sample 02 strategic human resource management · 4.0 managing hrm in an organisation ... growth,...

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Strategic Human Resource Management

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Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 2

LO: 02 Ability to develop HR plan...................................................................................... 3

2.0 HR Plan for British Airways ..................................................................................... 3

2.1 Business factors that underpin HR planning in British Airways .......................... 3

2.2 Assessment of HR requirement in a given situation ............................................. 5

2.3 HR plan for British Airways ................................................................................. 5

2.4 Critical evaluation of HR plan in meeting organisational objective ..................... 7

LO: 03 Understanding human resource policy requirements in an organisation................. 9

3.0 HR policy requirement and impact of regulations .................................................... 9

3.1 Purpose of HR policies in an organisation ............................................................ 9

3.2 Analyse the impact of regulatory requirements on HR policies in an organisation

10

LO: 04 Ability to examine HRM in an organisation ......................................................... 11

4.0 Managing HRM in an organisation......................................................................... 11

4.1 Impact of organisational structure on HRM ........................................................ 11

4.2 Impact of culture on HRM management ............................................................. 12

4.3 Monitoring the effectiveness of HRM ................................................................ 14

4.4 Propose effective recommendations to improve HRM ....................................... 15

5.0 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 16

6.0 References ............................................................................................................... 17

7.0 Annexure ................................................................................................................. 19

Annexure A: Global financial stability report ............................................................... 19

Annexure B: Strategy of BA 2012 ................................................................................. 20

Annexure C: BA Strategic goals .................................................................................... 21


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1.0 Introduction

The assignment covers the key areas of strategic human resource management practices

in an organisation. British Airways is chosen as the organisation to conduct the analysis

and secondary study.

The first part of the document covers the analysis and preparation of human resource

planning. The first chapter will cover an analysis of business environment, HR

requirements in a changing business environment, and a presentation of a complete HR

plan. A critical analysis is provided understanding the effectiveness of a HR plan.

The second part of the assignment deals with the HR policies of an organisation and the

regulatory impact that has on a business and a multinational business such as British

Airways.

The final part of the assignment does a critical examination of Human resource

management overall, in an organisation. The role of organisation structure, organisation

culture, effectiveness of HR practices and recommendations to improve short comings

seen is proposed.


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LO: 02 Ability to develop HR plan

2.0 HR Plan for British Airways

2.1 Business factors that underpin HR planning in British Airways

Rothwell and Kazanas (2003) identifies Human Resource Planning (HRP) is current and

future human resource needs of an organisation to achieve its goals. In summary, human

resource plan presents the head count requirements and planning the requirements to fulfil

the human resources needs of an organisation to fulfil the organisational objectives.

Demand estimation for human resource is conducted via a range of options which are

identified by Aswathappa (2005)

Figure 1: Accessing HR Demand

Source: Aswathappa (2005, p 74)

Annual Report (2009) of British Airways identifies that one third of the managers have

left the organisation in the VRS scheme that was offered. The VRS was offered to create

a leaner organisation. Considering this statement from the Annual report we can identify


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that British Airways will look for more recruitment of executive level carder whom are

suitable for a flat structure.

The labour market also has an impact on developing HR plans since the organisation has

to rely on the local and international labour markets to fulfil the HR needs. Gregg and

Wordsworth (2011) in their book “The Labour market in winter: the state of working

Britain” portray and cover a range of factors concerning labour markets in the UK. The

impact of labour markets in the winter, unemployment and inactivity in the UK market,

the labour market for young people, the baby boomers at 50, workless households,

immigration in the UK, job tenure and job turnover, job quality and inequality.

Figure 2: Organisation structure at British Airways

Source: Annual Report (2009)


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2.2 Assessment of HR requirement in a given situation

The Human resource requirement is driven by the business situation that a business has

met with. In 2008 British Airways pursued a lean structure therefore had to offer a VRS

scheme to the existing managers.

The HR department of BA has driven a leadership cantered approach in training the

middle level executives, giving them more training on leadership to handle the vacuum of

leadership that is felt; due to departure of managers in the VRS program.

The HR program has pushed for more diversity which is observable from the increased

number of females being hired after the restructuring.

2.3 HR plan for British Airways

The human resource planning model proposed by Armstrong (2006) is used for analysis

and application at BA.

Figure 3: HR Planning model

(Source: Armstrong, 2006, p370)


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Business strategic goals

Business strategic goals are established by the British Airways board in terms of turnover

growth, new markets and growth that has to be delivered by British Airways. This case is

to be established on the basis of airlines acquired on Easy Jet.

Resourcing strategy

The resourcing strategy is established basic the resource requirements that are planned:

the internal and external requirement. The internal requirement is established basis the

business goals and an organisation is established basis scenario planning.

Scenario planning

Scenario planning has established a more or less formalised process that is foreseen of the

future requirements. British airlines will have to establish, the requirements with the

acquisition of Easy jet the additional resource requirements and a futuristic plan need to

be derived such as the development of BA in other markets such as Asia and Europe.

Demand and Supply of labour

The demand and supply of labour is a critical aspect of British airways Human resource

planning strategy. British Airways should study the requirements of specialist staff's

availability such as Pilots, technicians and service staffs. A clear forecast will be required;

along with a plan with an analytical understanding from which countries are labouring

going to be picked up from.

Contents of HR plan in British Airways

The wider content of the HR plan will cover a range of areas of resourcing, retention

strategies of employees, flexibility of employees and productivity increase plans in

British airways.


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2.4 Critical evaluation of HR plan in meeting organisational objective

A range of authors has evaluated the use and effectiveness of HR planning such as Kaila

(2005), Chapton et al (2009) and Snell and Bohlander (2011).

One of the key benefits of a clear HR plan is that it evaluates the business objectives that

are presented from an HR perspective.

The Annual report (2012) of British Airways clearly stipulates the expansionary

objective of British Airways via acquisition of BMI – Lufthansa airways: which

translates into managing HR from the perspective of culture change and

translating British Airways business culture across the new SBUs.

Personal requirements are foreseen, and if skill shortages are foreseen, organisations such

as British Airways can involve in adopting a job rotation and job enrichment to prepare

employees ready as per the forecast. British Airways Annual report (2009) stipulates that

the organisation currently adopt job rotation in order to groom its future executives be

experienced for changes.

Labour market supply is to be evaluated to understand the quality of graduates and labour

quality. Accessing such parameters allows British Airways to take adequate measures in

computerizing processes.

A surplus or a shortage scenario will be derived from the HR plan session. Basis this

organisation has to adopt a range of strategies to tackle the HR towards meeting the

organisational objectives.

The HR plan allows an organisation to develop a long term value strategy and driving

efficiency.

A key limitation of the HR planning process is that the future is uncertain; organisations

cannot predict the course of business that they are going to take. For example British

Airways ten years before would have considered an organic growth, however due to the

arrival of budget airlines; BA is expected to grow only via acquisition. The IATA (2012)

report identifies that airlines had an overall passenger increase of 5% whereas the

profitability was lost by 50%.


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Further, organisations at times underestimate the challenges and changes in the business

environment. Managers tend to disregard the changing environment and take a day to day

survival approach to management.

Management's opinion on HR planning and limited inputs to HR planning will lead to

setbacks in the ways of working. HR plans and the process of planning has to be

emphasised across the organisation in order to gain support and implement effectively.


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LO: 03 Understanding human resource policy requirements in an

organisation

3.0 HR policy requirement and impact of regulations

British Airways are a multi-national operator has to establish policies and practices that

best fit the working environment of staffs.

3.1 Purpose of HR policies in an organisation

HR policies are critical for an organisation to smoothly operate in business, due to the

range of conflicts and frictions that are likely to arise.

Communication

Expressing company's commitment

Reinforcing consistency

McConell (2005) details the importance of HR policies in detail.

Organisations such as British Airways should communicate the policies effectively to the

new employees and members of the organisation.

Expressing commitment of the organisation in managing disable employees, sex

discrimination, racial discrimination or discrimination basis age should be barred. The

organisation should communicate that they stand by a principle in the HR code of conduct

and policies which expresses the agreement of large scale organisations on HR practices.

Organisations in this globalised environment operate across borders and across cultures,

which presents a unique challenge to the modern day organisations which have to

maintain uniformity. In order to perform a uniform operation across borders it is

important for multinational multicultural diverse organisations to pursue a consistent

policy across its SBUs.


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3.2 Analyse the impact of regulatory requirements on HR policies in an

organisation

It is important for organisations in the modern age to pursue ethical business and practices

and honour legal framework of the respective countries that they operate it.

Equality act of 2010

The equality act was developed by bringing together all the existing anti-discrimination

legislations that are available. Equal pay act 1970, Sex discrimination act 1975, Race

relations act 1976, Disability discrimination act 1995, Employment equality regulations

2003 and employment equality age regulations 2006 were combined into equality act of

20100.

It is important for organisations therefore to

Recruitment and selection

British Airways should provide a uniform recruitment service across borders, where the

company does not discriminate employee’s basis race, gender or disability.

Training and promotion

Organisations are expected to train and promote staffs with an equity mind-set.

Organisations are more likely maintaining adequate track records of their performance,

and justify decisions made.

Termination or resignation

At the point of termination the HR function has to play a critical role in accessing the

termination or resignation. During a termination process, a business is expected to handle

a termination according to legal principles.


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LO: 04 Ability to examine HRM in an organisation

4.0 Managing HRM in an organisation

4.1 Impact of organisational structure on HRM

Deb (2006) identifies the impact of organisational structure on HRM: organisation

structures acts as line of authority, efficient individuals will be needed to handle the

operation and the capabilities of the said individuals will be different from structure to

structure.

British Airlines is available in a number of locations, which creates a number of issues

such as global staffing, recruitment and management.

(Source: Deb, 2006)

A matrix structure is likely to be present in British Airways due to the extent of expansion

that British Airways has adopted. A matrix structure, though best suitable for conducting

and coordinating business, presents a unique set of challenges.

HR manuals have to be developed in a variety of languages and training methods has to

be adopted such as web based methods.

Figure 4: Roles of Strategic HR


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4.2 Impact of culture on HRM management

Organisation culture plays a critical role in the HRM practices in an organisation. British

Airways in 2012 acquired BIM airline segment. By doing so, the organisation will face

severe changes to its ways of working.

Firstly, the organisation is expected to manage the cultures that are likely to be seen.

Create clear KPIs for management of the business. It can be seen that British airways

adopts an approach of managing customer experience as a primary objective which is

different from other airlines. Culture changes are likely to be experienced by acquired

businesses and the role of HR becomes critical at this point of time.

Figure 5: CIPD Map

(Source: CIPD, 2013)

CIPD map shows the behaviour and the principles to be followed by HR when practicing

the profession.


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Daft and Maacic (2010) identify and emphasise the role of human resource management

in change situations. Davila and Elvira (2008) identify that Human Resource department

should act as the change agent during a project.

Figure 6: Force field analysis

(Source: Daft and Maaric, 2008)

The following could be listed as the role of HR during the change process

Employees see the reason for the change

It is the role of Human resource department to amplify the need for change and

communicate effectively they need to change.

Employees understand why change is important

The HR department has to reason and help employees understand why change is

important.

People are recognised, who are the change leaders

Change leaders in a project have to be made prominent and given recognition.

Support for change has to be created

The HR department will work closely with the change team and support the changing

behaviour.

The change implications are understood


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The HR team is expected to make it easy for individuals within the organisation to

understand the importance and significance of change.

4.3 Monitoring the effectiveness of HRM

Fleming and Wilson (2001), Lawler (2012), Mondy (2008), Pauwee (2005), Fitzenz and

Davison (2002) wrote extensively on HRM effectiveness. The effectiveness of HRM

could be measured on the following angles:

HR surveys

HR surveys have to be conducted in order to evaluate the performance of the HR function

and effectiveness of HR activities carried out by HR.

Interviews with line managers

Interviews with line managers will reveal the effectiveness of HR support that is provided

by the human resource business partners. Organisations are expected to perform off hand

interviews within to understand and increase the effectiveness of the work that is

conducted.

HR balance score card

The HR balance score card has to be tallied understanding the effectiveness of HR from

an overall perspective. The HR components in the Balance score card may include

recruitment, consistent recruitment numbers, labour turnover, diversity measure etc. A

balance score card based approach allows the HR function to decide its performance

against strategic goals that are set.

Feedback

Overall feedback could be gathered from across the organisation, in order to understand

their performance versus expectation. Though this level of measure is not expected to be

accurate; it only provides a guideline for the organisation to work on.


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4.4 Propose effective recommendations to improve HRM

In the study of British airways it was understood that the only form of diversity

measurement was via gender; however currently organisations are pursuing objectives

such as racial diversity, national diversity, age diversity, etc. The annual reports or any

public document of British Airways did not illustrate pursing of such programs.

Secondly the organisation lacked illustrating a uniform HR policy that was applied across

the globe. A multi-national operation requires the organisation to set uniform HR

programs. With the aggressive acquisitions that British Airways has pursued it is

important that British Airways pursues a customised HR plan.


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5.0 Conclusion

The document in detail evaluates different facets of Human Resource Management

(HRM) in British Airways.

The first part of the document illustrated the importance of HR planning and significance

of an HR planning in an organisation. For the secondary study that I conducted, I was

able to understand the extent of HR planning that is adopted by British Airways and this

is illustrated in the annual report. The HR planning of British Airways illustrates and

supports the bold move it made, it's letting go one third of its managers in order to

implement a flat structure. The continuous aggressive investment in the business; by

acquisition and the unique challenge it presents to an HR management system.

The second part of the assignment dealt with HR policies. The importance of having

policies and the uniqueness of British Airways having to implement a uniform policy to

highlight its importance and stance the airline takes. It is interesting to note that the

organisation publishes the male to female ratio and the advocates’ promotion of females

to manage diversity within the organisation.

In the final part of the assignment an in-depth study was done to understand the role of

HR and improving effectiveness overall. This assignment required the backing of depth

reading and detailed analysis of British Airways to come up with this study.


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6.0 References

Armstrong, M. (2005), A Handbook of Human Resources Management and Practice,

10th Edition, UK: Kogan Page Limited

Aswathappa, K. (2005), Human Resources and Personal Management, 4th Edition, India:

Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited

Campton, R., Morrissey, W., and Nankervis, A. (2011), Effective Recruitment and

Selection Practices, 5th Edition, Australia: CCH Australia Limited

Chatterjee, B. (2009), Human Resource Management: A Contemporary text book, 4th

Edition, India: Sterling Publishers Private Limited

Deb, T. (2006), Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management: A Concept tool

and application,India: Atlantic Publishers

Daft,R.L., and Maric, D. (2008), Understanding Management,7th Edition, USA: South

Western Cengage Learning

Fleming, J.M. and Wilson, J.B. (2001), Effective HRM measurement technique, 2nd

Edition, UK: Society of Human Resource Management

Fitzenz, J., and Barbara, D. (2002), How to measure Human Resource Management, UK:

Mc Graw Hill Professional

Gregg, P., and Wadsworth, J. (2011), The Labour Market in winter: the state of Working

Britain, 2nd Edition, UK: Oxford University Press

Kaila, H.L. (2011), Human Resource Management: In Two Volumes, 2nd Edition, India:

Kalpaz Publications

Lawler, E.E., and Boudreau, J.W. (2011), Effective Human Resource Management A

Global analysis, USA: Stanford University Press

McConell, J.H. (2005), How to develop essential HR policies and procedures,USA:

AMACOM


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Mondy, R.W. (2009), Human Resource Management, 10th Edition, India: Dorling

Kindersley India (pvt) Ltd.

Paauwe, J. (2005), HRM and Performance: Achieving Long term Viability, 2nd

Edition, UK: Oxford University Press

Snell, S.A., and Bohlander, G.W. (2011), Managing Human Resources, 16th Edition,

USA: South-western Cengage Learning

Rothwell, W. J, and Kaznas, H.C. (2011), Planning and Managing Human Resources,

2nd Edition, USA: Human Resource Development Press

WEB REFERENCES

Annual Report 2009, British Airways (2009) the way we run our business [online]

Available from:

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdfs/Work

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Annual Report 2012, British Airways (2009) Annual Report and Account of British

Airways Plc [online] Available from:

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CQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphx.corporate

ir.net%2FExternal.File%3Fitem%3DUGFyZW50SUQ9MTc1Njk3fENoaWxkS

Q9LTF8VHlwZT0z%26t%3D1&ei=ZwesUprEMInBrAeB_YHICw&usg=AFQj

NFKz38z5Wr1s5hwxCX_oN16tE2ccA&sig2=KaLKn0QJk3IZCTDWl20bkg&

m=bv.57967247,d.bmk&cad=rja [Accessed on 09th December 2013]

Annual Review 2012, IATA (2012) IATA Annual Review 2012 [online] Available

from: http://www.iata.org/about/Documents/annual-review-2012.pdf [Accessed

on 4th December 2013]

CIPD Professional Map, CIPD (2012) CIPD professional mapping [online] Available

from: http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdf

Workplace.pdf [Accessed on 06th December 2013]

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdfs/Work%09lace.pdf

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdfs/Work%09lace.pdf

https://www.google.lk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0%09CQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphx.corporate%09ir.net%2FExternal.File%3Fitem%3DUGFyZW50SUQ9MTc1Njk3fENoaWxkS%09Q9LTF8VHlwZT0z%26t%3D1&ei=ZwesUprEMInBrAeB_YHICw&usg=AFQj%09NFKz38z5Wr1s5hwxCX_oN16tE2ccA&sig2=KaLKn0QJk3IZCTDWl20bkg&%09m=bv.57967247,d.bmk&cad=rja






http://www.iata.org/about/Documents/annual-review-2012.pdf

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdf%09Workplace.pdf

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdf%09Workplace.pdf


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7.0 Annexure

Annexure A: Global financial stability report

Figure 7: Diversity at BA

Source: BA Annual Report (2009)


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Annexure B: Strategy of BA 2012

Figure 8: Strategy of British Airways

Source: British Airways (2012)


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Annexure C: BA Strategic goals

Figure 9: Objectives of British Airways

Source: British Airways (2012)