Qantas Airways HRM Case Study: Challenges, Analysis, and Solutions

This case study examines the human resource management (HRM) challenges faced by Qantas Airways. It delves into issues such as inefficient hiring processes, ineffective training programs, and deficiencies in performance management, which have led to employee dissatisfaction and safety concerns. The analysis explores the impact of these challenges on the airline's operations and employee morale, highlighting the need for improved job design, recruitment, and training strategies. The study proposes solutions including a revised hiring process, enhanced training and communication models, and the implementation of a cooperative organizational culture and robust performance management systems with fair reward practices. Additionally, the importance of talent management and fostering a positive work environment is emphasized to address issues such as employee disengagement and improve overall organizational performance and employee satisfaction within the competitive aviation industry.

Qantas HRM-CASE study
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Introduction
Qantas Airways is Australia’s largest airlines. The Qantas Airways Group has been seen to have
an extensive commercial and ownership links having a high number of regional carriers. It has an
alliance arrangements and code-sharing along with international carriers via the One World
Alliance. Qantas is the second largest among the all the five airline alliances which are the
groupings of all the allied airlines underpinning the globalization of the airline industry.
The airlines were found in November 1920 and began as international passenger flights in 1935.
The name for the airlines comes from "QANTAS," an abbreviation for its original name,
"Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services," and has been nicknamed as "The Flying
Kangaroo." Qantas Airlines is also a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance(Qantas,
2016).
A very strong international equity link is present between the British Airways and Qantas.
Additionally, Fiji' Air Pacific has its 46.2 percent interest with Qantas. A nationwide, full-service
scheduled air services are only being provided by the Qantas Airways. Since the collapse of
Ansett group, the domestic share of Qantas has reached approximately 70 percent of the travel
market from a mere 55 percent. It has a human resource management operating in the four major
areas of the company, namely, business segments, shared services, corporate, development, and
learning. Despite the roles being entrusted on HRM by the organization, grave cases of accidents
as well as strikes from the ‘dissatisfied workers’ allegedly came for getting meager salaries.
Issues similar to these present an HRM gap in the responsibilities that were being delivered.
The reports present insights to the challenges being faced by the HR Planning at the Qantas
discussing the HR functions that must be addressed so as to face these challenges. The volatility
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of the company is being affected by a large number of variables which has been discussed in the
study. The paper begins with a discussion of the challenges of job design and performance
management in Qantas and then the step towards addressing the issues have been discussed in
the paper.
Discussion
The airline industry offers to be a perfect example of sector where everything is dependent on the
fossil fuels and its availability. It has been estimated that around 30 percent of the costs of this
industry has been going towards the kerosene. Therefore, the fuel price is the biggest concern
that the airline industry has been facing in the modern world. This high fuel cost imposes fuel
surcharges on their customers. Another one of the most challenging factor is competitiveness.
This has made alliances to be a major factor for the growth and development of the airlines be it
with high-speed rail links or with another airlines. Additionally, the airlines have been suffering
because of the issue of overcapacity as major airlines are struggling in order to get a grip and
consequently find it difficult to adapt to the ever-changing economic environment. Other
challenges include the labor unrest in this particular industry and emergence of the low carrier’s
flights.
The Qantas Airways has a solid history in the business years related with transportation of
passengers and mails. With an expansion of operations in 65 domestic and 27 international
destinations, it serves around 30,000 employees. It has a human resource management operating
in the four major areas of the company, namely, business segments, shared services, corporate,
development, and learning. The HRM in the corporate level is seen to be highly responsible for
remuneration and benefits, the international and industrial relations of the airlines along with its
competitors as well as management. The HR teams are also responsible for collaboration with
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the various other business segments for ensuring successful delivering of the strategies helping
the organization to gain competitive advantage (Emerging Issues in Human Resource
Management). The major responsibility of the organization lies with the human resource. The
major work areas and responsibility include supporting remuneration, managing the
compensation of the employees, managing workers records, and recruitment processes along
with coming up with the strategic plans regarding the staff traveling, schemes and schedules.
Under the development and learning level, various training programs are given to the employees
for helping them to deliver all their works effectively.
Qantas Airways have been facing issues in their job analysis and performance management
system which have been discussed below:
The organization has an inefficient hiring team, and HRM has been making mistakes in
choosing a right candidate. Although the organization has a heavy training and recruiting
program and the company, have been investing in the job analysis as a well-designing process. In
2008, the company was involved in the in-flight incident causing a serious injury to the 129
passengers owing to the spacious commands. Additionally, the training is not seen to be highly
productive since 2006 recruitment. The pilot of the organization was seen not to be
acknowledging towards the issues and decided to overshoot the particular destinations by a range
of 150 miles. It has been alleged that the captains of the organization are not competent in nature
and further lack knowledge regarding shall recovery and use of stick shaker which led to serious
accidents. According to various researches, the organizations like Qantas Airways invest a great
deal of money on training with the belief that this might be helpful in gaining competitive
advantage in the local as well as global (Jackson, Schuler, and Werner, 2011). Although training
is offered to the employees so as to motivate the employees and in 2009, it was seen that around
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$10 million staff training centers were opened by the organization so as to build their economies
of the scale. But even with success in the industry, the HRM is highly ineffectual and has
asserted that they need to forge a highly beneficial relationship with their employees and staff
(Qantas aims for better customer service with $10m training center, 2009).
Additionally, the Qantas Airways has been making profits but lacks a meaningful performance
management so as to provide recognition and rewards to its employees on the basis of their
performance. The employees are unaware of what their organization gives in return for their
exceptional work. The Qantas Airways has been considered as an important lynchpin in order to
define a proper aviation job owing to the fact that it is a market leader. The organization has been
seen to sack 5,000 full-time employees and has replaced these employees with around 9,000
part-time workers. These part-time workers do not work for Qantas. The organizations have been
seen to give statements that it might not hire the new full-time employee, and no full-time
employees have been hired since 2011. However, the Qantas-owned subsidiaries like Qantas
Ground Services (QGS) like Aerocare have been hiring new employees. The working conditions
and pay off the QGS employees have been crippling. The organization has failed to recognize the
personal accomplishments of the employees thereby failing to work accordingly in the upper
management. The organization, consequently, might face the lack of eagerness, joy, and
enthusiasm in the working environment (Sheldon and Sheldon, 2015).
Till now, some of the challenges have been discussed which requires suitable strategies to handle
them effectively. Job analysis and design incorporates training and communication model that
can be used as one of the tool and HR needs to have a clear job descriptions for their staff. In
their official website, Qantas Airways has asserted that “Qantas is committed to providing
meaningful jobs with competitive salaries and superior benefits." Furthermore, the organization
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alleges that the organization "provide targeted, quality training to the Qantas group and assists in
the development of skills" (Qantas, 2016). But the organization has failed in providing both the
claims and the HRM needs to revisit their training and communication model. Various changes
to outsourcing working rules and regulations, cutting of costs have been administered in the
organization, yet the situation is seen to be worsening. These issues are seen to be intensified
despite the job design and analysis strategy of the organization ("Qantas' HR policy crashes to
earth," 2011).
A well-defined hiring and recruitment procedure by the HRM can be utilized. The organization
should move from the marketing approach of making profits and should rather focus on their
employees and their needs. A new and well-defined hiring and recruitment procedure must be
established in the organization along with a need training model. The organization needs to lure
the new generation employees into the fascination of the aviation industry and provide them with
a right balance between their employment and family. Qantas need to search for diversity so as
to generate better ideas and high productivity with a sense of equality in order to build the
teamwork.
Similarly, the HRM needs to incorporate a new training and development model. This new
training model will include focus group sessions and workshops where the employees must be
asked to present their grievances and to give their ideas towards providing a solution.
Additionally, this communication must be asked to focus on the learning, teamwork, safety,
innovation as well as productivity. A right training must be provided to the pilot, and HRM
should invest the most in this department. Therefore, the HRM needs to come up with HR
strategic oriented communication model which can help in guaranteeing all the needs and
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requirements of the employees. This way the paramount issues affecting the company would be
discussed easily. (Gould‐Williams, J., 2004).
Again, a cooperative organizational culture can be another fruitful step. HRM plays the vital part
in forming a cooperative organizational culture and is conflict resolution. In order to become a
great workplace, Qantas needs to adopt a great corporate culture. This way the organization is
able to recruit the top talent fitting its culture and needs. The employees will in turn help in
providing top quality customer service and in creating innovation products contributing to their
overall financial success.
Under performance management, the utilization of reward practice and feedback mechanism can
be the useful aspect in these challenging situations. The use of fair performance management has
been suggested. The HRM should ensure regular performance reviews in a non-discriminatory
fashion. Qantas can calculate the percentage of their employees receiving their top rankings by
age, gender and other criteria. Then the percentage of this top-ranking employee will be equated
with demographic groups. The employees must be guided by the managers and the supervisors
so as to ensure fair appraisal. (Subramony, M., 2009).
Secondly, the effective management of relationships is also an important aspect. There is a great
need to come up with a performance management plan so as to follow up with the performance
of all the staff members. The performance management facility will help in improving the
relationship quality among all the staff members. Furthermore, sharing of expectations as well as
building an environment of mutuality and openness is required in Qantas. Qantas should focus
on talent management so as to maintain its leadership in the competitive market and further to
perform outstandingly. The HR must motivate their employees so as to make sure that the high
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quality of work is being delivered. This will result in the lower number of accidents and
remuneration issues in the organization.
Moreover, a well-defined reward practice and feedback mechanism can build the expected level
of performance and improve the situation. Furthermore, the attitude of the changing staff
members must be noticed, and a proper training must be given on how to have a positive mindset
and attitude. These steps will help in enhancing the working spirit of the workers and will
motivate them. HR of the Qantas Airways must adopt a well-defined reward practice and
feedback mechanism in their culture. In order to adopt talent management strategies, the
communication of objectives and goals along with performance expectations must be improved
in all the levels of the organization. The following strategies must be adopted for employing a
well efficient talent management (Bititci, Carrie, and McDevitt, 1997)
 Developing the existing talent pool
 Attracting talent visibility
 Maximizing employee satisfaction
 In Advanced planning for succession
 Acting immediately upon the reviewed performance
Conclusion and recommendations
The report discussed the dominant challenge being faced by the HRM of the Qantas Airways.
Therefore there is a need for the HR of the organization to develop a sound organizational as
well as cultural structure with the help of strong interpersonal skills towards their employees and
staff. A proper training must be provided to the employees in order to familiarize them with
ideas related to globalization of the HRM so as to gain competitive advantage. All the challenges
being faced by the organization can be managed by the HRM by adopting to HR practice
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directed towards encouraging a rigid recruitment as well as selection policy, empowerment to the
employees, training and development to the entire workforce, managing the knowledge, efficient
talent management and foster innovation. The three suggested recommendations for Qantas
Airways and its HRM are mentioned below (Need, W. C. D. H. P., 2006).:
1. The HRM of Qantas should incorporate an employee compensation and benefits program and
different programs must be designed according to different workers. Therefore, the organization
must first develop a well-planned compensation philosophy and objectives.
2. The HRM of Qantas should review all their existing human resource policies so as to ensure
completeness and relevance the current context of the organization and its department; further to
ensure widespread communication and understanding of all these human resource policies. The
HRN should regularly monitor the compliance to the human resource policies and update all
their human resources policies on an ongoing basis.
3. The HRM of Qantas should adopt a supportive supervision which provides appropriate and a
very supportive supervision.
If the organization follows all the above aspects of the HR practices efficiently, the efficiency of
the organization can improve, and all the issues can be eliminated.
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References
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