British Airways

British Airways

British Airways

Introduction

Since its inception, British Airways has been one of the largest airlines in Europe. As time passed by, the organization confronted challenges as well as growth. One of the most crucial challenges that British Airways faced was the challenge of relations of employees with their employers. Several strikes were carried out by its workers due to various issues. A few HR strategies are devised in this report that can be implemented by British Airways for solving such issues. In 2011, British Airways merged with Spain's Iberia Airlines. The merger had impacted several regions of the company including HRM. Its impact on HRM is discussed in this report.

Four HR strategies that could be implemented by British Airways

The Human Resource strategies that could be implemented by British Airways in order to resolve the issues of employees are as following:

British Airways should start a proper performance measurement program that defines its plans, policies, and resources. This will cause a positive impact on the company as the plans or policies devised by the company will be evaluated for determination of their effects on the company and its employees. Therefore, corrective measures will be executed. Employees' performance measurement and subsequent reward on performing well will motivate the employees in their jobs. A proper performance measurement program would keep the employees of the company away from getting involved in activities such as strike. In the long run, such a program will bring performance effectiveness in the company.

British Airways should adopt the strategy of Employee Participation. Employee participation incorporates a high degree of joint decision making between employees and management. It implies dilution of the 'right to manage' by employers and some extent of power sharing. Therefore the associated practices of employee participation are resisted by employers at most times. Employee participation is produced from employees' desire to have their influences over decisions in the organization which have an indirect or a direct effect on them (Anonymous, 2010, p. 291). As the British airways got privatized in 1987, its union strength got weakened. Due to this, the employees were unable to have their say in decisions of organization that had an impact on them. Employee participation can prove to be a solution to this problem.

British airways should appoint a person whose responsibility is to carry out surveys of employee opinion at regular intervals of time on various significant issues. The issues may include organization culture, organization leadership, employee relations, benefits preferences, equal opportunity employment and so forth. The results of the surveys should be communicated to all employers as well as employees to bring about positive changes in the organization. This would help British Airways in resolving the issue of employee retention and would minimize the number of strikes by its employees (Appelabum & Fewster, n.d., p. 75).

British Airways should adopt the flexible firm model of Atkinson. It should be adopted by the organization in order to satisfy the requirements of managers and employers along with satisfying requirements of employees such as recognition, security, high ...