Analyzing Performance Management Practices at Flight Centre

This report provides a detailed analysis of performance management practices at Flight Centre Travel Agency, focusing on ethical concerns, employee compensation, and strategies for improvement. The case study highlights issues such as underpaying employees, unethical sales tactics, and th...Read More

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Executive Summary
The below mentioned report evaluates detailed information about the activity of performance
management in an organization. The case analysis discussed is of Flight Centre Travel Agency
where the organization trained and insisted their representatives to charge additional amount
from their customer. The organization was involved in various unethical practices like
underpaying the employees, asking them to do overtime at no pay. Further, the report evaluates a
literature review on performance management along with the strategies with the help of which
the organization can rectify their issues. More details about the report are discussed below.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Case Analysis...................................................................................................................................1
Literature Review............................................................................................................................2
Strategies for Improvement.............................................................................................................4
Compensation and Reward system..................................................................................................4
Delegation........................................................................................................................................4
Coaching..........................................................................................................................................5
Recommendation (4 Key Result Areas)..........................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Performance management refers to the activities initiated by the human resource management of
an organization with an aim to manage the performance of the employees. It helps the businesses
in managing the performance of employees, rewarding them accurately and satisfying them to
the extent as well. In the current environment, it is very important for the businesses to
effectively initiate the performance management at workplace to increase the interest of the
employees in the organization and grow as well (Song 2018). The aim of this report is to analyse
the article chosen about the Australian travel giant that is Flight Centre. Flight Centre Limited is
one of the biggest Australian travel agency that initiate its services all around the world. The
below mentioned report evaluates details about the issue along with literature review on
performance management. It also discusses about the strategies for improvement in the actions of
the company in the areas of goal setting and communication, motivation and employee
engagement and delegation. Lastly, recommendations for the company are discussed that talks
about the improvement for the organization in case of coaching, delegation and performance
management.
Case Analysis
Flight Centre Travels Group is one of the major travel agencies present in the international
market. The company was originated in the year 1982 and is headquartered in Australia. The
organization had a yearly turnover of $20 billion and is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
The company works with a group of 20000 employees all around the world. More than 2800
outlets and shops are present under the retail brand of the organization. The company has its
business operations UK, US, South Africa, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, China
and India etc. The company has license agreement in more than 80 nations (Flight Centre 2018).
The article selected discusses about the unethical and wrong practice tradition prevailing in the
organization. Such practices are hampering the image of the company in the target market. Flight
Centre Travel Agency has been accused for ripping off the customers and paying less to the
employees as well. The employees also stated that they felt liking working in a cult. The
investigation held by the ABC, the former and current staff were encouraged to gouge the

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customers by adding mark ups. By this way, the organization was able to charge additional
hundreds of dollars in the ticket booking. The company also attracted the employees by
promising them to give various perks so that they can overcome the guilt of practicing wrong
actions according to professional ethics (Bainbridge 2018). However, the organization did not
actually provided such benefits to them, infact they were unable to entertain some of the
employees providing them money equal to minimum wages as well. Minimum wages are the
basic right of each and every employee working in the society, but Flight Centre did not
provided them the same as well. In addition to it, the employees also worked for overtime but it
was never compensate by the organization (McGrath, and Carter 2018).
Literature Review
As said above, Flight Center has been associated with some wrong practices which have negative
effect on the execution of its workers. It is vital for every single association to oversee employee
performance as they assume a crucial job in accomplishing goals of business. The performance
management is the procedure through which representatives and employers cooperate to
strategize, regulate and survey the work targets of employees and their commitment to the
association. Expressed that execution implies the procedure where the HR with their
commitment of abilities and information play out the errands through achievement of their
objectives adequately (Baka 2016). The term performance management perceives the completion
of organizational objectives, expected results to achieve those standards, distinctive approaches
to succeed more powerfully towards these goals and systems and drivers to accomplish them . In
an association, there are different ways which can help an association to enhance and to hold the
execution of its workers. In addition, there might be some unfair practices which can diminish
their execution.
In the given article, it tends to be expressed that Flight Center is standing up to the issues
identified with execution of representatives because of wrong practices. As per, Flight Center is
occupied with unethical practice as it is physically adding an extra mark ups to its ticket booking
in online arrangement of Flight Center. It ranges from as meager as 30$ to thousands of dollars
(Mone, and London 2018). This procedure is done before demonstrating the aggregate expenses
to customers. Staff of organization expressed that 6.7$ billion is made on work hard, play hard

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approach and liquor fuelled culture which toils its representatives down with discouraged pay
and extraordinary non-paid additional time hour. expressed that the organization is charging
additional from their clients on their ticket booking. For instance, if the first cost of ticket is
$1500, it will increase and the last charges will be $1800 (McGrath, and Carter 2018).
In this aspect, portrayed that dishonest and wrong practices impact the profitability of the
association as it occupies the representatives from their center jobs and duties. At Flight Center,
this wrong conduct is disturbing the staff therefore shielding them from stressing on the work
effectively. The leaders of HR industry expresses that wrong practices of an organization can
influence the capacity of employees to work and perform adequately. The case demonstrates that
even in the wake of increasing, still organization is coming up short on its workers that have
influenced their fulfilment level and assurance adversely (Lei, Basit, and Hassan 2018).
Moreover, expressed that organization is preparing its workers about increasing the booking and
considering that it’s anything but an illicit practice. It is one of the significant issues at Flight
Center that workers are prepared and trained using unethical ways. It has real effect on working
culture of employees in the organization. In this situation, have depicted reinforcement theory
that states that behaviour of a worker is an element of result which in a directly pursues another's
behaviour as well. This theory maintains a strategic distance from various variables like needs,
objectives and desires (Zhang, Lawrence, and Anderson 2015). An association can have positive
effect on worker performance by giving diverse occupation benefits. For example, Flight Center
is neglected to give enough advantages and incentives to over time working employees that
negatively influenced their conduct as well. The organization needs to comprehend that these
sorts of remunerations can be extremely powerful on the off chance to initiate effective conduct
on the part of employees. For Flight Center, it is vital to comprehend that they can influence
worker conduct and their execution by rehearsing positive strengthens which can help the travel
agency to accomplish its destinations (Chow, Lai, and Loi 2015).
Strategies for Improvement
The literatures present in the case explained that Flight Centre is confronting various issues
related to the performance of the employees. The staff of the organization was demoralized by
the unethical practices of the travel agency. There is strong need of improvement in the human

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resource management process of the company otherwise; they will face a considerate loss of the
employees from the organization as well. The three major areas discussed in the case are
performance management, delegation and lastly coaching on which the company should focus.
Different strategies for improvement are discussed below that the company should in order to
improve the performance of the employees (DeNisi, and Smith 2014).
Compensation and Reward system
Compensation and reward system is considered as one of the most important aspect that helps
the business process in moving forwards in the target market. Similarly, in the given case of
Flight Centre organization, the company did not paid the employees their remuneration properly,
infact they did not pay the amount of overtime also. Resulting in which, dissatisfaction was
increased in the environment. The company should provide adequate compensation and
additional rewards to motivate the employees to the maximum extent. They should also set off
the earlier dues with the employees as well. With such compensation and reward system, the
company will adequately maintain effective growth in the market (Shields, et. al., 2015).
Delegation
Moreover, delegation is another procedure that Flight Center can embrace. The facts confirm that
there is need of compelling task of jobs and obligations to the travel agency representatives. The
travel consultants ought to have the viable information about their work. The organization ought
to make the groups and there ought to be an experienced appointed individual who should deal
with execution of work of the colleagues present in his group. The pioneer of group will be in
charge of the aftermath of work delegated. This will help the organization to upgrade the
execution of workers at Flight Center (Cardy, and Leonard 2014).
Coaching
When it is about the administration of the performance of the workers, practice likes training and
development are essential techniques which can help Flight Center to defeat the issues identified
with lower confidence, unpaid extra hours, and charging extra on booking. The firm should roll
out improvements in its training procedure and give them instructions in regards to their jobs and

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duties that they have to comply with. They ought to dispense with the training of mark up
activities from its present training and development program. This project can assist the
organization with overcoming the issues and propel the staff towards their work as well
(Buckingham, and Goodall 2015).
Recommendation (4 Key Result Areas)
Communication and defining of goals to be achieved: the company should effectively
communicate the objectives that the want to achieve so as to make a clear picture of the work in
the minds of workers as well. They should also define the goals initiated by the organization so
as to give them a direction to work (Ahmed, et. al., 2016).
Change management: Change management is very important for the organization, Flight Centre
as they are practicing unethical activities. The organization should initiate the change
management program at workplace and they should also change various policies that harm the
interest of employees in the internal environment. In this way the employees will effectively
work in the environment (Ramasamy, Sabatini, Gardi, and Kistan 2014).
Compliance to with the rules and regulations: Compliance of rules and regulations is very
important for the organization as it helps the business in moving ethically in the target market. If
not followed the company will face strict governmental actions, thus they should always follow
the rules and regulations defined in market.
Recognition of employees: Lastly, it should be noted that it is very important for the organization
to recognize the efforts of the representatives inputted in the organization. Recognition will help
the representatives to attain satisfaction from the organization in the target market. It is
considered as one of the most important need of the employees (Van Dooren, Bouckaert, and
Halligan 2015).
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that it is important for
the organization to manage the performance of employees otherwise they won’t be able to
effective initiate the business functions in the market. The above mentioned report provided

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details about the ineffective performance management activities of the company Flight Centre
and recommendations to improve the same.

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References
Ahmed, T.M., Bezemer, C.P., Chen, T.H., Hassan, A.E. and Shang, W., 2016, May. Studying the
effectiveness of application performance management (APM) tools for detecting performance
regressions for web applications: an experience report. In Proceedings of the 13th International
Conference on Mining Software Repositories (pp. 1-12). ACM.
Bainbridge, A. (2018) Flight Centre accused of underpaying staff, workplace bullying, Available
from http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/flight-centre-accused-of-underpaying-staff-
workplace-bullying/10186340 [Accessed on 10 October 2018].
Baka, V., 2016. The becoming of user-generated reviews: Looking at the past to understand the
future of managing reputation in the travel sector. Tourism Management, 53, pp.148-162.
Buckingham, M. and Goodall, A., 2015. Reinventing performance management. Harvard
Business Review, 93(4), pp.40-50.
Cardy, R. and Leonard, B., 2014. Performance Management: Concepts, Skills and Exercises:
Concepts, Skills and Exercises. UK: Routledge.
Chow, C.W., Lai, J.Y. and Loi, R., 2015. Motivation of travel agents' customer service behavior
and organizational citizenship behavior: The role of leader-member exchange and internal
marketing orientation. Tourism Management, 48, pp.362-369.
DeNisi, A. and Smith, C.E., 2014. Performance appraisal, performance management, and firm-
level performance: A review, a proposed model, and new directions for future research. The
Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp.127-179.
Flight Centre. (2018). Home. Available from https://www.flightcentre.com/ [Accessed on 10
October 2018].
Lei, K.Y., Basit, A. and Hassan, Z., 2018. The Impact of Talent Management on Job
Satisfaction: A Study among the Employees of a Travel Agency in Malaysia. Indonesian Journal
of Applied Business and Economic Research, 1(1), pp.1-19.

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McGrath, P. and Carter, J.S. (2018) Flight Centre accused of 'ripping off' customers, underpaying
staff in alcohol fuelled 'cult' workplace, Available from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-
22/flight-centre-accused-of-ripping-off-customers-underpaying-staff/10051474 [Accessed on 10
October 2018].
Mone, E.M. and London, M., (2018) Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. UK: Routledge.
Ramasamy, S., Sabatini, R., Gardi, A. and Kistan, T., (2014) Next generation flight management
system for real-time trajectory based operations. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 629, pp.344-
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Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., Johns,
R., O'Leary, P., Robinson, J. and Plimmer, G., 2015. Managing employee performance &
reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Song, Z.F., 2018, April. The Relationship among Top Managerial Social Capital, Resource
Acquisition and the Growth Performance of Small and Medium-sized Travel Agencies. In
Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Internet and e-Business (pp. 218-222).
ACM.
Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G. and Halligan, J., (2015) Performance management in the public
sector. UK: Routledge.
Zhang, J.J., Lawrence, B. and Anderson, C.K., 2015. An agency perspective on service triads:
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66.