Human Resource Management in a Dubai-based Airline Company - Case Study Example

1 Human Resource Management in Firm X Firm X is a Dubai-based airline company that operates both domestic and international flights to several destinations around the world. Many of Firm X’s employees are drawn from different countries and cultures for the purpose of serving the Firm’s international customers with excellence and comfort (Emirates, 2011a). And like every big corporation, Firm X has been faced with a lot of human resource management issues, some of which are already mapped out on paper as strategic issues to be decisively dealt with but which are practically difficult to implement. Cultural Compatibility One of these strategic HR management issues facing Firm X today is cultural compatibility among its many employees who came from different countries to work together. Personally, I had observed some hitches in communication among the Firm X’s flight attendants while using the airline. They sometimes argued with one another and appeared to physically misunderstand one another. This attitude is contrary to the Firm’s HR Management Plan to create a workforce that could homogenously function together without dissension and constant disagreement among its culturally diverse employees (Emirates, 2011b). 2 Theoretically, people tend to stick to their traditional culture whenever they found themselves among people of different orientations. In other words, the idea of cultural identity always undermines the team-building capability. When workers decide to remain rooted in values and attitudes only common to their cultures, they consequently reduce the performance of their groups and teams as other workers would respond mildly to their cultural manifestations (Fine, 1995). Take for instance, an Asian manager at Firm X would feel disrespected if his or her subordinates hold out a long argument on a particular. This is sharp contrast to his or her culture where subordinates rarely get the chance to dispute their superiors’ decisions. As a matter of fact, open insistence on cultural identity has become a serious matter worrying the human resource managers at Firm X. Though, the problem seems to be under control as new employees of the Firm are made to undergo multicultural training before the commencement of their work; however, it is still difficult to handle this problem effectively. Why this remains a serious problem is that the HR managers at Firm X may either have no adequate information about the effect of persistent cultural identity among Firm X’s employees or they have completely decided to overlook the negative impacts of the matter. It is true that some human resource managers think that multicultural workers would try to iron out their differences when they are working on a project. This action is expected from professionals who have been trained to accommodate each other’s differences when carrying out their individual duties as members of a group. But this expectation has not always been easy to accomplish and, when left unattended to, could 3 lead to a waste of time as employees would spend more time on settling quarrels than concentrating on their job. Firm X claims to be doing everything in its power to encourage true multiculturalism among its employees from diverse cultures and countries, the efforts are still inadequate as there are instances of physical disagreements among the employees. Firm X needs to implement a proactive procedure to handle this issue in order to create cohesion among its employees. This cohesion is highly needed as a driving force for better performance (Fine, 1995). The Solution for Better Employee Relationship When there is a good relationship among the employees, they would be able to cooperate easily on many fronts to help the organization achieve its goals or objectives (Fine, 1995). Firm X needs to set up some mechanisms to address the problem of cultural differences. This entails carrying out diversity training for all the employees of Firm X. Diversity training will surely create better interpersonal relationship among the workers so as to facilitate their working collaboration in a positive way. It is important to create a multicultural setting or environment where every employee of the firm will function naturally without any form of cultural hindrances (Fine, 1995). To achieve this important program, the following processes must be seriously taken into consideration: Giving Periodical Information about Multiculturalism:- Firm X should establish a periodical presentation of multicultural values for its employees. This would encourage 4 them to respect and condone the differences in their colleagues’ cultures. This procedure could be carried out in weekly or monthly workshops, seminars and by distributing multicultural publications like pamphlets and workplace guides that would help the Firm’s employees benefit from the differences in their cultures (Fine, 1995). Raising the Consciousness of the Workers towards Multiculturalism:- Firm X should constantly work towards raising the consciousness of its employees to recognize the importance of multiculturalism. Instead of pretending that adult people from different cultures can learn how to interact with one another and work peacefully together, the Firm needs to remind each employee the needs and urgency of respecting each other cultures. This approach would go a long way to establishing mutual trust and respect among Firm X’s workers (Fine, 1995). Communicative Skill Building:- There is no doubt that the provision of multicultural information and raising of Firm X’s employees’ consciousness towards multiculturalism would foster good interpersonal relationship among them. This could also build their communicating skill as they interact more with one another while undertaking their jobs (Fine, 1995). The suggestion above is very practical and quite useful for Firm X if it hopes to encourage its employees to work in collaboration so as to achieve the prime goals of the organization. Failure to implement the suggestion may threaten the unity among the workers and reduce their level of performance. As an organization that solely relies on 5 the actions of its employees to satisfy its international customers, Firm X needs to portray a picture of multiculturalism in all its operations. HRM Challenges Facing Firm X’s Continuous HRM Training and Development Without doubt, some of Firm X’s employees are more comfortable working for the company than the others; this may be due to their perceptibly cultural superiority than the others. Arab and European employees of Firm X always feel at home with the airline, while African and Asian workers may feel a bit out of place. Hence, it takes experienced human resource management to address this issue and make each and every employee comfortable for working for the airline. However, Firm X faces some of the HRM challenges that threaten to undermine the effectiveness of its training and development processes. These include but are not limited to: Apparent Individuality:-Some of Firm X’s employees still demonstrate a great deal of individuality over group or team spirit. This seriously challenges every other program that had been designed for group work. Individuality makes employees to reinforce their individual culture above the need for all-encompassing multiculturalism (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998). An individualistic employee would always identify the differences between himself or herself and other workers; and it may be difficult to work cooperatively with the other employees on many group-based assignments. This kind of attitude would be anti-productive for the company in the long term. 6 Communication Hindrances:-It is true that Firm X adopts English as the basis of communication among its international employees; however, it is still difficult for all of them to successfully communicate in English. Poor knowledge of a common language like English could reduce the amount of useful information that is passed from one employee to another (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998). For easy and successful collaboration, all employees should be able to enjoy meaningful communication with one another. This will remove communication barrier that may cause some misinformation among them. Firm X’s human resource managers should work hard in facilitating the communication among its employees—this may mean breaking the barrier of communicating in different languages and encouraging use English more as a single language of communication. This requires constant training and exposure of Firm X’s employees to English so that they can be able to master the language for communication. Fair Implementation of Employment Policies:-It is important that Firm X implement fair employment policies for all its employees. This will serve as a motivation for the employees to contribute their best in developing the airline’s objectives through efficient execution of their duties. If the company’s human resource managers can be wise enough to always remember that workers want to be treated with the same amount of recognition, irrespective of their cultural origins, all Firm X’s employees could be encouraged to work in collaboration to achieve the organizational goals of the company 7 (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998). No matter the quality of training or employee-development plan adopted, as long as there is discriminatory policies of treating employees, this would constitute a huge problem for the human resource managers to confront. Employee Evaluation:-Firm X should set up fair employee evaluation method that is multicultural in its approach and does not deal differently with employees based on their cultural origins (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998). This entails that European or Arab employees should not be considered better than their Asian or African counterparts and thus receive more favourable assessments. Human resource managers at Firm X should establish a neutral system of assessing the performance of all the workers so as to discover the true nature of contribution of all the employees. In summary, it is almost impossible for Firm X to undertake a successful HRM training without paying serious attention to the challenges of individuality among its employees, the threat of communication hindrances, unfair employee evaluation procedure and unfair implementation of employee policies. The issue of employee development is a continuous process that requires the application of multicultural approaches to make it effective in a company like Firm X. This is because each of the employees has their idea of how cultural cohesion can be attained at their places of work. So, it requires the efforts of good human resource managers to harness all these ideas together and create a multicultural perspective that would be instrumental in helping Firm X overcome its HMR challenges from its multicultural workforce. 8 Conclusion As globalization creates several opportunities for companies to operate beyond its natural jurisdictions, there is no way that such companies will confront the problem of hiring multicultural employees who could have come from different parts of the world with different employment values. Therefore, it is important that these companies must have an effective scheme of creating a comfortable working environment for all workers in the company. As an international employer, Firm X must rise up to the many challenges it faces in creating a convenient environment for all its employees with different cultural perspectives. Even though the company prides itself on providing a great multicultural system to handle this issue; it is important that more work is needed in this area so as to be able to block the gap this has produced in Firm X’s human resource management. Firm X needs to undertake a practical HRM training and pay serious attention to the challenges of individuality among its employees, the threat of communication hindrances, unfair employee evaluation procedure and unfair implementation of employee policies. This is because the issue of employee development is a continuous process that requires the application of multicultural approaches to make it effective in a company like Firm X. 9 References Emirates, 2011a. Why Join the Emirates Group. [Online] Available at: . [Accessed 18 October 2011]. Emirates, 2011b. Cultural Diversity. [Online]. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2011]. Fine, M.G., 1995. Building Successful Multicultural Organizations: Challenges and Opportunities. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group. Gardenswartz, L., and Rowe, A. (1998). Managing diversity: a complete desk reference and planning guide. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Read More