The Conditions of Delta Airlines - Case Study Example

Analyses of the Conditions of Delta Airlines :Past and Present The History of Delta Air Lines focuses on the fact on how the crop dusting service developed to a leading passenger air line service. The time period from 1924 to 1979 shows only improvement in the economic and business history of the Delta Air Lines. Starting form the process of expansion of the company form a crop-dusting service, then as a passenger service, and again under the war contract directly form the defence department of the U.S Government, then merging with other Air line services, and finally attaining then status of assets acquisition shows the fast development of the Company. As far as the employee relationship is concerned it is clearly mentioned in the case study that Delta Air Lines had no union formation among the workers, expect pilots. Because the Delta Air Lines till 1980s maintained a smooth relationship with its employees, and more over the employees were treated equally, and given all sorts of benefits. Even payment was considerably more when compared to that of other air line industries. This could be another reason for the prolonged success of the company. But problem started during the years 1991, 1992 to 1997 where the asset acquisition resulted in elimination of 15,000 jobs, but then the management authorities tried to solve the problem by reemploying the workers in different positions. This was proved to be a failure and resulted in struggle in maintaining an amiable employee management relationship. However with the entry of Russell Heil, as the Executive Vice- President of operations and personnel put an end to the employee management issues, resulting in over concentration on individual employee as well. His main aim was to maintain the employees [who remained form the eliminations] in a customer friendly manner. The Human Resource Development Strategic plans should be focused on Change Management, Performance Management, and Staff and management training. As the intension of the Delta Air Lines is to continue with a customer friendly environment and employee benefits as another link concept to achieve the above aim, the Change Management, Performance Management and staff training would help in improving the prevailing conditions of the employee and management and employee customer relationship. Human Resource Development Strategy for Change Management: Since Delta Airlines had been witnessing and brining out considerable changes, it is absolutely required for the human resource department to apply the strategic plans in change management so that the employee should be aware of the changing circumstances. Objectives: To develop a analytical working style among the management team to notice the changes the company brings in, such as a new agreement, mergers, or asset acquisition etc. The management team should apply the strategy to find out whether the internal working atmosphere is not affected by the changes. “If the change affects the internal working practices of the organisation, then HR must get involved” says Key Strategy Limited [2003]. Members of the plans include managerial employees, and it is the responsibility of the Human Resource manger to look after the plans implemented. Plans or Key Tasks to achieve this strategy: 1. To observe the changes that the company includes 2. To observe whether the changes affect the workers inside, in terms of less financial support or work load pressures. 3. To create awareness among the employees about the changes. 4. To find out form the employees regarding the affectations that they witness due to the change. 5. To find out the customer response with respect to the changes the company introduce. 6. To record the effect of changes in the field of working conditions of the employees, advancement in employment and salary. The continuous mergers have left the Delta Air lines to cancel 15,000 jobs, as they felt that by doing so they could save more money for the company. So change management is necessary to stop employee ,misunderstanding.“First, organisations have been more concerned with incorporating changes quickly than with managing them effectively.  (2) Second, organisations have neglected the importance of people management during the change process. Yet this aspect of change management is the most important determinant of success of a change initiative” are the duties of human resource development management says Key Strategies [2006-2007]. “Globalisation and the need for companies to gain sustainable competitive advantage require new and different approaches to recruiting, training, developing and retaining employees with key skills” observes Allen Cattle [1999 p-137] . It becomes clear from the observation of Allen Cattle that allocating special tasks or training programs would increase the work quality and sustain the development. But many theoretical observations say that people are the most powerful source of the success of any oraganisation that is why the importance of human resource is felt as a compulsory element for the growth of an organisation. Wilson John [1999 p-138] observes that “motivation of the employees o perform, vision by employers as to what performance standards they expect of employees, ownership of management of performance at a variety of levels within organisations and monitoring and measurement of the performance achieved by the employees” The performance management is one of the key issues faced by the human resource department. The functions that are carried out in performance management of the employees are evaluation appraisal, training for the employees, setting aims or goals and monitoring the implementations of the aim done bay the employees etc. The first and foremost issue would be to highlight the main issue; here “consumer friendly” and employee friendly are the expected goals of the Delta Airlines. In order to achieve this The ACCEL Team has proposed certain practices and theories. They are “Highlight the key driving forces of your business. What are they? e.g. technology, distribution, competition, the markets., What are the implications of the driving forces for the people side of your business? What is the fundamental people contribution to bottom line business performance?”. The Accel-team.com[2006]. The driving force would be paving way for a free mode of communication between the managerial group and the employees, as suggested by Heil. This could be achieved by employee motivation. Apart from this it also advices the following to be noticed by the human resource departments such as, “What impact will/ might they have on business performance?, Consider skill shortages?and The impact of new technology on staffing levels” says Accel Team. Objectives to attain performance management: 1. To prepare way for a easy communication between the employee and the management [ this would include sharing of thoughts about the working condition, requesting other employee benefits etc. 2. To organise a special task in order to identify the skills of the employees 3. To allot them to do special tasks individually or in groups. So that the company’s reputation and economic status would remain steady. 4. To arrange special training for the employees in their work field etc. 5. To make other employers aware of the special task allocation. 6. To implement the idea of incentives for those who are found to be cooperative with the company. 7. To create awareness about the goals of the company and allow them to participate in communication with the higher management officials so that union formation could be prevented. 8. To create place for the awareness among the employees about the importance of customers for the development of the company. Future Work Plans: A. Priority should be given to the employees who have been removed due to the evacuation of 15000 jobs at a time. Among the,m the most talented should be chosen for reemployment. By doing so the company might get freed of union problems. B. Areas in which the company faces problems [such as the reemployment, union formation etc ] should be identified for further analysis. C. Areas in which the training or special task performance is required should be identified first D. A working relationship should be implemented as suggested by Heil to make the employee relationship smooth and cooperative for all the changes the company brings in. E. To give way for employee and customer friendly relationship. Because both the customers and the employee form the human resource section. Steps involved in future human resource development strategies: 1. Human Resource Survey of the company and its mergers. 2. Analysis of the employee management relationship in all areas of the company. 3. Finding out the problematic area of development. 4. Implementing employee friendly approach 5. Implementing the information of special training for the employees 6. Implementing customer employee relationship as an important aspect of the company .7. Implementing communication plan between the management and the employee, which is better idea proposed by Heil, which in turn will give way for a friendly relationship. 8.Implementing training programs for the remaining employees to tackle the work load, as the company expects its remaining employees to combine the work load of the added duties. 9. Implementing incentive plans. The functions of the human resource have extended its areas of interest not only in the employees relationship but also in the customer friendly relationship, this is what the Delta Airlines expects. “Organizationally, human resource management has gone from being concerned only with the operational issues of personnel to include the more strategic, business level concerns of the organization itself. Human resource departments might also be concerned about the operations of key suppliers and customers! Managerially, human resource professionals are working more closely with the line, to some extent a customer of the human resource department” [Human Resource Management Overview 2006]. On the whole the human resource strategies should be focused on employee friendly relationship, and free communication source, and customer friendly relationship with the management as well as the employees. The customers are the target groups and next come the employees. To reach the target the employee relationship should be maintained in a smooth level with the management and the special task training should be carried out so that the employees could cope up the changes inside the working environment. References: Wilson.P.John Human Resource Development:learning and training for individuals and organisations”Kogan Page UK. 1999 Allen Cattle “Performance Management and Human Resource Development” in Human Resource Development :Learning and Training individuals and organisations edited by Wilson.P.John Kogan Page UK. 1999 “How can organisations manage Internal Change Successfully?. Online available form http://www.key-strategy.com/reports/fmanagechange.html Human Resource Management an Overview. Online available form http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~ckieatvi/Human_resource_management.htm Human Resource Management , “Steps in developing HRM strategy”. online available from . http://www.accel-team.com/human_resources/hrm_08a.html Read More