Unit 21 Human Resource Management Assignment Solution

Unit 21 Human Resource Management Assignment Solution

Task 1

A. Explain the difference between personnel and human resource management and assess your role and responsibilities as a line manager.

Personnel management is the process of overall management of the human resources available to an organisation. So personnel management is a process of managing everything related to the employees of the organisation including the policies applicable to them, their payrolls and the various services available to them. But the process of personnel management doesn’t involve deep into the activities of the employees like the process of human resource management. Personnel management process is concerned with the management of the human resources and the benefits to the organisation. But the process of human resource management is concerned with the benefits received by the human resources along with the organisation. The process of human resource management can be defines as an extension of the process of personnel management which focuses on the management of the human resources and benefits to both the human resources and organisation (Edgar & Geare, 2005).
British Airways is one of the biggest and most popular airlines in the entire world. This airways, as the name suggests is based out of the UK. The British Airways provides its customers with international air travels to more than 500 destination across more than 100 countries. The headquarter of the British Airways is established in an airport named Heathrow and Gatwick. A controlling board named British Airways Board was established by the government of UK to manage British Overseas Airways and British European Airways. There were two more airways managed by the British Airways Board named Northeast Airlines and Cambrian Airways. March and Gilies (1983) said that industrial relation and day to day personnel activities are part of the responsibilities of the line and staff managers. The conclusion defined by Tyson and Fell suggests that role and activities of the personnel managers allow the enhancement of all the managerial tasks. The personnel managers identify and determine the optimum time of implementing a technique to convince the line managers in the client side to buy the products and services (Grugulis & Wilkinson, 2002).

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is a concept in which most of the focus is kept on the fact of keeping all the employees in the organisation busy and occupied with their respective assigned activities. The line managers in an organisation are responsible for the management of the team members reporting to them. If a line manager focuses on the positive aspects of an employee and tries to motivate the employees, then the employees of the organisation achieve maximum employee engagement. This in turn leads to increase in the efficiency and sales of the organisation.

Disciplining Employees

It is the responsibility of the line managers to ensure that the employees of the organisation adhere to the various policies and guidelines present in the organisation. If the line manager is not following the policies and guidelines, then the employees reporting him or her will also ignore the policies and guidelines. So the line managers should ensure the adherence to the organisational policies and guidelines by themselves and all the other employees reporting to them. The line managers should also ensure that an employee not following organisational policies and guidelines is met with proper actions (Guest, Michie, Conway & Sheehan, 2003).

Performance Appraisal

The human resource managers in an organisation are responsible for the establishment of the performance appraisal process. But it is the responsibility of the line managers to carry out these activities by interacting directly with the employees. The line managers assess, monitor and review the employees to determine the rating they are eligible for. This in turn allows the line managers to have one-to-one discussions with the employees reporting to him or her. The line managers are responsible for maintaining professionalism and ethics in the process of performance appraisal.

B. Analyse the organizational environment and discuss how it impacts the HRM function in your organization.

The Human Resource department of British Airways launched a range of innovative ideas by which it could achieve the organizational goal. The Human Resource Management department segregated the corporate objectives of the company so as to create a set of key objectives by which they could achieve the organizational goals. A few main objectives of the company and as to how were these objectives achieved by effectively using the management skills of the Human Resource department are as follows:

Environment-

British Airways is very much proactive when it comes to the activities which ensure a number of positive effects on the environment. So the British Airways is trying to reduce the sound and carbon dioxide produced by the flights.

Ethics-

The management of the British Airways has established effective and efficient ethical policies and guidelines which keeps all the employees of the organisation out of any unethical activity. The line managers of the organisation are responsible up to an extent for the ethical behaviour of the employees. The employees being involved in any unethical activity are faced by some suitable amount of punishment.

Society-

The British Airways carry out a number of corporate social responsibilities in order to make the world a better place for the unprivileged children. The corporate social activities of the organisation are being very successful in the recent times.

Business-

The organisation should be focused on the manufacturing process of the products to ensure very high quality of the product which satisfies the needs of the customers. The organisation should also focus on the marketing and promotional activities for its products and services which allows it to increase its efficiency and sales.
The changes in the laws and regulations by the government have affected the operating of the British Airways in both positive and negative way. The status of the global economy in recent times has also led British Airways into a lot of loss due to recession and heavy decrease in the demand of the air travel. This also caused a heavy drop in the sale of the tickets of British Airways. This affects all the stakeholders and shareholders of British Airways in a negative way. The shareholders of the British Airways were also affected by the deterioration of the global financial status. The shareholders were being unable to get the expected return on their investments in the British Airways. The financial institutions who lent some financial resources to the British Airways also were going in a lot of loss. This created a situation of bad image for the organisation.

Task 2

A. Explain and assess the role of human resource planning in your organization and discuss the stages of the planning process

The human resources of an organisation is one of the most important resources available to the organisation which is used in each and every business activities of the organisation. So every business processes in an organisation at any point of time needs human resources. The major requirement for success in any organisation is the optimised use of the human resources. The optimised use of the human resources in an organisation ensures the timely completion of all the business processes with the maximum efficiency. This in turn allows the organisation to get closer to its goals and objectives. The process of human resource planning is a process which ensures that the total requirement of the human resources by every process in the organisation is satisfied to allow effective and efficient completion.
As discussed earlier each of the business process in an organisation has a particular demand for the human resources. The objective of the human resources planning process is to satisfy these requirements as soon as possible. If the sufficient amount of human resources are provided to the business processes in the organisation having specific demands, then the processes are successfully completed. The balance between the supply and demand of human resources in an organisation allows the organisation to increase its efficiency and hence profits. The balance between the supply and demand for the human resources in an organisation is very much essential and difficult.
The process of human resource planning ensure that all the demand of the organisation's demand of the human resources are identified, anticipated and satisfied within a short period of time without any damage to the business process. This process consists of a number of stages. In the first stage, the management of the organisation analyses all the processes present in the entire organisational structure. According to this analysis, the management of the organisation determines the total number of human resources required for the business processes of the organisation. In the second stage, the management of the organisation determines the generic reasons of a change in the total demand of human resources in the organisation and also considers the chances of abrupt change in the total demand of the human resources. This stage allows the management to analyse the frequency of changes in the demand of human resources in the organisation. So the management becomes able to anticipate a change in the demand of the human resources by the various business processes of the organisation. In the next stage, the management of the organisation determines all the possible alternatives of the sources from which the organisation can recruit human resources. The human resource planning process also includes the process of choosing the most suitable source of the human resources depending on the situation and the business process(Schuler & Jackson, 2008).

B. Analyse the recruitment and selection process in your chosen organization and assess your contribution as a deputy to the Human Resource Manager.

As discussed earlier, the human resources are one of the most important resources available to any organisation. The optimum usage of these resources ensure that all the business processes running in the organisation are completed efficiently and effectively. So the success of a business depends heavily on the people working in it. This requires all the organisations to focus a lot and utilise a lot of its resources on the process of recruiting the people to work in various roles in the organisation. British Airways also ensures that all the employees working in the organisation are competent and talented enough to complete all the tasks assigned to them with the maximum efficiency. So the organisation uses a number of recruitment and selection techniques to select the employees from a number of candidates applying for an opening in the organisation. The human resource managers in the organisation are responsible for the choice of the suitable selection technique to be used in the organisation. British Airways puts a lot of focus on the interpersonal skills and communication skills of the candidates as most of the roles in the organisation require direct communication of the employees with the customers. So the initial screening process of British Airways looks for the excellent communication and interpersonal skills in the resumes of the candidates. Then the human resource managers look for the other required skills and experience in the resumes and select a number of candidates for further processing. The next selection technique used by the human resource managers in British Airways is the process of interviewing the selected candidates to gather information on their skills and experiences. If a candidate is selected in the interview process, then he or she has to undergo a practical test in a simulatedreal-time scenario. This allows the human resource managers in British Airways to determine the suitability of having the candidate in the real-time scenario. After that, the selected candidates have a discussion with the human resource managers one by one. This allows the human resource managers in British Airways to identify, analyse and understand the future aspirations of the candidates along with all other information (Newell, 2005). This is followed by a discussion of the benefits and salary provided to the employee in British Airways which concludes the recruitment and selection process of the organisation.

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Task 3

A. Discuss how motivational theories help explain the level of staff motivation in your organization and critically assess the link between motivational and reward. Explain how you would carry out job evaluation and determines pay

The human resource managers in British Airways are responsible for the process of job evaluation which involves an activity of determining the pay of a person joining the organisation newly. The process of job evaluation involves a number of stage in which the human resource managers analyse and determine the requirement of the particular role in the success of the organisation. This provides a base for the human manager in terms of the suitable pay grade of the new employee. Then the human managers look into the level of knowledge and experience held by the candidate. The HR managers in British Airways try to compare the skill requirements of the opening in the organisation along with the skills and experience held by the candidate. All of these information allows the HR managers to decide the pay grade and benefits to be provided to the candidate.
For the organisation to be successful, all the employees must perform at their maximum efficiency. To work in maximum efficiency, one of the most important preconditions is that the employees must be very motivated and confident. There are a number of motivational theories which are implemented in the organisation. These motivational theories allow the human resource managers in the British Airways to analyse and understand the motivation level of the employees working in the organisation. There are a certain personal traits which allows the motivational level of the employees to be determined(Bigley & Steers, 2003).

B. Discuss how you would assess the effectiveness of the reward system in the chosen organization. Explain how employee performance monitored and measured in your organization.

Motivation is said to be the key to improvement in performance. The key function of any manager is to get work done by their employees. The aim of the British Airways is to achieve success and good will in the market and thus the employees working in this organization help the organization in achieving these objectives. If all the employees provide their best performance then it will be easy for them to achieve the organizational goals. But in order to do so the organization need to keep their employees motivated. It is then that an effective management and leadership skills come in play in order to keep them motivated. In today’s time the business scenario is seeing a lot of changes in the functioning of the market. Thus it has become more important for the managers to keep their staff motivated in order to optimize their performance. A motivated employee is beneficial to the organization because he is then in that state is able to give the best output and if an employee gives his best then it naturally helps British Airways in achieving its objectives. If the employees of British Airways are motivated then he can create different strategies and produce products and services which will make the company have a competitive edge in the ever growing market. Motivated employees can bring about stability in themselves. Such employees then do not think of leaving the organization and thus work for them for a long run. The strategy to give money to the new entrants during their training weeks by British Airways is a clever way to ensure who all are their loyal employees (Paauwe & Boselie, 2005). Stability in workforce will lead to a good brand image of British Airways in the market which will further attract more capable employees to join those (Bigley & Steers, 2003). When an employee is motivated and gives his best then he has more chances of getting promoted.

Task 4

A. Discuss the causes of termination of employment with an organization and compare with the exit procedures used in your another similar organization

Employees are said to be the backbone of an organization as they are the ones who serve the customers of the organization. Every organization plans to hire the most skilled of the human resources so that they can help the organization in achieving its goal. Whether the organization is big or small they all hire employees who can help them manage their other resources, market and operate their businesses in the market. As the organization plans to hire talented employees who they feel will fit their company’s culture, budget of the company at times increases in order to fulfil this need. British Airways too adopted various measures by which it could hire the most talented employees but at times such a situation occurs that the company needs to terminate its resources for some or the other reason. British Airways terminated its employees for various reasons; some of them are as follows.

1. Reducing Budget- When British Airways profits were down then they had to terminate some of its employees. The company was not able to keep all of their staff members. As a result of this the company had to terminate its employees so that they are able to maximize their projects. The company terminates its employees on the basis of how essential the employee is to the company.
2. Performance-Another reason when the British Airways terminates its employees is when they are not able to fulfil the duties that have been assigned to them by the company. Each employee is given a particular job description when he or she is hired by the company. But when the employee is not able to fulfil the role then the company has to terminate them. British Airways also had to do the same when its employees were not able to fulfil the duties expected of them. The employees of British Airways fall short of achieving their goals then the managers of the company are faced with the problem of making a decision of whom to terminate and whom not to terminate. Poor performance of the employees can lead to British Airways from terminating its staff members.

The exit process of both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are different. All the employees getting their employment ceased in the organisation has to go through this process of having an exit interview. In the exit interview of both the organisations, the employees are asked a number of generic and specific questions regarding their employment in the organisation. The answers provided by the employees to these questions allow the human resource managers to determine the various areas of improvement and development in the organisational structure.
In British Airways, the senior management engage in a discussion to determine the number of people to be terminated at any point of time. This activity of the organisation includes the opinions of the managers and members of various teams in the organisation working in different portfolios and profiles. But in case of Virgin Atlantic, the number of employees to be terminated is always determined by the panel of the senior management only. The senior management of the Virgin Atlantic determine this amount by analysing the current situation of the organisation in a number of aspects such as profits, shares, performance and revenue.
After deciding on the number of people that needs to be terminated and from which department they need to be terminated BA then concentrates on how they need to carry out the termination process. Both the companies have different views about the termination process. BA plans to terminate people who have not been performing well while Virgin Atlantic terminates people who are coming of age and are not that useful to the company (Park, Park & Zhang, 2003). BA holds a meeting in which the final list of the employees to be terminated are decided and a separate application is sent to all the employees. On the other hand Virgin Atlantic issues an online notice of the number of employees that needs to be terminated. BA analyses the performance of its employees over the years and then decides who all need to be terminated, they are very strict in their protocols as they believe they have a high image to maintain in the market. While Virgin Atlantic terminates people who are old and do not have that much zeal to work ahead (Kalleberg, 2009).

B. Evaluate the impact of legal and regulatory framework when arranging employment cessation or termination using your organization as an example.

There are a number of legal and regulatory policies which affect the termination of employment in any organisation. British Airways also has a number of such policies and regulations. One of the most important legal and regulatory frameworks suggests that all the employees working in British Airways should be provided with all of their rights.In the situation of termination of employment also all the employees should be provided with the opportunity to utilise their rights. According to the legal and regulatory frameworks, each of the employees whose employment is getting terminated should be provided with clear and genuine reason for the same(Befort, 2001). The employment laws in the British Airways restricts all the employees to serve a particular service period before the employment is terminated. This allows the human resource managers to look for a replacement to handle all the activities assigned to the employee in the organisation. Another regulatory framework used by the employees of the organisation is the process of establishing a trade union which is a group of employees with a number of common goals. In this situation, the trade union handles all the communication with the management regarding the cessation of the employment for an employee. Another legal framework restricts the managers in the organisation to discriminate the employees working with them on any basis such as sex, age, religion, race, culture or family background(Barnard, 2012).Another regulatory and legal framework restricts all the employees in the organisation to go through a same set of procedure at the time of cessation of their employment irrespective of their roles and positions in the organisation. The management of the organisation are restricted to pay the employee the payment for the notice period even the employee resigned or was terminated.

References

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Edgar, F., & Geare, A. (2005). HRM practice and employee attitudes: different measures–different results. Personnel Review, 34(5), pp.534-549.
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Schuler, R. S., & Jackson, S. E. (2008). Strategic human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Smith, P., & Morton, G. (2001). New Labour’s reform of Britain’s employment law: The devil is not only in the detail but in the values and policy too. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39(1), pp.119-138.