there are no
idle resources within the organisation that is increasing the cost. Apart from these it should
also concentrate on providing with a proper development framework where the managers can
get the opportunity to advance themselves in the field of their interests and can learn more
about the policies and procedures prevailing in the various areas of the organisation. A proper
grievances redressed system will increase the satisfaction as well.

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