HRM 300 Group Case Analysis Report

Case One: Indian Airlines

Maam Rhowena Cayoca-Panizales, MBA

Onnel Dalisay Khrysalis Mara Hipolito Leslie Jane Isugan Jurilex Maglinte Abbei Rose Macapendeg Ciara Mariel Mellejor

July 09, 2011 Saturday

Problem Statement

How can Indian Airlines manage to solve the human resource problems that were attributed to its lack of proper manpower planning and underutilization of existing manpower?

Sub-problem

What are some ways that could lessen the expenses of IA given that the ones who benefit from it are the employees, and not the passengers?

Objectives

To create specific rules for employees salaries and benefits increases. To implement monthly medical check-up and frequent psychological therapy. To develop proper training and development strategies for the HR department. To provide better services and network for the company. To develop efficient and guaranteed manpower planning. SWOT Analysis for Indian Airlines

Strengths Has a large fleet composed of 51 aircrafts. All staffs are experienced plus the addition of new, younger and dynamic crew. Have a strict and dedicated flight departure schedules.

Weaknesses Huge workforce that needs a lot of money to maintain but the outputs is still low. Attitude of the staff due to the inconsistency of the airlines management and lack of policies.

Has a large network. The Government is assisting them. Serves to a lot of cities, both national and international ones.

There is interference from a sector of the Government who in return does not have the expertise on the issue at hand. Decisions are made in haste without proper evaluation, flexibility for future vision is not considered. Too focused on pleasing the unions. Workforce is mostly from the ageing group. Securing a job in the airline is easy as there are no basic educational qualifications prescribed even for the senior executive posts. HR is not focusing on cost efficiency as well as long term benefits when making decisions. HR makes decisions without proper planning of strategy and structure. There is a huge mismatch with the employees in correspondence of their skills, knowledge and abilities to the required jobs.

Opportunities Corporations are still showing interest in Indian Airlines

Threats Would always be compared to its competitors.

Chance of enhancing the management of the people and income after being freed from the social and political obligations, Industry in tourism is starting to increase again. Dollar rate is weakening. The subsidized fares for flights in the North-East are encouraging.

Widespread media coverage during the frequent strikes that happens damages the airlines reputation. Workers as well as pilots in the Indian Airlines are high and some deem to be unrealistic already. The market share of Indian Airlines is falling behind to that of Jet Airways. Other airlines are increasing their capacities in service and management.

Alternative courses of action

Given to the case in Indian Airlines that its problems were avoidable and somewhat obvious though it was handled correctly to the point that the problem dragged on for a couple of years and it costs the airlines dearly as it supposed to be the means to retain the airlines market against its competitors when privatization of the airline industry in India was initiated. 1. India Airlines should have a strong stance in making deals and compromises with the unions and should be mindful if demands made by unions is not just feasible but also justifiable enough to Create a mutual advantage for both the union and the company and put counter-offers or at last resort deny any sort of compromise only as last resort to union demands.

Pros: The companys strong stance would essentially put an impression that the company as a strong company not plainly in the general sense but more importantly it will make an impression to investors that the company has a stable, efficient and effective people in management. This would stem unions from overpowering the company in issuing or bargaining of demands that easy. The possibility of some unions abusing their power as a means of sapping the companys resources or to say pleading for demands that are too favourable to the unions and too unfavourable for the company. Much more the ability of the unions to easily demand and push through demands that can be stated as unnecessary demands. Cons: With my alternative stating a possibility of ruling out any compromise by the company and to deny a unions demands of course as a last resort or put up counter-offers that is beneficial to

both, but may not be seemingly beneficial to union/s demanding changes will cause tensions between the two parties. Strikes and other forms of protests by labor unions will nonetheless cause losses to the company. 2. A stricter and unbiased general oversight on the company especially in its Human Resource and Financial departments of Indian airlines as it is the most troublesome portion of the company as it was portion of which was very mismanaged and has cause great losses to a very big company like Indian Airlines.

Pros: This will certainly aid the company in its struggle to its initial plan of improving the company externally or to customer-related services but as well as the services that is internally related like in the management as it would safeguard any form of corruption and mismanagement cause by any individual or group of individuals that would cause the general well being of everyone that is involved in the company notably investors and employees. This will also establish or improve cost-cutting measures that will create more efficiency to the companys economic management as it was sited that some of the problems that cause huge losses to the company was due to financial mismanagement that is very relative to HR mismanagement like employee benefits and salaries. Cons: This action would cause a possible loss to company in the form of good though not properly managed employees in the company that would even include those in the middle and upper managerial positions as some would resort to transfer to other airline companies as they would like to find companies offering better wages and benefits nevertheless it will not much create impact as

most of the operational employees and in the managerial ones were deemed inefficient. 3. Specifically in the HR department, oversight concern the entire workforce of should be intensified as some tend to lax out due to weak if not poor management of human resources like those of the pilots and engineers. Downsizing of the managerial positions is advised and also to include would be an overhaul of its recruitment process most notably its qualifications if a certain applicant is qualified to the given job the applicant wishes to get or not.

Pros: A drastic improvement on the efficiency on the services offered by the company will more or less take place. As it would not necessarily shove but will push employees to improve performance as stricter HR policy would mean such laxity and abuse of benefits will be very much controlled if not eradicated to the culture of the employees and even in managers. It will also cause an overall improvement to the managerial part of the company to be more effective and much more as being efficient due to the reductions of managerial positions and the probability of having superfluous managerial position will be eliminated. The quality of the applicants hired after the recruitment process is greatly improved as guidelines in qualified applicant is increased. Cons: The stricter oversight in the HR will certainly cause an extensive decrease in the workforce in all areas of the company. This can cause a decrease to Indian Airlines in the range where it can offer its services most probably in the foreign flights. This will constitute a partial loss to the company and a decrease in its market share in India as its domestic services will also be affected in a short-term.

Recommendations

It is highly recommended for all the departments in Human Resource Management to re-organize. The fundamental step in order to re-organize is to identify what went wrong and what went right. The HR should have employee feedbacks in order to be aware of their workers personal concerns, to let them assess their performance and the companys performance as a whole. Communicating with each employee also has its own benefits as well because it will send a message that employee commitment is necessary for the company and to let the employees feel that the company supports them. That way, the HR can gather information that may help them understand why some employees are doing bribery or threats, or how why some workers are less motivated or why others are asking more than what they are supposed to be paid and from there they will base their design to target areas they should need to work upon, enhance areas in the company that received positive feedback motivate their employees. When problem is identified from the employee feedback this is the part where the HR will designate responsibilities for each HR Department as to what areas to work upon.

Employee Relations Department should try to foster a healthy relationship by reconciling with the union. Communication programs should also be redesigned so that employees will keep posted as to the procedures and the decisions of the AI and how it will affect them. Moreover, the Employee Relations should also assure its employees that the AI is working on the problem and be open to questions addressed.

The HR will also help in re-designing customer-related and internal-related services. New policies may be formed, new services will be re-designed and motivational techniques for both employees and customers be tackled.

Employee Assessment should also be done so as to determine which employees are really problematic to the IA (e.g. pilots who threat and bargain for money) and which should be kept. Downsizing of the managerial positions is advised and also to include would be an overhaul of its recruitment process most notably its qualifications if a certain applicant is qualified to the given job the applicant wishes to get or not. Since many employees will have to step down there is a need for a massive and aggressive advertising to attract applicant. Crucial Training and Development to new applicants should follow. The compensation and benefits should be stricter as well in terms of job salaries and dispensing benefits package. Effective employee tracking and assessment should be commissioned so as motivate employees to work. The IA can also reward sought-after benefits for few employees who are outstanding in their performance based on their job ratings.

Training and Development Department should organize Training and Education Seminar with its employees to keep them posted with the new procedures and taught them how to deal with such changes. Employee counselling and career development activities should also be included. Team building activities and socialization should also be employed in order to ease office tension and for the top management to reach out to its employees. The training and development will acquaint the employee the re-organization of the companies by imposing a stricter aura in terms of employee performance but also an approachable aura that allows employees to address specific concerns.

Strategies for re-organization will be very costly and therefore techniques should be effective so as to subsidize the expenses for re-organization and to achieve a productive workforce that will be able to compensate for IAs losses over time.