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British Airways

Date: 10/27/2014

Submitted To:
Dr. Mousumi Sengupta

Submitted By: Group 2


13027 Kavita Mary Thomas
13029 Laxmi Narayan Nanda
13035 Mona Kabra

13037 Neethu D
13049 Shreyanka Rai
13068 Anala P.M
13083 Geetika Sood

Table of Contents
Company Profile: .................................................................................................................................... 2
Vision: ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Products and Services: ....................................................................................................................... 2
Management Structure ...................................................................................................................... 3
Presence in India and future growth ..................................................................................................... 4
Competitors ............................................................................................................................................ 4
Headquarters-Subsidiary Relationship .................................................................................................. 5
Headquarters:..................................................................................................................................... 5
SUBSIDIARIES...................................................................................................................................... 5
Globalization Strategy ............................................................................................................................ 6
Partners and Alliances........................................................................................................................ 6
Oneworld Airline Alliance .................................................................................................................. 7
Code Sharing ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Franchises ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Subsidiaries......................................................................................................................................... 7
Joint Businesses .................................................................................................................................. 8
Human Resource Management at British Airways: .............................................................................. 8
Human Resource Planning ................................................................................................................. 8
Employee Development Program ...................................................................................................... 9
Payment Package and Rewards: ........................................................................................................ 9
How BAs HRM activities can be linked to HRM Model .................................................................. 12
Harvard models ............................................................................................................................ 12
Michigan model ............................................................................................................................ 13
Human Resources Performances ..................................................................................................... 14
Ways to Improve HR performances................................................................................................. 14
Human Resource planning ............................................................................................................... 15
Human Resource Development ....................................................................................................... 15
The Learning Organisation: .............................................................................................................. 17
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 18
Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................... 18

Company Profile:
British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom and its largest airline
based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations. When measured by
passengers carried it is second-largest, behind Easy Jet.
A British Airways Board was established by the United Kingdom government in 1972 to
manage the two nationalized airline corporations, British Overseas Airways Corporation and
British European Airways, and two smaller, regional airlines, Cambrian Airways, from
Cardiff, and Northeast Airlines, from Newcastle upon Tyne. British Airways was privatized
in February 1987 as part of a wider privatization plan by the government.
British Airways is the largest airline based in the United Kingdom in terms of fleet size,
international flights, and international destinations and was, until 2008, the largest airline by
passenger numbers as well. The airline carried 34.6 million passengers in 2008, but rival
carrier Easy Jet transported 44.5 million passengers that year, passing British Airways for the
first time.
British Airways serves over 160 destinations, including six domestic. It is one of the few
airlines to fly to all six permanently inhabited continents, along with, Delta Air
Lines, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Korean Air, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore
Airlines, South African Airways and United Airlines.

Vision:
The company vision is become most responsible airline in the world and all their corporate
responsibility they have to bought tougher under the banner One Destination it is a great
challenging goals for the company for further reduce carbon emission, recycling and reduce
waste underrating air and noise pollution.

Products and Services:

Short Haul UK Domestic is British Airways economic class


Business UK operates the same cabin as UK Domestic
Euro Traveller is British Airways economy class from UK to Europe
Club Europe is the short haul business class
Mid- Haul Club World business class
Long haul Premium with different facility in aircraft
Club world Easy with cabin featured fully flat beds
Next Generation New Club World featuring larger seats.
World Traveller is the long haul economy class offered on international flights to
destinations outside Europe.
World Traveller Plus is the premium economy offering provided on all long haul
aircraft.

British Airways operates one of the largest and the most modern fleets of any airline in the
world. Their fleets include:

Management Structure

BA are re-inventing the way they work. They are creating leaner organisation with
distinctive, high- performance culture. Current market conditions have made it imperative to
move fast to create a leaner, more agile structure starting at the very top of their business.
This restructuring has made them more efficient. It has also helped in identifying and
drawing on new talent in business, encouraging more people to move between functions to
gain wider experience and find new outlets for their skills. To support greater mobility, they
have clarified individual and collective roles and responsibilities and now publish
accountabilities for all of their top managers on their intranet.

Presence in India and future growth


British Airways has been flying to India since over 84 years now. The Indian market is the
second biggest after UK. India will benefit from overall investments in BA to the tune of 5
billion. The UK Civil Aviation Authority says that traffic numbers between the UK and India
have nearly doubled since 1999.
India has witnessed 10 per cent growth in terms of seats compared to last year i.e. 2013. As
per the reports, India is one of the fastest growing markets for British Airways. It is only
second to North America. British Airways would like to improve their share and expand as
well. They grow around 10 per cent in terms of seats in this market. This is one of the biggest
growth areas in their global network. This was proven when, British Airways had recently
increased the number of flights to 48 per week operating daily flights to Hyderabad and
Bangalore apart from two flights a day to Mumbai and Delhi and six flights to Chennai.

Competitors
British Airways and Virgin Airlines have fought toe-to toe over routes, ticket prices and a
piece of the sky for over two decades. Now British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways are
ready to slug it out in India with the two long-haul airlines looking to expand their offerings
and increase their share of Indian travellers flying to Europe and North America. It is
important for European Airlines to maintain their market share as they are facing tough
competition from the Gulf Airlines like Etihad Airways and Emirates Airlines.
Dubai-based Emirates operates 185 flights a week to 10 Indian destinations. BA, which has
been operating in India for 84 years, connects five cities with 48 weekly flights. Virgin has
only one daily flight each from Delhi and Mumbai. Emirates is the largest foreign airline in
India and carried 13.04 per cent of passengers who flew out of the country in 2011/12,
government data show. BA had a share of barely three per cent. The data for Virgin was not
disclosed.
Etihad, based in Abu Dhabi, is also expanding its India presence. It has agreed to pick up a 24
per cent stake in Jet Airways, India's second largest carrier by market share.
Data provided by Make My Trip shows that British Airways garnered a 16 per cent share in
the number of passengers flying from India to the US and Canada during the first half of
2013 whereas, Virgin had a four per cent share.

Headquarters-Subsidiary Relationship
Headquarters:
The airlines' head office, Waterside, stands in Harmondsworth, a village near London
Heathrow Airport.Waterside was completed in June 1998 to replace British Airways'
previous head office, Speedbird House, which was located on the grounds of Heathrow
British Airways' main base is at London Heathrow Airport, but it also has a major presence at
Gatwick Airport. It also has a base at London City Airport (LCY), where its subsidiary BA
CityFlyer is the largest operator. BA had previously operated a significant hub at Manchester
Airport. Manchester operations ceased, along with all international services outside of
London, when the subsidiary BA Connect was sold due to a lack of profitability. Passengers
wishing to travel internationally with BA either to or from regional UK destinations must
now transfer in London.Heathrow Airport is dominated by British Airways, which owns 40%
of the slots available at the airport.The majority of BA services operate from Terminal 5, with
the exception of some short-haul and mid-haul flights at Terminal 1 arising from the purchase
of BMI and some short-haul flights at Terminal 3, owing to a lack of capacity at Terminal 5.
With the imminent opening of the brand-new Terminal 2 in 2014, Star Alliance airlines will
progressively be moving all their services into the new terminal and Terminal 1 will be
closed for demolition in due course. British Airways' services will then be concentrated in
Terminals 3 and 5.
In August 2014 Willie Walsh advised the airline would continue to use flight paths over Iraq
despite the hostilities there. A few days earlier Qantas announced it would avoid Iraqi
airspace, while other airlines did likewise. The issue arose following the downing of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, and a temporary suspension of flights to and from
Ben Gurion Airport during the 2014 IsraelGaza conflict.

SUBSIDIARIES
BA CityFlyer, a wholly owned subsidiary, offers flights from its base at London City Airport
to 23 destinations throughout Europe. It flies 14 Embraer 170/190 aircraft and one leased
Saab 2000. The airline focuses on serving the financial market, though it has recently
expanded into the leisure market, offering routes to Ibiza, Palma and Venice.
The onboard product is identical to that of the BA Short Haul product from both LHR and
LGW.
The former BEA Helicopters was renamed British Airways Helicopters in 1974 and operated
passenger and offshore oil support services until it was sold in 1986. Other former
subsidiaries include the German airline Deutsche BA from 1997 until 2003 and the French
airline Air Libert from 1997 to 2001. British Airways also owned Airways Aero
Association, the operator of the British Airways flying club based at Wycombe Air Park in
High Wycombe, until it was sold to Surinder Arora in 2007.
South Africa's Comair and Denmark's Sun Air of Scandinavia have been franchisees of
British Airways since 1996. British Airways obtained a 15% stake in UK regional airline
Flybe from the sale of BA Connect in March 2007. BA also owned a 10% stake in

InterCapital and Regional Rail (ICRR), the company that managed the operations of Eurostar
(UK) Ltd from 1998 to 2010,when the management of Eurostar was restructured.
With the creation of an Open Skies agreement between Europe and the United States in
March 2008, British Airways started a new subsidiary airline called OpenSkies (previously
known as "Project Lauren").The airline started operations in June 2008, and now flies direct
from Paris to New York's JFK and Newark airports.
British Airways Limited was established in 2012 to take over the operation of the premium
service between London City Airport and New York-JFK. BA began the service in
September 2009, using two Airbus A318s fitted with 32 lie-flat beds in an all business class
cabin.Flights operate under the numbers previously reserved for Concorde: BA001
BA004.
British Airways provides cargo services under the British Airways World Cargo brand. The
division has been part of IAG Cargo since 2012, and is the world's twelfth-largest cargo
airline based on total freight tonne-kilometres flown. BA World Cargo operates using the
main BA fleet, together with three Boeing 747-8 freighter aircraft providing dedicated longhaul services operating under a wet lease arrangement from Global Supply Systems.The
division operates an automated cargo centre at London Heathrow Airport and handles freight
at Gatwick and Stansted airports.

Globalization Strategy
By 1981, British Airways was instructed by the Thatcher Government to prepare for
privatization. Sir John King, the then appointed chairman, decided that British Airways
needed to establish a strong presence in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific if it was to
be a global carrier. It strove to achieve this with a series of acquisitions, alliances and
franchise arrangements.

Partners and Alliances


British Airways, in early 1990s, made a series of alliances and acquisitions to make sure that
their presence was felt globally. British Airways purchased 25% of US Air, then Americas
fifth largest airline, which had hub bases in four eastern American cities: Pittsburgh,
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charlotte. British Airways crew then flew the existing scheduled
US Air services between London Gatwick and these American cities; joint ticketing
arrangements allowed British Airways passengers to enjoy easier onward travel.
In 1992, British Airways expanded through the acquisition of the financially troubled DanAir, giving British Airways a much larger presence at Gatwick airport. British Asia Airways,
a subsidiary based in Taiwan, was formed in March 1993 to operate between London
and Taipei. That same month British Airways purchased a 25% stake in the Australian
airline Qantas and, with the acquisition of Brymon Airways in May, formed British Airways.

Oneworld Airline Alliance


In September 1998, British Airways, along with American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas,
and Canadian Airlines, formed the Oneworld airline alliance. Oneworld began operations on
1 February 1999, and is the third largest airline alliance in the world, behind SkyTeam and
Star Alliance. The alliance currently has Airberlin, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific,
Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways,
Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines, Srilankan Airlines and TAM Airlines as its members.
The Oneworld alliance brings together 15 of the world's leading airlines and around 30
affiliated carriers. Together, these airlines operate more than 14,000 daily flights to some
1,000 destinations across the globe. Through these alliances, British Airways was able to
provide flights to a large number of cities and meet air traffic and best prices requirements.
Partnerships and business alliances allowed them to access a large air network and provision
of necessary services. (Oneworld, 2014)

Code Sharing
There are also bilateral alliances between airlines whereby codes are shared and tickets are
interchangeably sold. Codeshares are a type of shared flight one airline operates the flight,
while other airlines may sell seats on the flight under their own airline codes. British airways
have codesharing services with its oneworld partners as well as Aer Lingus, airBaltic,
Bangkok Airways, Flybe, Loganair, Meridiana fly, Vueling Airlines and WestJet.

Franchises
British Airways franchise partners are independent airlines that use British Airways
branding and flight codes. BAs franchise partners are:

Comair Pty Ltd Comair is British Airways' Southern Africa franchisee, operating
more than 50 daily flights from Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth
within South Africa to destinations in Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
SUN-AIR of Scandinavia SUN-AIR is a privately owned Danish airline that
delivers its services as a British Airways franchisee. It operates some 30 daily flights
from Denmark to Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the U.K

Subsidiaries
British Airways operate in a few foreign countries through its subsidiaries. The subsidiaries is
as shown below:

BA Cityflyer BA Cityflyer is a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways and


operates all UK and European services to and from London City Airport.
British Airways (BA) Limited A wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways,
operating long-haul services to and from London City Airport. This was launched to
manage the US operations.
OpenSkies OpenSkies is a subsidiary of British Airways that offers premium airline
services between New York and JFK to Paris only.

Joint Businesses
British Airways currently operates two joint businesses which enable the airline to give more
choice to its customers.

Siberian Joint business: In October 2012 British Airways entered into a Siberian joint
business with Japan Airlines (JAL) on routes between Europe and Japan. In April
2014, Finnair entered into the joint business agreement between Japan Airlines and
British Airways on flights between Japan and Europe.
Transatlantic Joint business: British Airways launched its transatlantic joint business
with Iberia and American Airlines on October 1, 2010. The agreement allows British
Airways and Iberia to work more closely with American Airlines on flights between
North America and Europe. It is a revenue sharing agreement under which member
airlines have permission to co-ordinate schedules and pricing on North Atlantic
routes. The Atlantic joint business now includes all scheduled flights operated
American and US Airways, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair between North
America and Europe (British Airways, 2014)

Human Resource Management at British Airways:


British Airways, one of the successful airline industries in the world, has been an attraction to
the thousands of passengers since 1974 when it was established. The companys HRM
department had started with heart and soul to achieve the companys corporate objectives.
Two training programmes were designed to train up the staff and managers where the first
training programme putting people first helped the staff to understand how the image of
helpfulness satisfy the customers and the second training programme Managing People
First evoked the managers to breakdown the regimented approach and strict behavioural
boundaries. A significant cultural change was observed in the organisation on successful
implementation of these training programmes. The company had undergone typical
development programme such as individual learning, individual employee development
by which it achieved a pool of competence. The companys HR department had emerged on
its performance development for instance, appraisal scheme, improved reward system that
finally directed to the companys business performance. Thus the company had adopted a
much more strategic access to HRM.
The three HRM activities are as follows:
1. Human Resources Planning
2. Employee development program
3. Payment Package and Rewards

Human Resource Planning


British Airways wants to rearrange its customer service fully through rearranging their
customer service to achieve the business objectives. It decided that huge effort would be

launched in order to create an exceptional and unique customer service. This unique service
is not easily copied. BA has decided to recruit enough employees to enhance their customer
service. BA wants to fulfill every aspect of customer service and wants to be number one
customer service industry in the world.

Employee Development Program


After rearranging their customer service BA has decided to take employee development
program. BA wants to improve their employee skills and knowledge. In this way employee
are able to cope with the situation better than earlier. Employees can able to prepare them for
a higher level of job with increased responsibilities. The management of BA wants to
improve their concept of employee development program. So, they had decided to invest a
significant amount of money in training and development program that will improve the
organization image. After taking a research, BA has found that the customers satisfaction and
dissatisfaction are depend on the friendly and unfriendly behaviour from employees. So, BA
has decided to take a employee development program that would make the company a total
change of employee behaviour and attitude across the organization. For the new and old
employee BA has taken several employee development program.

Payment Package and Rewards:


To get full employee support and increase customer satisfaction in the highest level, BA tries
to make employee satisfaction program through giving employees payment package and
rewards. They decided to move individually and both internal and external benefits. They
will give standardize pay and individual performance pay. The main part of salaried staff
earnings is based upon pay rates which are generated by a job evaluation grading system. A
companywide performance related bonus scheme paid to all employees and there have been
offers of free and discount shares.BA introduced an opportunity for all employees to purchase
tax free shares through a trust using company performance bonus.
Introduction
Though BA has also become one of the worlds most successful airlines businesses, company
performances were often disappointing. For example, in the seventies, BA had serious
difficulties retaining customers in a competitive airline industry; in 1980 BA had recorded
significant losses; also the nineties was considered a difficult period in the history of BA.
Since then the company has undertaken a programme of radical changes by which its
business performance started to increase gradually. The company also experienced that cost
control was not the only method to improve the business performance. Any business strategy
like cost control, fascinating physical environment or any other strategy related to operational
efficiency, all had been failure as these were duplicated by other competitors. After a lot of
ups and downs, the company finally realised that being a service industry it would need to
focus its competitive strategy upon customer service that would not be easily replicated by
other competitors. Thus BAs corporate objective had been developed which was stated
simply to be the best and most successful airline in the world. To achieve this goal, the
company had planned to invest on organizations Human Resources which were considered
the appropriate bridge between the employees and company success.

The HR department of BA had started to launch a range of innovative and interesting ideas to
achieve the companys goal. The HR management had split up the companys corporate
objective to a set of key objectives to achieve that goal and the HRM had started their
activities to achieve this each objective.
The three main objectives and how these objectives were achieved by the effective
management of HR are as follows:
1. Training and Development
A strategy of innovation implies change that will have to be managed, and requirements for
new skills as new products, services or processes are developed. All of these call for skills
training. Training in new skills and multi- skilling can also contribute to the scene of security.
Employees develop a higher level of employability through the acquisition of a wider range
of skills, and so feel more secure about their future employment prospects. BAs HRM
department has undertaken a range of training programme for the improvement of employees
by which they can show their potentiality on customer service.
Objective

To improve the organisations image of helpfulness


Restructuring the organisations behaviour
To establish a pool of competence within the company

The training programmes that have been set by the HRM department at BA:

Extensive research were conducted in order to identify the most appropriate form of
helpfulness

A two day training programme Putting People First was aimed at almost 20,000
staff who had significant customer contact.

A one week training programme, Managing People First was conducted

A research programme was commissioned on the basis of Managing People First


programme.

Providing individual learning through a programme which was based upon principles
of open learning leads to MBA awarded by University of Bath.

The Top Flight programme was conducted to provide a series of Academies to the
learner lead to an executive position.

To achieve the first objective, BA had conducted extensive research which had performed
effectively by the HRM department. It was clear that customer-satisfaction occurred by
positive staff contact (friendly and caring manner) whereas negative staff contacts
(unfriendly, rude and uncaring manner) led to customer dissatisfaction. After that, the HRM
had focused on a two day training programme Putting People first especially for the staff
who were exposed to customer contact. The programme helped those staffs to change their
attitudes and behaviour to the customers.
2. Assessing performance of employees

One of the most crucial activities of HRM is to assess the performance of the selected
employees so that the company can assume its organisational progress. The HRM within any
organisation need to assess and monitor the employees performance whether they have been
in an alignment to achieve the companys goal or not.
Objective

To improve the relationship between the reward and performance.

BAs HRM has taken a scheme to assess the performance of the employees,

Introduction of company-wide performance appraisal scheme.

It is very crucial point to note down that a dramatic change was observed after achieving the
second objective stated above. The HRM of BA had commenced a one week programme
Managing People First to break down the organisational bureaucracy such as rule bound,
strict behavioural boundaries etc. The regimented approached managers had become more
effective carer for customers through this training. Finally a significant cultural change had
been achieved at all levels of organisation which is supposed to be the great achievement of
HRM of British Airways.
3. Payment and reward of employees
Reward is frequently used nowadays to refer to payment systems, especially since many
payment systems try to motivate people to work harder and then reward them for their extra
effort. The word reward is useful in this sense, and could apply to either monetary or nonmonetary award, but it also implies that something special is being rewarded. Payment is the
most straightforward of the four terms: compensation, reward, remuneration and payment. It
can include monetary or non-monetary payment.
The HRM department is responsible to establish appropriate payment employees and reward
systems for all employees in order to contribute to the organisations strategic plan.
Objective

To develop the pay structures and system which are equitable, fair and transparent.

British Airways has undertaken some reward scheme that will eventually align with
company goal,

Performance related bonus scheme paid to all employees.

In order to satisfy the third objective, the HRM had encouraged individual learning through
accessing two major learning programme-Principle of open learning and Top Flight. By
completion of these two major programmes, most of the employees had become more skilled
to tackle or to respond to any unexpected business circumstances.
To achieve the third objective, the company has reviewed and restructured the reward system.
The HRM of BA believes that the organisation should examine its pay levels and the
attractiveness of its benefits packages and terms and conditions compared with those of
competitors; action plans should also address the issue of linking rewards properly to the
achievement of corporate goal. Likewise, BA has introduced some novel scheme, for

instance, performance related bonus, offering free and discounted shares and also offering the
tax free shares.
To improve the relationship between the reward and performance, BA has introduced a
scheme Performance appraisal scheme by which the HRM department will be able to
measure and evaluate the employees performance. On successful commencing of this
scheme, the companys reward system in terms of employee performance, has been
improved.
The evaluation of this scheme can be summarised as follows:

Achieving a significant change in organisational culture.

Identifying the strongest and weakest employees in the organisation

Contributing to achieve the organisational goals.

Therefore, integrating all the achievements of these objectives, the effective HRM of BA,
ultimately had lead the company to achieve its corporate objective over the period.

How BAs HRM activities can be linked to HRM Model


Within the HRM view, two approaches have been identified. Storey (1989) labelled these two
approaches Hard HRM (Michigan Model) and Soft HRM (Harvard Model). The hard
approach, rooted in manpower planning, is concerned with aligning human resource strategy
with business strategy, while the soft approach is rooted in the human relations school, has
concern for workers outcomes and encourages commitment to the organisation by focusing
on workers concerns
Harvard models
A soft model of HRM to encourage employee commitment through employee influence, HR
flow, reward and work systems. Beer et al. (1984) proposed the Harvard model as a means of
improving managers methods of managing people. Walton (1985) argued that the role of
HRM was to develop strategies to gain employees commitment, not to be a means of
controlling them. The issues proposed by Beer et al (1984) argue that managers need to take
responsibility for employee influence, human resource flow, reward systems and work
systems regardless of the size of the organisation
Employee influence refers to how managers disperse their power and authority throughout
the organisation while ensuring that the organisational goals are met.

The Human Resource Flow must ensure that the right people are in the right place at
the right time.

Reward Systems are concerned with how employees are rewarded for their work.

Work System refers to the organisation of work to ensure that it is efficient and
productive, and can meet the organisations goals. Work systems need to ensure that
the communication channels work and the correct technology is in place at the various
levels of the organisation.

Now the activities performed by the HRM of BA to achieve its corporate objective can easily
be linked to Harvard model, where we can see that the BAs work system were efficient and
productive through extensive.

Research and training programme:


The human resource flow was controlled by breakdown the organisational bureaucracy such
as rule bound or strict behavioural boundaries. The BAs HRM included reward system
such as bonus scheme, tax-free shares, free and discounted shares. The cultural change had
been achieved at BA by the employee influence in all levels of organisation.
Michigan model
The model that develops hard HRM as a means of using people as an organisational resource
to achieve organisational goal. Political force Fombrun et al. (1984) argue that organisations
exist to accomplish a mission or achieve objectives, and strategic management takes into
account three interconnected issues of mission and strategy, organisation structure and human
resource systems.

Mission is the fundamental purpose of an organisation that defines the nature of its
business and provides strategic direction unifying human and other resources.

Organisation structure refers to the requirements and tasks needed to achieve the
organisations goals. These include accounting system and communication network.

HR management system establish the need for people to be recruited and developed,
which in turn will enable them to achieve the organisational goals and maintain
performance

Development through extensive training programme

Innovative management style has commenced

Increased managerial discretion

According to the model, the mission, strategy, organisational structure and human resource
management cannot operate in isolation. They also need to respond to the external forces of
politics, economics and culture. An case study on BA has shown that a new department
Department of Human Resource strategy and Planning has been established to research
changes in social, legal, economic and political systems both within the UK and abroad. So
the final part of the model referring to BAs HRM will look like as follows:

Economic forces

Cultural forces

Political forces

Human Resources Performances


BA redesigns and restructures the Human Resource. They make huge investment on HR
planning and HR performance. They setup so many training and development program for
line staffs and managers. It is hard to say how much impact the program has had .British
Airline believes that this programme has been successful, that a significant cultural change
has been achieved at all levels of the organization, and that this cultural change has made a
significant contribution to the steady improvement in the business performance. A extensive
market research shown that customer have develop more positive attitudes towards service
that they now receive as compared with the predominance of negative attitudes that were
recorded in similar surveys conducted earlier in the 1990s.These satisfied customers must
have been an important factor in support of BAs performance improve. So its easily
identified that with this HR planning and development, BA increase their HR performance
that lead to the improve organizations performance. On the other hand BA employees also
now more happy with payment and rewards. They are getting opportunities to learn through
different training and qualification of MBA degree awarded by University of Bath after
competition of management training. They are getting basic pay as well as individual
performance pay and also scheme that benefited them more than the before.
Through the trade union employees can participate on organization strategic decision. They
can raise their voice against any critical issues of the company. So employees are now more
than happy. Employees turnover are less now than the before .Employee are satisfied with
their job description, responsibilities and working environment. Employees absenteeism is
also reduced. They are now highly committed to the company success.

Ways to Improve HR performances


It the most difficult task to suggest British Airways as they are the most successful airline
company in the world. They are already taken most of the ways to improve their performance
and become the number one airlines company. Although some ways may improve their
performance and increase their productivity more:

Larger HRM department


British Airlines have more than 40,000 employees but they have a small HRM
strategy and planning department with some specialist people in the UK. If they
increase their people and they spread the whole world they will successful more. By
this different cultural people can get same service from their own people. They can
easily serve and fulfill customer demand.

Recruitment Strategy

The recruitment strategy may be changed to recruit more talented people. The recruitment
team can go college and university and recruit more talented students.

Technology Program
British can provide more technological program such as, computer technology
program, personal development program, customer dealing program, etc.

Human Resource planning


Human Resource Planning is the process for identifying an organisations current and
future human resource requirements, developing and implementing plans to meet these
requirements and monitoring their overall effectiveness.
Planning process at British Airways:

Strategic plan

Tactical plan

Operational plan

Forcasting

Strategic plans: General plans outlining priorities and actions needed to improve the
strategic goals of an organisation. For an instance the BA had set up a strategic plan which is
assumed to achieve the long term customer loyalty through customer satisfaction providing
excellent customer service.
Tactical plans: Tactical plans aimed at achieving tactical goals and implementing parts of
strategic plan. BA had planned a set of training programmes to train up their staffs.
Operational plans: Plans that focus on implementing the tactical plans in day to day
procedures in the organisation. Each and every training programme at BA was dealt step by
step successfully.
Forecasting: The HRM at BA anticipated the training requirements for future corporate
needs. It also forecast about a number of business developments considering some crucial
factors such as Brand management, International competition, Joint ventures issues and so
on.
Though BA had implemented all of its plans successfully, the contingency plan, ratio analysis
and trend analysis- nothing of these were taken into consideration during the HR planning
which indicates BAs HR planning limitation.

Human Resource Development


Human resource development encompasses activities and processes which are intended to
have impact on organisational and individual learning. The term assumes that organisations
can be constructively conceived of as learning entities, and that the learning processes of both
organisations and individuals are capable of influence and direction through deliberate and
planned interventions. Thus, HRD is constituted by planned interventions in organisational
and individual process.
When BA realized that as a service industry diversified customer service would be the best
approach to achieve its goal, different development methods were emerged by the HRM
department of the company.
These development methods can be illustrated as follows:
Training:

A planned process to modify attitude, knowledge or skill behaviour through learning


experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose,
in the work situation, is to develop the abilities of the individual and to satisfy the current and
future needs of the organisation (Manpower Service Commission, 1981a)
The need for training at BA

To change in values and attitudes for staffs

To break down the regimented approach of managers

To support and coach subordinates and to encourage trusting relationships

To accept and delegate responsibility

To monitor individual performance to provide feedback

To address parochialism and to discourage departmental rivalry and secretiveness

To operate under clear defined objectives at all levels of operation

To think in a business like way and to calculate risk

To build positive leadership and motivation.

Outcomes of the training at BA

Training programme

Evaluation

Comments

Putting People First

Evaluation of staffs own existing value towards their passenger and a degree of
helpfulness attitude was achieved among the staffs who had significant customer
contact during the training.

The objective of this training had achieved which has been aligned to the companys
corporate strategy.

Managing People First

The old rule bound system of management designed by the managers has been
broken down.

A significant cultural change has achieved which is aligned with the companys
corporate objective.

Considering the beliefs of BAs HRM department and evaluation table of the training
programmes, it is assumed that a significant cultural change has been achieved at all levels of
organisation on completion of these training programmes. This cultural change has made a
significant contribution to the steady improvement in business performance. So, this
development method designed by the HR department of the company has shown an
effectiveness to meet the companys corporate objective.

Individual Employee Development at BA


The HR department of British Airways had focused its employee on individual learning to
establish a pool of competence within the company so that they can withstand in an
unforeseen business circumstances. This development method aimed two learning
programme -principle of open learning and Top flight. The outcomes and evaluation of
these two programmes can be summarised as follows:
Outcomes of the learning programmes at BA

Learning Programme

Evaluation

Comments

Principles of open learning

The employees have achieved an MBA degree by completing each stage of learning
programme and the individuals have become more complex and differentiated
through the interaction of internal and external factors.

The employees are now confident to tackle the unforeseen business circumstances and
to make the complex but define strategy for the organisation.

Top flight

Individuals have been progressed to an executive position by completing a series of


Academies.

The employees have achieved vast knowledge on business administration that has
helped them to become critical thinkers.

It is crystal clear that if any organisation has a strategic manager or a strategic executive, it is
easy to planning, implementing or organising any strategic objectives of that organisation.
British Airways has made some talents through individual employee development method
by which the organisation has not only achieved a new cultural image but also has
contributed to achieve the companys goal.

The Learning Organisation:


The concept has gained popularity in recent years because of the turbulent and increasingly
competitive business environment. The impact of new technology and changing
organisational forms that cater for customer needs mean dealing with continual change. The
ability to respond swiftly to product and market development is crucial. There has also been
an increasing recognition of the importance of utilizing not just the physical abilities of
employees but also their mental powers. Senior managers are becoming aware that if their
people are their greatest resource they are also the source of any longer-term competitive
advantage. This realisation has led to increased competition for skilled, flexible, adaptable
staff, and to the development of organisational programmes that attempt to fully utilize the
talents and knowledge of the workforce.

Likewise, BAs HRM department now has become concerned and taken the initiative to
minimise the barriers that may hamper learning and development. For instance, BA has
undertaken some training programme to breakdown the previous managers regimented
approach to the management. Moreover, the company has become committed to sustain when
the unforeseen business climate comes around and thats why they are going to make some
talents and suitable leader through the organisational learning where all the training and
development programmes regarding this, have been directly aligned to the companys
strategic goal.
The HRM department of BA has become more strategic to achieve the companys goal. For
this purposes, the HR department had conducted and monitored two major training
programmes, Putting People first and Managing People first by which a significant
cultural change was achieved at the all levels of organisation. The HR department also
emphasized different types of learning programmes designed for the employees for employee
development. Further programmes such as appraisal scheme, reward system were
successfully commenced and implemented by the effective HR department of the
company.The responsibility for the line managers had been increased by giving the greater
discretion to determine their own approach to the implementation of company policy. Thus,
all of the changes through organisation had been aligned with the companys corporate
objective

Conclusion
It is of course, a classical change has been achieved at all levels of organisation by the
effective management, control and implication of the activities that were set by the HR
department of the company. This cultural change through organisation has led the company
to achieve its corporate objective. The establishment of a new department titled Department
of Human Resource Strategy and Planning has made an attention to us that the British
Airways has become more strategic to its Human Resource Management. The continuous
development of management, human resource, manpower has made the company as a distinct
example in the world airline industries

Bibliography
British Airways. (2014). Partners and Alliances. Retrieved from British Airways:
http://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/partners-and-alliances
Oneworld. (2014). Oneworld. Retrieved from http://www.oneworld.com/general/aboutoneworld
http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/companyProfile?symbol=BAY.L
http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=89964&rt=British-Airways-Plc-Financial-andStrategic-Analysis-Review.html
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb

https://www.scribd.com/doc/56831757/British-Airways

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