Introduction
The human resource is one of the key assets in any organization and as such needs to be managed very well if the organizations are to achieve any tangible advantage over its peers in the market. This is because while a company may have excellent business ideas it depends on a motivated workforce to implement and drive those ideas (Dessler 2004).
Human resource management issues do not necessarily concern themselves with the issues affecting the employees or their welfare, but is concerned with the issues of the human resource department of that organization and how they are related to the overall business policy and strategies of the organization. This means that the management of human resource is connected to the existing business strategies of those organizations (Analoui 2002).
This is evident in the airline industry where major players fashions their human resource management practices with the existing business strategies. Airlines all over the world combine a mix of human management practices that are in line with the industry dynamics as well as the current challenges that face the industry, and also the specific organization.
However there are some common strategies that major world carriers are employing as part of the human resource management. These include having leaner workforce, reductions in wages, allowances and other benefits, as well as training ad retraining of worker to improve on workface productivity (Gittell et al 2006).
This report will focuses on British Airways, the human resource polices, challenges and strategies, and how the company is changing its human resource management approach in line with emerging challenges
British airways – brief profile
British Airways is one of the leading airlines in the world and offer full service such as holidays, accommodation, car hire and rentals, credit cards, foreign currency exchange, travel insurance, shopping with British Airways among many others. The company is committed to maintaining a competitive edge over its peers in this industry.
This is achieved through offering low fares all year round on all its routes across the globe. Our airline flies to and from centrally located airports and offers flights around the world (BA 2011). In creating and maintaining a successful the company sees its human resource as the key asset and as such it strives to maintain a highly motivated workforce that helps the company attain its business as well as corporate social responsibility goals (BA 2009). By the year 2009 the company has a total employee base of 40,627 (BA 2011).
BA – HRM policy
As a sustainability policy British airways has endeavored to maintain its leadership potential and as such it see the training of its workforce especially that at management level as key to its growth. As such it has introduced High Performance Leadership (HPL), a system that has created a linkage between the company’s business strategy and human resource development.
This system also proposes rewards for employees. These rewards include a tax friendly pensions plan implemented in the year 2008, while the company also had an employees reward plan that lets employees share in the company’s profit success. Together with this system the company also entered into a restructuring program that saw retrenchment and recruitment of not only new talents but also people who had a deeper understanding of current issues facing the airline industry.
The company also embraces diversity and as such recruits individual from all races and also esteems to protect that diversity through respect to different cultural ideals. Diversity includes giving disabled employees an opportunity and the necessary support to contribute to the company’s success.
To change and improve the way in which the company managed its human resource, the company now procures human resource management from a set of human resource professionals, which the company sees as its human resource management partners. These partners are concerned with handling British Airways employee issues.
The company regularly informs these partners of its human resource priorities as well as needs and also encourages them to seek ideas from other sources in effort to boost human resource management practices at the company. The company also consults and bargains with a number of labor trade union so as to help in the development as well as improvement of its human resource management.
As a commitment the company endeavors to maintain a direct link between its administration and employees through efficient communication tools and as such employs company wide brochures and other publication, Short message services as wells seeking face to face interactions with its employees. Through this employee are regularly informed of the development as well as priority needs for the company (BA 2009).
BA – HRM challenges
Despite its attractive human resource management policies, the way in which the company has handled its staff in recent times has brought the company to great peril. British Airways employ the line manger ownership type of model. In this type of supposes that human resource must be as close to management as possible. This means that human resources are managed by line managers.
Employees thus report directly to their line managers with the line manager being responsible for any issues affecting the employees under their line of management. This type of model is seen as something akin to employee hostile scientific management model (McCourt & Eldridge 2003).
While this model increases the contact between the management and the staff it has been that Achilles heel in British airways human resource management. The system has resulted to a lot of dissatisfaction, disquiet and complains especially from its cabin crew staff who felt that they were being short changed by a world class airline.
The extended effects have been felt by the poor services offered by employees who are dissatisfied, which in effect damaged the company’s employees and customer relations as well as the company’s image. The company also in line with the current business challenges implemented a cost cutting measures so as to cushion itself against the increasing cost of doing business.
As such the company reduced significantly employees’ benefits, laid off a number of employees as well as recruited younger employees who could work for longer hours (BA 2009). What angered the company’s human resource is the company’s efforts to increase productivity a move which increased the working hour and interpreted by employees as exploitation.
Line management ownerships coupled drastic cost cutting measures employees lead to a number of trade disputes between which were concerned with the working conditions for the company’s cabin crew as well as what the employees termed as unfair dismissals (BA 2009).
British Airways always engage in negotiations with a number of trade unions but on this occasion such negotiations backfired and have led to strikes and walkouts by the cabin crew (Milmo 2010a). Actually British Airways stated that it had done all it could and gone to taken an extra mile in dealing with such trade disputes but as analyst explains, British airways had taken a radical stand with radical measure (such as withdrawing of travel allowances) in handling the dispute as well as employees concerns.
The company is accused of trying to “break trade unions” such as Unite, that represented the company’s cabin crew in the dispute. These sentiment were confirmed when the company asked the Unite to compensate it for £21m loss incurred from the strike from its employees savings. The company also backtracked on a number of occasions by failing to meet it promises during this trade dispute (Milmo 2010b).
HRM Policy suggestions
Whether the company had a radical agenda or not is an issue that is still open to debate but the way the company handled its employee concerns, the entire trade dispute negotiations as well as its employee relations issues left the company with a very badly damaged image. The shortcoming of the company’s strategy have been summed up by Professor Upchurch as failure to create “sustainable systems as well as ensure that the sustainable work environment” (Upchurch 2011).
This would have been attained through a series of approaches to the issue. British airways should have endeavored to utilize an employee relation approach in dealing with the matter. It would have to exploit the opportunity to proactively involve the employees in understanding the challenges the company faces while at the same time seeking to understand employees’ tribulations.
Doing this would lead to establishing a more sustainable work system where each of the two parties (the company and the staff) understands and work together to mutually meet the needs of each other. Instead of cutting cost by removing cabin crew travel allowances, the company should have created a more flexible work plan for the staff that would have reduced the amount of money it pays in such allowances without having to withdraw the allowances.
The company also erred according to Prof. Upchurch in disciplining of a number of workers who openly criticizes the company’s management. Instead the company should have focused on the issues raised by those employees instead of focusing on the individuals themselves.
In this way not only would the company address the issue sufficiently but would also create a sustainable work systems that would help it navigate tough economic times, especially those facing the entre airline industry (Ehnert 2009; Upchurch, 2011).
Conclusion
Human resource management is not just about the issues that affect the employees in a given organization. It is concerned with how employees concerns are in line with the company’s strategies and how they help meet the company’s business strategies.
From the British airways case it is evident that human resource management has a human relations dimension. The way the employees perceive the company’s ability to deal and solve issue affecting them is crucial. Despite the fact that the company had some legitimate concern in implementing drastic business strategies, it is in the way that it handled the human relation aspect of the human resource management.
This leads to protracted trade dispute that would have been avoided. The company should instead focus on cementing constructive employees relations and as such creates a sustainable workplace system that support better management of employees while ensuring that the company meets its business strategies.
Reference List
Analoui, F., 2002, The changing patterns of human resource management. Hampshire: Ashgate.
BA., 2009. British Airways 2008/2009 Annual Report and Accounts. Web.
BA., 2011. About British Airways. Web.
Dessler, D., 2004, Human resource management. New York: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
McCourt, W., & Eldridge, D., 2003, Global human resource management: managing people in developing and transitions countries. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing Inc
Ehnert, I., 2009. Sustainability and human resource management: reasoning and applications on corporate websites. European Journal of International Management, Vol. 3, No. 4.
Gittell, J. et al., 2006. Lean production in the air? Low cost competition in the global airline industry and implications for employment relations. Web.
Milmo, D., 2010a. BA pilot warns of ‘poisonous’ working conditions as more strikes loom. Web.
Milmo, D., 2010b. British Airways ‘trying to break Unite union’ in cabin crew dispute. Web.
Upchurch, M., 2011. Creating a Sustainable Work Environment in British Airways: Implications of the 2010 Cabin Crew Dispute. Web.