Human Resource Management at SouthWest Airlines and Airport Express Train - Case Study Example

? Human Resource Management of the of the of the Question 3 The case study shows that both SouthWest Airlines and Airport Express Train have different business strategies. South West Airlines is one of the largest low cost carriers in the world. The target customers of the airline are mainly price sensitive travellers. It aims at keeping the flight fares lower than the price offerings of their competitors. However, the human resource department of South West Airlines is seen to hire highly experienced people and treat them like family. According to the organization, the employees should be highly engaged within the system as this would increase their work efficiency. The employees of the airline are aware that the organization is not only concerned about the satisfaction of the customers, but also about the employee security. SouthWest Airlines provides high job security to the employees to ensure their long term interest in staying with the organization. The compensation policies of the organization include heavy usage of collective payment for the performance. This policy is highly attractive for motivating the employees. The organization aims at hiring the candidates with the highest potential in order to improve the overall efficiency. Providing them with the appropriate training and development programs help them in adapting to the organizational culture, understand the pattern of job and finally, perform better. American Express Train is the member of the international niche of forty air links that perform the task of carrying the flying passengers from and to the airports. It is renowned in terms of human resource and maintenance of employee relations. The human resource policies of AET are similar to the policies adapted by South West airlines to some extent. Although both the organizations possess different set of business strategies, yet the human resource policies for meeting the goals and objectives of the organizations are similar. Thus, the alignment of the human resource policies and practices with the business strategies is very important for improving the performance of the organization. As the economic environment is evolving in a rapid manner, the change results in the shift of demands of customers and investors along with increase in the product and market competition. For competing successfully within the environment, the organizations require to improve their performances constantly by means of cost reduction, product innovation, process innovation and improvement in productivity as well as product or service quality. Performance of an organization consists of a broad concept including efficiency, productivity, effectiveness and competitiveness. Most of the researches have been done on the impact of the human resource management on the performance of an organization. In the year 1997, there had been a research conducted by Paauwe and Richardson which had encompassed thirty various studies in order to establish a relationship between the range of HR practices and the human resource management outcomes like, motivation, employee satisfaction, absenteeism, commitment and turnover. It had also focused on the relationship between these human resource management outcomes and the performance outcomes in the organizational level like, research and development, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, profit and many other factors. Research has also been done related to the theories of human resource management and performances and the ways in which they are linked with each other. Organizational performance is based upon the effectiveness with which the services or products are being offered to the customers. The human resources of the organizations are responsible for designing, producing and delivering these services. Thus, the organizational performance is highly dependent upon the human resource management policies of the system as these policies determine the individual performances of these employees (Thussu and Freedman 22; Ruppel 56). In this rapidly changing and competitive environment, the human resources form an important part of the sources for the competitive advantage. The human resources contribute in the sustainment of the competitive advantage by means of facilitating the creation of competencies which are generally firm specific. The strategic human resource management focuses on the establishment of the linkage between the strategic aims of the businesses and their implementation. Researches claim that there lies a positive relationship in between the larger adoption of human resources practices and the organizational performances. The association between the human resource and the organizational performance enables the HR managers to design programs for improving operational outcomes for the achievement of high organizational performances. As the human resources form an important part of the competitive advantage, human resource management holds an essential place within the organization. The way in which an organization manages the human resources, bears a remarkable influence and relationship with its performance. The functional responsibilities of human resource management include management in the following fields: Talent Training and development Performance management Compensations and benefits Organizational culture Diversity Employee communication Employee relation Health, security and safety Talent On the basis of the goals, objectives or business strategies of an organization, the functioning of the human resources will help to ensure the presence of a pipeline of talent for enhancing the performance or growth of an organization. It requires effective management of the turnover, wide pool of external candidates with high potential to fill the required positions, formulation of special programs for developing an internal bench of potential talent with the potentiality of taking over more responsible positions in a successful manner. The management of human resources helps in ensuring that the organization retains high potential or high performing talent by means of appropriate management of the training and development programs, coaching, mentoring, training, staffing, recruiting and retaining skilled talents, within the corporation. Performance management and allocation of rewards, on the basis of the performances, would help in the retention of skilled talents within the organization. Higher focus on the talent involves recruiting, staffing, hiring and training, building capabilities, developing talents, assessing, integrating, motivating and finally, retaining the skilled talents within the organization. It also involves executive development, employee management and succession planning. The successful organizations are very choosy while sourcing candidates from a wide pool of various applicants and make huge investments for their development. Performance Management Efficient performance management is another procedure by means of which the human resource policies and its functioning stimulate the success of an organization. The human resource policies also focus on the effective performance management framework. Implementation of an appropriate performance management system would help in building a well-defined performance expectation, linkage between performances and rewards and offering ongoing feedbacks. Training and Development Human Resource Management establishes as well as implements various training and development programs for ensuring the fact that the organization possesses the capabilities to achieve performance objectives and acquire the changing skills required for competing in the global market (Boddy 92). The training and development programs are very important for creating a pipeline of different candidates with the required skills or expertise to successfully play the leadership roles and handle more responsibilities. Culture The functioning of the human resource policies plays an important role in shaping the organizational culture (Rao 45). It ensures that the organizational values are easily communicated at every organizational level, thereby providing clarity to the behaviour that is expected from the employees and establishing a high performance culture within the organizations. These are few significant aspects of the human resources policies. Generally, the behaviour of an employee is inconsistent in relation to the organizational values. It is the responsibility of the human resource department to ensure that there remains compliance between the two factors. It also helps an organization in establishing and maintaining an increased level of employee engagement as well as employee commitment. Compensation and Benefits One of the key elements in the human resource functioning is to ensure that the compensation and benefit strategies are in alignment with the goals, objectives and business strategies of an organization as well as the organizational cultures (Leonard 1-21). The efficacy of the compensation and benefits program of the organizations are measured by its impact on the organizational performance and the extent till which it supports the potential talent strategy along with the reinforcement of desired organizational behaviours. Along with the efficacy, the compensation and benefit programs must have a high perceived value for the employees. It automatically enhances the individual performances of the employees, thereby increasing the overall performance of the organization. The human resource policies remain in partnership with the legal, treasury and corporate policies for ensuring that the funding remains in compliance with the compensation and benefits programs. Diversity The organizations possess a highly diversified and global workforce which represents both challenges as well as opportunities to maximize the organizational efficacy. Thus, the maintenance of a diversified workforce forms an important part of the human resource policies, where the human resource functioning ensures awareness related to the experience, qualities, working styles and other personal attributes like, age, gender, religion and ethnicity (Greenberg and Elliott 189-204). Leveraging the prosperity of the diversity within the workforce would help in enhancing the business performance along with high performance and innovation. Employee Relations As already stated above, the human resource policies aim at developing a positive work environment and work culture with the focus on equal employment opportunities, consistency and fairness in the behaviour towards the employees, efficient communication between the management and the employees and better dispute resolutions (Lyu 779-791; Phillips 47-49). The human resource policies also check that the employees remain fully involved in their job and have high emotional connection with it. The policies also assure the alignment of their work with the organizational mission, goals and objectives so that it improves the efficiency of the organizational performance. Employee Communications By the process of ensuring the association of the performance of the workforce with the organizational objectives, understanding the employee concerns by means of employee surveys or focus groups, followed by educating the employees about the changes in the human resource policies, together enhance the organizational effectiveness even further (Taylor and Perry 209-217; Veil, Buehner and Palenchar 111-116). Health, Security and Safety The health and security or safety of the human resource within the organization should be the primary objective of the human resource policies. The human resource policies include establishment of procedures, frameworks and cultures, which are planned for reducing or eliminating the risk related to illness or injuries of the employees. All the employees expect to work in a secured environment which would be free from violence and all sorts of external and internal threats for ensuring personal safety. The human resource policies ensure this security and safety of the employees by means of establishment of various policies for fraud prevention, crisis management, occupational safety, rules and regulations associated with the health of the employees and other different types of workplace safeguards. Thus, it is evident that the human resource policies always remain aligned with the business strategies and help the organization to attain success. These policies have a positive impact on several factors such as, employee motivation, skills and employee satisfaction. It is due to this reason that the human resource policies play an important role within the organization. The human resource is highly responsible for the sustainment of competitive advantage of the organization through the creation of core competencies and forming linkages between the business strategies and their execution within the organization. The aforementioned discussions claim that there lies a positive relationship between the better implementation of human resources practices and the organizational performances. This positive association between the human resource and the performance of an organization helps the human resource managers to plan for programs that would enable improved operational outcomes for attainment of higher organizational performances. The human resources play an essential role in the attainment of competitive advantage by the organizations. It is due to this reason that the human resource management holds an essential position within the organization. Thus, it is very important for every organization to align their human resource policies and practices with their business strategies, goals and objectives in order to improve their performance and achieve success. Works Cited Boddy, David. Management, an Introduction. Edinburgh: Person Education Limited, 2008. Print. Greenberg, Josh, and Charlene Elliott. “A Cold Cut Crisis: Listeriosis, Maple Leaffoods, and the Politics Of Apology.” Canadian Journal of Communication 2009(34): 189-204. Print. Leonard, B. “CEO Compensation Packages Tied To Performance.” HR Magazine 1994(39.4): 1-51. Print. Lyu, Chen. “A Comparative Study of Crisis Communication Strategies between Mainland China and Taiwan: The Melamine-Tainted Milk Powder Crisis in the Chinese Context.” Public Relations Review 2012(38): 779– 791. Print. Phillips, B. “Crisis Communication.” Financial Executive, April 2013: 47-49. Print. Rao. Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Excel Books India, 2007. Print. Ruppel, W. Not-for-profit accounting made easy. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Taylor, M., and D. C. Perry. 2004. “Diffusion of Traditional and New Media Tactics in Crisis Communication.” Public Relations Review 2004(31): 209-217. Print. Thussu, Daya Kishan, and Des Freedman. War and the Media: Reporting Conflict 24/7. London: SAGE, 2003. Print. Veil, Shari R., Tara Buehner and Michael J. Palenchar. “A Work-In-Process Literature Review: Incorporating Social Media In Risk And Crisis Communication.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 2011(19.2): 110-122. Print. Read More