Table of Contents
2.1 Three key HRM activities undertaken at The Swift Airlines. 2
2.2 Justify how the objectives of these were achieved by effective management of human resources 3
2.3 Reference of HRM models. 3
3.0 Three HR planning and development methods adopted by the Swift Airlines. 6
4.0 Critically evaluate their effectiveness to meet the Swift Airlines objectives. 6
5.0 Review on monitoring and indication of HR performance in the Swift Airlines. 7
6.0 Suggestions to improve Human Resource Performance. 7
1.0 Introduction
This report deals with the South-West Intercontinental Flight Tours (Swift Airlines) which was started as a tour operator in the mid 1960’s in Devon, UK. Since then it has become one of Europe’s largest passenger airlines as well as one of Europe’s most successful airline businesses.
This report deals with the HR Management, planning, development and performance of swift airlines. The outcome of this report is as follows:
- To Investigate how Human Resources Management contributes to the achievement of organisational objectives
- Examine HR planning and development methods
- Analyse ways in which performance of HR may be enhanced.
2.0 Investigation and contribution of Human Resources Management to the achievement of the Swift Airlines Organisational objectives.
2.1 Three key HRM activities undertaken at The Swift Airlines
The Swift Airlines undertook radical programs to change its overall business policy, after the losses of 1986. Company decided to follow the strategic business policy of achieving competitive edge in customer services. To attain this, the management identified three key Human Resource Management activities to work towards achieving the set business policy. The three key HRM activities are:
- Training and Development
- Resource Planning
- Improving Appraisal System
As discussed in the case study, the Swift Airlines chose to focus on the strategy upon customer service, which also matched with the corporate objective of company ‘ To be the best and most successful airline in Europe ’ . The CEO Geoff Hanson supported that company needs to invest in its human resources. As stated in the case study, the company invested heavily in its training and development of human resources to improve the organisation’s image of ‘Helpfulness’. Company took a massive training program for its 20,000 staff named as ‘Putting People First’ , that was to train them to be more helpful and supportive with passengers. This training program were held for around six months. Similarly, for the managers, the company developed one week training program names as ‘ Managing People First’ . This training program was aimed to develop new management styles that would be necessary to change the total organisation culture. The company also developed number of training and development programs for employee development. The new training programs are towards directed education programs leading to qualifications. The training and development programs are aimed towards achieving the future corporate objectives.
Company has also taken initiative to increase the involvement of line management in the formal industrial relations and they are being made responsible for this function. Due to this, various issues are negotiated at department level only while, the major decisions are being taken centrally. Line managers are given greater role and responsibility and function of HRM has been added as one of the responsibility of managers. Every department has their own HRM specialists who perform selection, manpower planning, front line industrial relations and other HRM functions in close relationship with the line management. Several company staff rules and regulations were replaced by guidelines for managers. These changes were part of Resource Planning HRM policy.
The Swift Airlines also introduced a new company –wide appraisal scheme which was to improve the relationship between reward and performance. Though, with the current policies only employees in the management grades are getting performance pay but the company has also planned to include every category of the employees. The Swift Airlines appraisal policy is moving towards individual determined remuneration. The company also pays bonus equally to all employees based on company performance.
2.2 Justify how the objectives of these were achieved by effective management of human resources
By following above Human Resource Management Activities, the Swift Airlines not only managed to come out of losses but also consolidated its position by increasing the revenue and profits to a new level and along with retaining the staff and creating a good work culture. The company with its new business policy not only focused on increasing the customer base but also invested heavily to train and develop its human resources thus giving achieving the competitive edge over its competitors. By following Training and Development, the company helped the employees to develop new skills which are important to meet the corporate objectives and by following the resource planning the company worked to change the overall culture of the organisation so that to provide a conducive environment for the new business policy. The new appraisal system introduced helped the management to motivate the employees in achieving the company goals.
2.3 Reference of HRM models
In this report, the two models of Human Resource Management has been discussed. One being the Hard Model i.e. Michigan Model and other being Soft Model i.e. Harvard Model. The two models has been discussed individually below with respect to the strategies adopted by the Swift Airlines.
Michigan Model
Michigan Model (1982) also known as Hard Human Resource Management model. The Michigan model has less humanistic edge which focuses that employees should be treated as resources in the same way as any other business resource. This model suggest that the human resources should be managed same like equipment and raw materials. As per this model the employee should be given appraisal based on the positive performance, while if employee does not perform then hard steps need to be taken, (Reply Management Consulting, 2009).
Figure 1: The Michigan Model (1982)
Source: Reply Management Consulting, 2008
The Swift Airlines management adopted Michigan Model (1982), during early nineties to meet its objective of reducing the operational costs to reduce its losses. The company went through different cost cuts methods which included employee reductions. The company did not follow humanistic approach but it treated its human resources at par with other resources. The Human Resource Management was more focussed in reducing the losses that is was focussed more towards financial aspect than the human resources.
Harvard Model
Harvard Model of Human Resource Management follows more humanistic approach and its mainly focuses in treating staff of an organisation as valued assets. This model is also known as Soft approach of HRM, as it suggests that employees should be rewarded and appraised well to get motivated. The company should follow development and training plan to improve the skills and competencies of the employees, (Managea2z, 2011).
Figure2: Harvard Model
Source: Managea2z (2011)
After 1994, the Swift Airlines adopted new human resource management policy to meet its business strategic plan of achieving competitiveness in customer satisfaction and in accordance with the same policy, company undertook major HR activities which included Training and Development, resource Planning and setting up new Appraisal system. The HR policies adopted by the higher management of the company involved around the Harvard Model of HRM. The company laid more emphasis in improving the skills of its resources by adopting various training and development programs. By adopting new appraisal system policy, company focused in motivating its employees. These policies not only helped the organisation to achieve a healthy work environment but also improved the motivation level of the staff.
3.0 Three HR planning and development methods adopted by the Swift Airlines
Human Resource planning and development became the main HRM activities undertaken by the Swift Airlines to achieve its business objectives and meet long term goals. The company undertook several major steps of HR planning and development methods, which are:
- Training workshops conducted for around 20,000 employees, with an aim of training them to handle customers in more helpful and supportive manner.
- Company designed various training programs for managers to develop specific competencies and value and to restructure behaviour across organisation also, the company set new selection practices to ensure that the new mangers employed had the needed behaviour n skill sets required for cultural change.
- Started directing an educational program which leads to qualifications. The company encouraged individual learning by providing the employees access to two different programmes. The first programme based upon principle of open learning where the programme eventually leads to level 7 qualifications in management. While, the second programme, termed as ‘Top Flight’ provided various placement options in various departments of the company to allow an individual to reach to an executive position.
4.0 Critically evaluate their effectiveness to meet the Swift Airlines objectives
The training workshops which were conducted to cover around 20,000 employees, entitled as ‘People first’ was highly effective in meeting the organisational objective of attaining a competitive customer service and improve the level of ‘Helpfulness’. The workshop was organised to persuade the employees to analyse their own existing values towards their passengers and should be flexible to be more supportive and helpful. This workshop were held for over six months and after nine months from the start of this program, a survey on passengers showed that customers were happy with the high level of ‘helpfulness’ of staff and the services encouraged them to opt of Swift Airlines in future which shortly resulted in increase in ticket sales.
The Swift Airlines undertook a range of training initiatives and changed its selection practices for recruitment of new managers, with an aim of restructuring of the behaviour and to develop specific competencies and values in the whole organisation. It was important for the Swift Airlines to setup new development activities for the managers as they are most crucial in helping the organisation to achieve the organisation objective. The company also wanted to streamline and set new behaviour and values which supports the company’s business objective of achieving competitiveness in customer services and also to make the organisation’s ‘Customer First’ campaign success.
The training directed towards education programmes leading to qualifications were one of major approach for overall employee development by Swift Airline’s. The aim of this program was with an intention of establishing a pool of competence to cater the needs and be able to respond to unwarranted business circumstances and to create opportunities in developing leadership and talent in the staff of the organisation to corporate needs. This program also gave opportunity to individual employees to progress to an executive position and thus helping the Swift Airlines to retain a pool of talented staff with different competencies. This helped organisation to prepare itself on a long term organisational objectives.
5.0 Review on monitoring and indication of HR performance in the Swift Airlines
Human Resource performance is appraised to provide useful information to the management to help in taking decisions in areas of promotion and compensation reviews. HR performance appraisal also helps to identify the key areas where human resource are strong or weak and where they need to retrained in order to meet the competency level.
As here in the case of the Swift Airlines, the company adopted new HR policies after 1994 and done heavy investment in training and development of its employees. Geoff Hanson stated that
‘’I am totally committed to creating opportunities for the development of leadership and talent in all our staff to meet our corporate needs. ‘’
In the current environment as stated in the case study, the Swift Airlines has focused more attention on individual performance and due to this a new appraisal scheme has been introduced called as company – wide appraisal scheme, where the traditional straight ranking method is used. This scheme was with the main purpose of improving the relationship between reward and performance. This scheme is currently only for the employees of manager grade but company has planned to include other categories of employees.
The Human Resource performance is monitored through individual’s performance which is based on job evaluation grading system. The work performed by the employee is monitored and is evaluated based on the responsibilities of the job role and achievement made successfully.
6.0 Suggestions to improve Human Resource Performance
Though the Swift Airlines have taken steps to improve the performance of human resource by making the appraisal system more effective, but still there are areas for improvement which should be looked after. The company still needs to work a lot in bringing out a good performance appraisal system which should include every category of employees fairly so that the company’s culture is positive and employees feel motivated in doing their work. Apart from a good appraisal system which motivates the employees, the company should also use “Key Performance Indicators” to measure and monitor the performance of employees, which in turn will help in improving their skills. Some of the suggested ways to improve the Human Resource Performance are:
- Feedbacks: When the employees receive their feedback frequently about their performance then feel more motivated in performing work. However, the manager should be unbiased while giving the feedback and needs to provide relevant and specific feedback. This helps both manager and employees where they stand.
- Performance Reviews: This explains that there should be frequent performance review between the manager and the employees. Regular reviews on performance helps the employee to identify which area they need to improve and where they are strong. The suggested meetings on performance reviews are once a year.
- Joint Goal Setting: By setting short term goals, which are basically performance oriented, between the management and the employees. In this step, the responsibilities are well defined to the employees. The goal is decided upon by proper agreement between employees and the management. These short goals, when achieved gives a high motivational boost to the employees and management which becomes crucial in achieving the long term goals of organisation.
7.0 Conclusion
Various HRM Planning programmes and development methods in Swift Airlines as discussed in the report which have been a succeeding platform for the company. Apart from the several factors company should focus more on the employee development especially on individual basis i.e. through means of Psychological contract and flexible job and work designs as this is the key factors to gain growth because when employees are taken care of it directly effects the growth of the organisation. If employees are motivated and given reward of the input of what they are putting in the company this will increase the productivity of the company.
Though there are many success factors that may lead the company in future it has few limitations as well like Social pressure to provide the right environment for employees. Political pressure to employ local population, irrespective of skills and knowledge, legal challenges, technological changes, Budget constraint, sales and production increase or decrease in business, new venture i.e. the demand for the new type of skills and knowledge, Job Redesign means HR implementing new structure, new culture and system and globalisation i.e. managing HR diversity.
6.0 References
Managea2z .(2011) Soft HRM makes the company to be a talent factory [Online].Available at: http://www.managea2z.com/soft-hrm-makes-the-company-to-be-a-talent-factory-2.aspx (Accessed: 10 May 2011)
HRM Guide .(2011) Introduction to HRM: Hard HRM [Online]. Available at:http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/introduction_to_hrm/hard-hrm.htm (Accessed: 20 May 2011)
Manage HR Network.(2009). Performance appraisal management [Online] .Available at: http://managehrnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/03/performance-appraisal-management-by.html (Accessed: 12 May 2011)
The Manage Mentor.(2011) Official Website [Online]. Available at:http://www.themanagementor.com/# (Accessed: 12 May 2011)
Mullins,L. J. (2010) MANAGEMENT & ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR. 9th Edition.FT Prentice Hall:Essex
Batton, J. and Gold, J. (2007). Human Resource Management: theory and practice, London, Palgrave McMillan.
Reply Management Consulting.(2008) HR Blues [Online].Available at: http://www.reply-mc.com/2008/03/20/hr-blues/ (Accessed: 15 May 2011)
Table of Contents
2.1 Three key HRM activities undertaken at The Swift Airlines. 2
2.2 Justify how the objectives of these were achieved by effective management of human resources 3
2.3 Reference of HRM models. 3
3.0 Three HR planning and development methods adopted by the Swift Airlines. 6
4.0 Critically evaluate their effectiveness to meet the Swift Airlines objectives. 6
5.0 Review on monitoring and indication of HR performance in the Swift Airlines. 7
6.0 Suggestions to improve Human Resource Performance. 7
1.0 Introduction
This report deals with the South-West Intercontinental Flight Tours (Swift Airlines) which was started as a tour operator in the mid 1960’s in Devon, UK. Since then it has become one of Europe’s largest passenger airlines as well as one of Europe’s most successful airline businesses.
This report deals with the HR Management, planning, development and performance of swift airlines. The outcome of this report is as follows:
- To Investigate how Human Resources Management contributes to the achievement of organisational objectives
- Examine HR planning and development methods
- Analyse ways in which performance of HR may be enhanced.
2.0 Investigation and contribution of Human Resources Management to the achievement of the Swift Airlines Organisational objectives.
2.1 Three key HRM activities undertaken at The Swift Airlines
The Swift Airlines undertook radical programs to change its overall business policy, after the losses of 1986. Company decided to follow the strategic business policy of achieving competitive edge in customer services. To attain this, the management identified three key Human Resource Management activities to work towards achieving the set business policy. The three key HRM activities are:
- Training and Development
- Resource Planning
- Improving Appraisal System
As discussed in the case study, the Swift Airlines chose to focus on the strategy upon customer service, which also matched with the corporate objective of company ‘ To be the best and most successful airline in Europe ’ . The CEO Geoff Hanson supported that company needs to invest in its human resources. As stated in the case study, the company invested heavily in its training and development of human resources to improve the organisation’s image of ‘Helpfulness’. Company took a massive training program for its 20,000 staff named as ‘Putting People First’ , that was to train them to be more helpful and supportive with passengers. This training program were held for around six months. Similarly, for the managers, the company developed one week training program names as ‘ Managing People First’ . This training program was aimed to develop new management styles that would be necessary to change the total organisation culture. The company also developed number of training and development programs for employee development. The new training programs are towards directed education programs leading to qualifications. The training and development programs are aimed towards achieving the future corporate objectives.
Company has also taken initiative to increase the involvement of line management in the formal industrial relations and they are being made responsible for this function. Due to this, various issues are negotiated at department level only while, the major decisions are being taken centrally. Line managers are given greater role and responsibility and function of HRM has been added as one of the responsibility of managers. Every department has their own HRM specialists who perform selection, manpower planning, front line industrial relations and other HRM functions in close relationship with the line management. Several company staff rules and regulations were replaced by guidelines for managers. These changes were part of Resource Planning HRM policy.
The Swift Airlines also introduced a new company –wide appraisal scheme which was to improve the relationship between reward and performance. Though, with the current policies only employees in the management grades are getting performance pay but the company has also planned to include every category of the employees. The Swift Airlines appraisal policy is moving towards individual determined remuneration. The company also pays bonus equally to all employees based on company performance.
2.2 Justify how the objectives of these were achieved by effective management of human resources
By following above Human Resource Management Activities, the Swift Airlines not only managed to come out of losses but also consolidated its position by increasing the revenue and profits to a new level and along with retaining the staff and creating a good work culture. The company with its new business policy not only focused on increasing the customer base but also invested heavily to train and develop its human resources thus giving achieving the competitive edge over its competitors. By following Training and Development, the company helped the employees to develop new skills which are important to meet the corporate objectives and by following the resource planning the company worked to change the overall culture of the organisation so that to provide a conducive environment for the new business policy. The new appraisal system introduced helped the management to motivate the employees in achieving the company goals.
2.3 Reference of HRM models
In this report, the two models of Human Resource Management has been discussed. One being the Hard Model i.e. Michigan Model and other being Soft Model i.e. Harvard Model. The two models has been discussed individually below with respect to the strategies adopted by the Swift Airlines.
Michigan Model
Michigan Model (1982) also known as Hard Human Resource Management model. The Michigan model has less humanistic edge which focuses that employees should be treated as resources in the same way as any other business resource. This model suggest that the human resources should be managed same like equipment and raw materials. As per this model the employee should be given appraisal based on the positive performance, while if employee does not perform then hard steps need to be taken, (Reply Management Consulting, 2009).
Figure 1: The Michigan Model (1982)
Source: Reply Management Consulting, 2008
The Swift Airlines management adopted Michigan Model (1982), during early nineties to meet its objective of reducing the operational costs to reduce its losses. The company went through different cost cuts methods which included employee reductions. The company did not follow humanistic approach but it treated its human resources at par with other resources. The Human Resource Management was more focussed in reducing the losses that is was focussed more towards financial aspect than the human resources.
Harvard Model
Harvard Model of Human Resource Management follows more humanistic approach and its mainly focuses in treating staff of an organisation as valued assets. This model is also known as Soft approach of HRM, as it suggests that employees should be rewarded and appraised well to get motivated. The company should follow development and training plan to improve the skills and competencies of the employees, (Managea2z, 2011).
Figure2: Harvard Model
Source: Managea2z (2011)
After 1994, the Swift Airlines adopted new human resource management policy to meet its business strategic plan of achieving competitiveness in customer satisfaction and in accordance with the same policy, company undertook major HR activities which included Training and Development, resource Planning and setting up new Appraisal system. The HR policies adopted by the higher management of the company involved around the Harvard Model of HRM. The company laid more emphasis in improving the skills of its resources by adopting various training and development programs. By adopting new appraisal system policy, company focused in motivating its employees. These policies not only helped the organisation to achieve a healthy work environment but also improved the motivation level of the staff.
3.0 Three HR planning and development methods adopted by the Swift Airlines
Human Resource planning and development became the main HRM activities undertaken by the Swift Airlines to achieve its business objectives and meet long term goals. The company undertook several major steps of HR planning and development methods, which are:
- Training workshops conducted for around 20,000 employees, with an aim of training them to handle customers in more helpful and supportive manner.
- Company designed various training programs for managers to develop specific competencies and value and to restructure behaviour across organisation also, the company set new selection practices to ensure that the new mangers employed had the needed behaviour n skill sets required for cultural change.
- Started directing an educational program which leads to qualifications. The company encouraged individual learning by providing the employees access to two different programmes. The first programme based upon principle of open learning where the programme eventually leads to level 7 qualifications in management. While, the second programme, termed as ‘Top Flight’ provided various placement options in various departments of the company to allow an individual to reach to an executive position.
4.0 Critically evaluate their effectiveness to meet the Swift Airlines objectives
The training workshops which were conducted to cover around 20,000 employees, entitled as ‘People first’ was highly effective in meeting the organisational objective of attaining a competitive customer service and improve the level of ‘Helpfulness’. The workshop was organised to persuade the employees to analyse their own existing values towards their passengers and should be flexible to be more supportive and helpful. This workshop were held for over six months and after nine months from the start of this program, a survey on passengers showed that customers were happy with the high level of ‘helpfulness’ of staff and the services encouraged them to opt of Swift Airlines in future which shortly resulted in increase in ticket sales.
The Swift Airlines undertook a range of training initiatives and changed its selection practices for recruitment of new managers, with an aim of restructuring of the behaviour and to develop specific competencies and values in the whole organisation. It was important for the Swift Airlines to setup new development activities for the managers as they are most crucial in helping the organisation to achieve the organisation objective. The company also wanted to streamline and set new behaviour and values which supports the company’s business objective of achieving competitiveness in customer services and also to make the organisation’s ‘Customer First’ campaign success.
The training directed towards education programmes leading to qualifications were one of major approach for overall employee development by Swift Airline’s. The aim of this program was with an intention of establishing a pool of competence to cater the needs and be able to respond to unwarranted business circumstances and to create opportunities in developing leadership and talent in the staff of the organisation to corporate needs. This program also gave opportunity to individual employees to progress to an executive position and thus helping the Swift Airlines to retain a pool of talented staff with different competencies. This helped organisation to prepare itself on a long term organisational objectives.
5.0 Review on monitoring and indication of HR performance in the Swift Airlines
Human Resource performance is appraised to provide useful information to the management to help in taking decisions in areas of promotion and compensation reviews. HR performance appraisal also helps to identify the key areas where human resource are strong or weak and where they need to retrained in order to meet the competency level.
As here in the case of the Swift Airlines, the company adopted new HR policies after 1994 and done heavy investment in training and development of its employees. Geoff Hanson stated that
‘’I am totally committed to creating opportunities for the development of leadership and talent in all our staff to meet our corporate needs. ‘’
In the current environment as stated in the case study, the Swift Airlines has focused more attention on individual performance and due to this a new appraisal scheme has been introduced called as company – wide appraisal scheme, where the traditional straight ranking method is used. This scheme was with the main purpose of improving the relationship between reward and performance. This scheme is currently only for the employees of manager grade but company has planned to include other categories of employees.
The Human Resource performance is monitored through individual’s performance which is based on job evaluation grading system. The work performed by the employee is monitored and is evaluated based on the responsibilities of the job role and achievement made successfully.
6.0 Suggestions to improve Human Resource Performance
Though the Swift Airlines have taken steps to improve the performance of human resource by making the appraisal system more effective, but still there are areas for improvement which should be looked after. The company still needs to work a lot in bringing out a good performance appraisal system which should include every category of employees fairly so that the company’s culture is positive and employees feel motivated in doing their work. Apart from a good appraisal system which motivates the employees, the company should also use “Key Performance Indicators” to measure and monitor the performance of employees, which in turn will help in improving their skills. Some of the suggested ways to improve the Human Resource Performance are:
- Feedbacks: When the employees receive their feedback frequently about their performance then feel more motivated in performing work. However, the manager should be unbiased while giving the feedback and needs to provide relevant and specific feedback. This helps both manager and employees where they stand.
- Performance Reviews: This explains that there should be frequent performance review between the manager and the employees. Regular reviews on performance helps the employee to identify which area they need to improve and where they are strong. The suggested meetings on performance reviews are once a year.
- Joint Goal Setting: By setting short term goals, which are basically performance oriented, between the management and the employees. In this step, the responsibilities are well defined to the employees. The goal is decided upon by proper agreement between employees and the management. These short goals, when achieved gives a high motivational boost to the employees and management which becomes crucial in achieving the long term goals of organisation.
7.0 Conclusion
Various HRM Planning programmes and development methods in Swift Airlines as discussed in the report which have been a succeeding platform for the company. Apart from the several factors company should focus more on the employee development especially on individual basis i.e. through means of Psychological contract and flexible job and work designs as this is the key factors to gain growth because when employees are taken care of it directly effects the growth of the organisation. If employees are motivated and given reward of the input of what they are putting in the company this will increase the productivity of the company.
Though there are many success factors that may lead the company in future it has few limitations as well like Social pressure to provide the right environment for employees. Political pressure to employ local population, irrespective of skills and knowledge, legal challenges, technological changes, Budget constraint, sales and production increase or decrease in business, new venture i.e. the demand for the new type of skills and knowledge, Job Redesign means HR implementing new structure, new culture and system and globalisation i.e. managing HR diversity.
6.0 References
Managea2z .(2011) Soft HRM makes the company to be a talent factory [Online].Available at: http://www.managea2z.com/soft-hrm-makes-the-company-to-be-a-talent-factory-2.aspx (Accessed: 10 May 2011)
HRM Guide .(2011) Introduction to HRM: Hard HRM [Online]. Available at:http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/introduction_to_hrm/hard-hrm.htm (Accessed: 20 May 2011)
Manage HR Network.(2009). Performance appraisal management [Online] .Available at: http://managehrnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/03/performance-appraisal-management-by.html (Accessed: 12 May 2011)
The Manage Mentor.(2011) Official Website [Online]. Available at:http://www.themanagementor.com/# (Accessed: 12 May 2011)
Mullins,L. J. (2010) MANAGEMENT & ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR. 9th Edition.FT Prentice Hall:Essex
Batton, J. and Gold, J. (2007). Human Resource Management: theory and practice, London, Palgrave McMillan.
Reply Management Consulting.(2008) HR Blues [Online].Available at: http://www.reply-mc.com/2008/03/20/hr-blues/ (Accessed: 15 May 2011)
