Strategic HRM Analysis and Planning for Qantas Airlines: An Overview

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Qantas Airlines. It begins with an organizational strategic analysis, examining the company's mission, vision, values, and challenges. The report then identifies key organizational issues arising from this analysis, including competitive, operational, HR, and cost-related concerns. A significant portion of the report focuses on the specific HR issues faced by Qantas, such as employee retention, engagement, recruitment, productivity, and the company's work environment. These issues are then prioritized, with a focus on talent management, attraction of applicants, succession planning, cultural diversity, and retention. Finally, the report outlines a proposed HRM plan, detailing strategies and key performance indicators (KPIs) for addressing these prioritized issues, including talent management, applicant attraction, and employee retention. This plan aims to improve overall HRM effectiveness within Qantas Airlines, as outlined in this report.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. An organisational strategic analysis........................................................................................1
2. Organisational issues arising from the strategic analysis........................................................2
3. HR issues faced by the company............................................................................................3
4. Prioritizing ongoing HR issues...............................................................................................4
5. Drawing HRM Plan.................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

1. An organisational strategic analysis
It is necessary that organisational should define their strategical action plan. They are
going to function as per these set plans of action. The company should work accordingly as per
these stated strategy in order to achieve the targets (Hendry, 2012). However, by analysing the
current market and business of Qantas airlines, the information about the organisational strategy
of the company is easily attainable. Through the information, the following content has been
encountered:
 Mission – This statement is to specify the actions/functions of the enterprise as it
determines its objectives and their working interval for executing all the business task. In
that case, the mission statement of Qantas airlines is highly focused on hard working and
pulling itself from the international crisis in order to prepare the business for better
economic times.
 Vision – It is depicts the future image and position of the company where the
organisation is likely to stand. It is termed as a source of inspiration for an organisation
and directs them as per their strategic plan. It is generally addressable by the entire
company and all their management (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). In relation to Qantas
Airways, the vision of the company states that they want to be at the first priority among
all the passengers and travellers.
 Values – The factors on which the company is highly focused on and work accordingly to
generate a high level results. The areas which are extremely valued by the Qantas airlines
are:
◦ Improving quality and performance in the services
◦ Develop a high level of excellence in their activities
◦ Attain better customer satisfaction
◦ Formulating an effective network of communication among the employees and their
targeted customers
 Challenges – These are determined as the factors that effect positive as well as negative
aspects. The company needs to overcome such aspects and defeat all their competitors
(Boxall & Purcell, 2011). In that situation, Qantas airlines has a challenge to built a high
reputation for excellence services in safety, operational reliability, engineering and
maintenance and customer service.
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2. Organisational issues arising from the strategic analysis
The organisational issues are considered as the factors that are highly responsible for
impacting their business activities (Bratton & Gold, 2012). They are generally marked as the
issues that affects the business functioning or the company's operations to accomplish their
objectives. The examined issues in the context of Qantas airlines are: Competitive issues: It is evident that every organisation has to face a high level of
competition, when there are high number of participants present in the same business.
This reason is one of the main factor that influence the working and operational activities
of an organisation. In the case of Qantas airline, it is contributed that there are many
companies which are engaged with similar business and hence, the company has to be
stable in the market by defeating all their competitors. The main competitors of Qantas
airlines are British Airways, American airlines and Qatar Airways. Operational issues: The problems which are encountered by the organisation during their
business operations and processes are determined under this aspect. They are highly
impacting the structure and functioning of the organisation's strategic plan. It is termed as
the main factors that impact the company's working and the customer's satisfaction level
(Jackson, Schuler & Werner, 2011). In the context to Qantas airways, the operational
issues are generally addressed during their business procedures of providing better
services to their customers. The operational issues are mostly determined by the
employees over their performance and quality services. Human Resource (HR) issues: The organisation has to maintain the level of employees
by considering all the aspects that related to the HRM. It includes the issues like poor
retention, low level of employee engagement, reduction in employee's effectiveness,
improper leadership, low communication network, etc. which affects the employees'
nature, way and level of working to execute the task assigned to them.
 Cost related issues: The issues that reduces the company's ability or power to decide and
specify a price for all their products and services provided in the market (Harzing &
Pinnington, (2010). It creates the factors that are unaccountable for the company and
further influence them to determine the market and growth.
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3. HR issues faced by the company
It has been examined that the company is facing many HR issues which are affecting the
employees and their working during the business operation. These factors are impacting the
employees' nature, behaviour and structure as well. It is determined that due to presence of these
factors and elements, the company attain drastic changes and variation in the results (Wright &
McMahan, 2011). However, the HR issues being addressed in the analysis are:
 Retention – It is evident hat the company has a low level of employee's retention which
affects their productivity level and manner of innovating new techniques.
 Engagement – Qantas airways has an ineffective method for increasing the employee's
ability and interest in the business procedures and activities. This affects the idea
generating and problems handling abilities of the company.
 Recruitment – It is termed that recruitment process is being determined as the main
challenge for the company. The main aim of this process is to identify the new talent and
source of skills and knowledge present either in the company or from outside. The
company fails in this aspect and disappoints the employees and their courage to work
effectively (Purce, 2014).
 Productivity – The company is highly focused on increasing the productivity level, for
which it provides various facilities and benefits to their workforces. It ensures that each
and every employee is satisfied with their employment and job environment. Despite of
this, it raises the investment criteria for the company and reduces their profitability level.
 Cultural and environment – It is ascertained that company's culture and working
environment is very rigid, due to which the employees are feeling restless, in depression
and stressful conditions.
 Action plan – During the analysis, it was assessed that the company was working as per
a strategical plan which was very ineffective in relation to their employee's business
operations. The strategical plan was only focused on some particular objectives and was
neglecting the employee's interest and participation level.
 Attractive employment – The company lacks in attracting the existing employees
towards their job. Due to which it fails in maintaining the employee to continue the job
with the company (Storey, 2014). Along with this, the company is unable to identify the
best method to attract the attention of fresh talent towards their management.
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4. Prioritizing ongoing HR issues
The Human resource management (HRM) department of Qantas airlines comprises a
broad portfolio of handling a major number of tasks by together managing their employees and
their assigned work. Thence, it is seemingly liable to deal with numerous number of challenges
and issues in working at such a global level of their business. In similar regard, there has been
identified some commonly faced issues by the HR of the cited firm, as mentioned below- Talent Management- It has been prioritized as a foremost issue being faced by the HR in
effectively holding the skilled employees of their organization. It is however due to a
recently identified improvement into the various arenas of job market. Due to which, the
higher level authorities are rapidly moving towards a lot more accessible opportunities at
a global scale (Bloom & Van Reenen, 2011). It is thereby related to the leadership
development and workforce strategy of the cited firm into which there is a major
requisition of investing into aptly maintaining the development of people. Attraction- Attracting aptly skilled candidates is recognised as a next major challenge to
the HR in which it is apparently getting harder to grab the attention of a suitable
workforce. It is mainly related to the primary approaches of hiring procedures in Qantas
where there should be a prior attention of utilizing some effective tools and techniques to
largely draw the attention of numerous potential candidates to fill their vacancy. It
therefore refers to use a suitable channel of sourcing the prospected candidates. For
example, a social channel of recruitment is considered as an apt source today. Successive Plan- Succession plan is mainly referred to effectively manage the huge pool
of talent into their firm. It is thereby identified as the biggest concern of HR to place an
appropriate candidate at a suitably apt position that together matches their capabilities
(Mathis & Jackson, 2011). It therefore recommends for a long term provision of aptly
distinguishing, evaluating and developing the employees of Qantas to preparing them to
effectively work onto the key roles of their organization. Cultural Diversity- Sustaining a globally diversified workforce is another recognisable
issue of HR in Qantas with a major obligation of improving the morale of their
employees. It thereby aims at carrying a broader perspective of work by maintaining an
apt organizational structure that largely emphasis on adapting a team work of individuals
with a firm determination of valuing each other's cultural belief.
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 Retention- It is yet another most disputing aspect in which the HR of Qantas faces a
major issue of satisfying the differentiated demand of their employees. It mainly refers to
either fulfilling the monetary dissatisfaction of an employee or handling another mostly
dignified challenge of providing a self recognition and development to such demanding
employees.
5. Drawing HRM Plan
In order to develop and maintain efficiency of human resources Qantas Airline is
adopting an HRM plan (Flamholtz, 2012). It will formulate four prioritised HR issues through
KPI, implementation strategies and responsibilities., these are discussed below: Talent management- The concerned aviation company is hiring skilled and efficient
professionals. It posses qualified pilots, technicians, managers and on board staff. These
group of individuals require proper attention to undertake desired outcomes. The
company needs to focus on managing talents and skills of its human resource. It should
adopt strategy of taking feedbacks from each employees directly or indirectly. The use of
360 degree feedback scheme helps to evaluate strength and weaknesses of professionals.
Qantas undertake such operations in order to improve skill and knowledge of employees
with course of time (Hendry, 2012). After the evaluation process, it can conduct training
and development sessions that empower individuals with expertise to provide aviation
services to potential clients. Attract applicants- Another key area to be accessed in HRM plan of Qantas Airline is
attracting new applicants for various posts of the company. The major function of its HR
team is to conduct proper recruitment and selection process. The cited company make
use of both internal and external sources of recruitment. In internal style of selection
procedure it simply promotes and transfer professionals from one positing to another.
This encourage and motivates existing employees to undertake business operations with
more dedication. This ultimately benefits both organisation and employees functioning
there. On other hand, to attract new applicants Qantas needs to make extensive use of
advertisement in newspaper, magazines, radio and employment agencies. The company
can also enter educational institutes premises to recruit new employees (Boxall &
Purcell, 2011). Management needs to follow advertising policy to attract good amount of
applicants to be examined and selected.
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 Retention of employees- Qantas is the leading airline company of Australia rendering its
services across the globe in an effective way. Currently, the study shows that the
company tremendously faces a sudden downfall in retaining its employees within the
workplace. It has faced the major challenge of increasing employee turnover thereby
reducing the productivity and performance of its business operations significantly. It has
been found that the number of employees has considerably been reduced from 33,265 to
28,622 from 2013-2015. In lieu of such statistics, the company is advised to lay its prior
attention on retaining the best and eligible candidate within the workplace. For this the
company is highly required to implement impressive and fascinating employee
engagement techniques which in turn will motivate and inspire its overall workforce to
work hard with full dedication towards the organisation's success (Wright & McMahan,
2011). Also, the company should render exotic monetary and non-monetary incentives to
boost the morale of its staff towards their contribution towards company's goals and
objectives in an effective way.
 Succession plan- In order to maintain strong competitive edge in the international
economies, Qantas should lay its concern over developing effective succession plan.
Doing this would help the company to establish powerful and positive brand recognition
in the eyes of its core audience. For this, the concerned entity is required to implement a
major and strategic change in its overall organisational structure. Furthermore, it ought
to cut cross job-type or departmental boundaries within the workplace to develop strong
communication channels within the company (Storey, 2014). This will benefit the
organisation to attain a strong sense of commitment, loyalty and confidence from their
employees towards the achievement of corporation's success effectively. Also, this
would result in generating positive coordination and co-operation among the staff which
in turn will enhance the business operations across the world significantly.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hendry, C. (2012). Human resource management. Routledge.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2011). Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2012). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Jackson, S., Schuler, R., & Werner, S. (2011). Managing human resources. Cengage Learning.
Harzing, A. W., & Pinnington, A. (Eds.). (2010). International human resource management.
Sage.
Wright, P. M., & McMahan, G. C. (2011). Exploring human capital: putting ‘human’back into
strategic human resource management. Human Resource Management Journal. 21(2).
93-104.
Purce, J. (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New
Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).pp.67- 69.
Storey, J. (2014). New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).
Routledge.
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2011). Human resource management and productivity. Handbook
of labor economics. 4. pp.1697-1767.
Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. (2011). Human resource management: Essential perspectives.
Cengage Learning.
Flamholtz, E. G. (2012). Human resource accounting: Advances in concepts, methods and
applications. Springer Science & Business Media.
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