Asses the issues involving British Airways at Human Resources in terms of Culture - Essay Example

Assess the issues involving British Airways at Human Resources in terms of Culture Team s: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 British Airways: Assessment of human Resources issues using theory of culture 3 Conclusion and Recommendation 4 References 5 Introduction The theory of culture in organization deals with the approach that is adopted by the management and people to carry out business operations. The organizational culture controls the actions and the behaviour of the employees in line with the mission, vision and goals of the enterprise.

The theory of organizational culture suggests that workplace culture is established on the basis of the core values and belief system of the business house and demands compliance of code of conduct on the part of the employees to attain sustainability in the industry. British Airways: Assessment of human Resources issues using theory of culture British Airways is the flagship airlines company of UK and is the largest airline company in terms of the size of fleet and the number of international flights and destinations.

British Airways has a healthy organizational culture where they strive to inspire and motivate their employees so that the needs of the customers and the society could be fulfilled by them. In the 1980s and the 1990s, the UK based airlines banked on the brand royal image and the goodwill and increased the scale of airlines business (British Airways 1). After earning a high volume of operating profits amounting to £875 million in 2008, the organizational development programme named “Compete 2012” was launched with a view to change its airlines operations with focus on changing the resistant culture in the UK based airlines (Schein 57).

After this step of bringing about the change in organizational culture, British Airways incurred a huge loss of £401 million in 2009 followed by recession, deregulation of airlines operations and the changes in the organizational structure. By 2010, the strength of the senior management reduced by one-third and the organizational development team reduce from 19 people to 5. The chairman of British Airways, however, focussed on keeping the organizational momentum moving in times of crisis (Witte and Muijen 75).

With a reduced workforce, British Airways strived to follow the cultural change in the organization with efforts to become a market oriented and high performing airlines in the global market. The application of the theory of culture in the business operations of British Airways revealed that in the fight for survival in crisis scenario, the senior management emphasized on setting aside redundant work and adopting enthusiastic approach by the working managers and employees to bring about cultural change in the organization (Schabracq 62).

As a plan for bringing about cultural change, the employees of British Airways exhibited best behavioural standards and served the customers and the communities to the highest level of satisfaction (Frost 84). Conclusion and Recommendation The theory of culture has been applied to the airlines business of British Airways. It could be recommended that in the time of crisis, the senior management should stand by their decisions in terms of changes to be implemented in the organizational culture.

In case of British Airways, the events of recession and deregulation of airlines industry led to the decrease in strength of the senior management and the organizational development team. In such a scenario, British Airways decided to cut down the volumes of redundant work and instilled confidence among its employees to undertake enthusiastic approach in their daily work. This helped to transform the airlines into a customer centric organization as per the mandate for cultural change in future.

References British Airways. 2008/09 Annual Reports and Accounts. 2014. Web. 08 March. 2014. . Schein, Edgar. Organizational Culture and Leadership. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Witte, Karel. and Jaap, Muijen. Organizational Culture. Essex: Psychology Press, 2000. Print. Frost, Peter. Reframing Organizational Culture. London: SAGE Publications, 1991. Print. Schabracq, Marc. Changing Organizational Culture: The Change Agents Guidebook. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Print.