Investigating Management Problems and Solutions at Ryanair Limited

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of the management problems faced by Ryanair Limited, a prominent airline company. It delves into critical issues such as employee motivation, leadership deficiencies, the breakdown of the psychological contract between the company and its employees, power imbalances, and challenges in teamwork. The essay highlights how factors like inadequate compensation, poor working conditions, lack of recognition, and insufficient communication contributed to employee dissatisfaction and decreased productivity. It further examines the impact of these issues on the airline's performance, including flight cancellations and damage to its reputation. The essay proposes various recommendations to address these problems, focusing on improved leadership, enhanced communication, fair treatment of employees, and the implementation of motivational strategies such as rewards and training programs. The overall objective is to provide Ryanair with actionable insights to improve its management practices and ensure long-term sustainability in the competitive airline industry.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEM OF THE REYNAIR LIMITED
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Introduction
Reynair Ltd. was a renowned airline company, which was disgraced by its workers due to their
irresponsible attitude towards the employees and other serious management issues such as
commitment problem, less salary, less communication with the management and many more.
This company failed to respond to the demands of the employees regarding the development of
employment terms. This essay explains the reasons of Reynair issues including their motivation
faults, lack of leadership, irresponsive psychological contract, power issues and faulty teamwork.
This essay also provides possible recommendations to the issues, which can helped this
organization to dissolve their flaws and rearrange their organizational structure in order to
sustain their business. This essay tries to evaluate the problems regarding the workplace due to
ineffective human resource management and possible solutions to correct it in order to maintain
the organizational growth. Hence, giving suitable recommendation the study will be helping
Ryanair to improve their management and work procedure to sustain for long period.
Analysis
Motivation works as an important key for the employees so that they can perform any task with
great effectiveness. Lack of motivation can make the performance dull and ineffective. The
human Resource Department needs to perform very carefully so that the employees remain
motivated during any work in order to perform better and produce a fruitful result in
productivity. The workers especially the pilots were asked to pay for their own uniforms along
with meals and training courses. Crews of the cabins were also asked to pay for their meals and
uniforms. These led to a bigger issue among the employees because the salary was not sufficient
to sustain the requirements of the company demands. Therefore, the employees felt lack of
motivation to perform any task. It was also because long flights, less hours to rest in less salary
were already a pressure for them. Reynair also had no space for rewards and acknowledgements
for the good performers; this demotivated the performers to apply their entire ability and skills to
perform better(Patrick Sawer, 2017).. On the other note, this problem dissolved the environment
of a healthy competition among the employees. Reynair also did not provide them with sufficient
work leaves, therefore, employees started to face pressure in the organization, which
automatically decreased their standard of performance. Ineffective planning of Human Resource
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Department led them to employ workers, who could not meet the company requirements. There
was no training session organized by the company. This created confusion among the employees
regarding the requirements of their work in the organization. Overall, the entire process became a
path, which ultimately decreased their productivity. To rectify this issue, Reynair can arranged a
workshop for the employees to listen to their problems regarding work. Instead of cheap flight
tickets, they can arrange some bonus or increment for the good performers to motivate them.
Direct communication with the manager was also required. If these steps are followed then
Reynair can sustained in the business in terms of productivity without any issue.
Leadership is a part of the development of any organization’s productivity. If a leader is capable
enough to motivate the team then the team can produce effective result in the productivity of the
organization (Bal et al. 2013). In the case of Reynair airlines, the leader was not capable enough
to lead the employees in the teamwork. There was a huge communication gap among them.
Therefore, the employees were unable to talk about their confusions about any task. This
produced them bad result in their performance. A leader needs to be concerned about the
problems and situations of the employees. The leader Micheal O’Leary was not responsive
enough to the problems and requirements of the employees in the organization. This demotivated
the workers and made them less committed to the work required for the productivity of the
organization. There was a lack of mutual respect among them, therefore the employees could not
communicate to the chief in order to dissolve any problem, which they were facing while
performing the task. The employees stopped responding to the commands of the leader and
consumers faced the problem. This is because without sufficient workers, the flights were
cancelled and the services provided by the organization became dismantled. The entire problem
affected the productivity as well as the organizational growth of the company. It also affected
their market and company reputation. Reynair can solve this issue if the leader starts
communication with the workers (Creaton, S., 2014). It can solve their confusions and help to
perform the task effectively. Pilots had issues with their long working hours and less salary but it
could not reach the management due to the lack of abilities of the leader. However, later the
chief promised a salary hike with better benefits for the workers but until then the entire work
reputation was hampered. Reynair issue explains that leader needs to be empathetic and effective
in order to make a task fruitful, which later will help the growth of productivity.
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Psychological contact refers to a set of expectations that employees have from their organization.
Every organization needs to be empathetic towards their employees so that the workers can
understand the commitments both the organization and employee have towards each other.
Employees expect their organization to be concerned about work safety, health issues of the
workers, workspace relaxation and environment (Yukl, 2012). In the case of Reynair airlines, the
workers had less freedom in the work environment. Along with that they faced tremendous
pressure in the tasks. The leader was not capable enough to understand their circumstances and
they had less chance to communicate with the management. This leads to the decrease of work
standards in the organization. If Reynair was sympathetic and communicative towards their
employees then they can understood the requirements and work according to that. It can help
them to sustain their productivity through good performances. Reynair can also arrange various
workshops and psychological counseling to motivate the workers and teach them to cope up with
the work pressure. These precautions can avoid the flaws and issues in future and provide the
organization with a sustainable growth in the market.
Ryanair was given the title of most disgrace flight by a large group of pilots when they failed the
time limit to respond the demand of customers. This shows that the airline does not have proper
management structure due to which the employees lack in motivation for handling the
passengers boarding the flight. The passengers of Ryanair are unhappy with the airline service as
they do not look after the demand of customers. In Ryanair the pilots are employed via
temporary agency contract, which enable the no-frills airlines in keeping their cost down
(Davies, 2017). Sometimes temporary agency contract effect the work as the staffs sometimes
fails in handling the disputes that occurs within the flights. The pilots report that the management
does not show much efficiency in solving the problems and due to this the entire work structure
gets affected.
The management does not keep their word which they say during press conference. It is found
that during press conference the management talks about the improvement they will be doing to
handle the passengers by satisfying their needs as well as the employees by looking after their
psychological needs. However, both are missed by the power when it comes for real payback
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time. The employees are not motivated to work for extra hours. There is no feedback given to the
staffs due to which they are not able to understand their own strength and weakness they are
lacking while handling staffs. Feedback will help the staffs to understand the loopholes. The
pilots say that the reason for Ryanair doing well in airline industry is just because of the
contribution they have given in their work (Davies, 2017).
In Ryanair airline the pilots receives better working condition than the contractors where they
have a pension scheme, however, due to lack of management they are far behind than the peers
that is easyJet. The rules and regulation set by the management lack in motivational factor. The
theory of motivation is not applied by the management due to which the staffs feel demotivated
to work for the organisation. For example, Ryanair does not give a free bottle of water to the
staff members or pilots during work. There is a rule that if they want to have water they can buy
from the pantry (Atkinson, 2017). This strict rule may bring harness to the staffs as they are not
allowed to have minimum requirement during working hour or at the time of emergency.
Accordingly, Ryanair encourages the pilots to take leave between September and March. For the
organisation and the employees allocating holiday has always been a complicated issue. The
management lack in proper planning due to which they face problem in allocating holidays. They
offer holidays to the staffs during the month between September and March because the demand
of flight is high and the end of August and in between Easter (Calder, 2017). The work hour
given to the staffs is high that the maximum working hours of pilot that is 100 hours in any 28
days and 900 hours in a calendar year. However, Ryanair airline is now trying to set proper
holiday for the staffs but there is two issues. The first issue is that legally it may not be possible
for the pilots to work for long duration and the other one is that the organisation is trying to
incorporate sudden changes within less time off in summer.
The pilots are cooperative among themselves due to which they do not face much difficulty
while working in team. However, team work becomes hectic when the management fails in
allocating the holidays properly. Due to the absence of any staff member it becomes hectic for
other staffs to coordinate with the opponents or adjust themselves within their working style.
Apart from this, the source states that there is strong cooperation between pilots and cabin crew
where they formed secret informal union in social media platform. The reason behind the
formation of this group is to avoid repercussions that can impact their job prospects (Davies,
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2017). In order to improve the team work condition in Ryanair the founder group of the
organisation are taking initiative in preparing an open letter regarding the demand of suitable
team work.
The workers associated with the company along with the management are working in team to
take advice from the group of trade union belonging from various countries that includes Italy
and Spain. As the staffs miss the demand of passengers boarding the flight is also the cause of
poor team work. The reason for poor team work is due to lack of leadership management where
the team lacks in coordination and motivation. Moreover, the staff regret in solving the problems
that they face while handling flight passengers. The news says that when the flight was cancelled
due to some issue they left the passengers in cold (Yukl, 2012). This shows that management is
not cooperative with the colleagues and lack sometimes while working in a team. As Ryanair
deals with large group of passengers the leader, Management and other superior group should
work cooperatively in order solve issues and motivate the staffs in fulfilling the requirement of
passengers boarding the flight. Due to lack of team work Ryanair had to keep a waiting list of
over 3,000 young people.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that instead of being a brand company in airline industry they lack
in team work and poor management style. This is due to poor leadership and lack of motivation
given to the staffs. For sustaining in this market place for long period of time it is essential to
look after the customers as well as the employees. The employees should be provided with
proper pay structure along with fixed working period. When the cabin crew are called to work
for extra hours they should be motivated with motivational technique like performance appraisal
and bonus.
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Reference List
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