Essay Example on JetBlue: Innovative Airline, Non-Unionized, But Abiding by EEOC Laws

Introduction

JetBlue was a newly introduced Airline in the American airspace with very innovative operations. The Airline also had very creative human resource management strategies and structures (Gittell and O'Reilly, 2001). Despite the fact that its employees were not unionized, JetBlue was bound to abide by the national equal employment opportunity laws. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, all employees are supposed to hire and manage employees without discrimination based on nationality, religion, sex, color, and race. To ensure JetBlue was an equal opportunity employer during the hiring process, the company was bound to abide by the following three equal employment opportunity laws.

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Equal Opportunity Act of 1972: this law forbids any form of discrimination during the hiring process.

Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967: this law protects the discrimination of people above the age of 40 years from discrimination during hiring.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: this law promotes fairness in hiring to include Americans with disabilities in positions they can perform well.

Recruitment Efforts

Recruitment is the process of establishing the staff needs in an organization and getting the appropriate staff to fill the position. It involves processes like identifying the staffing need, attracting potential staff, interviewing them, selecting the most appropriate, hiring the staff, and orienting the new staff to the position. At JetBlue, recruitment efforts adopt both internal and external recruitment methods, as discussed below.

Internal recruitment: During the start of the company, a selective recruitment process was used as individuals who could fit into the company culture were recruited to become part of the JetBlue team (Gittell and O'Reilly, 2001). The company management had worked in other Airline companies and established some employees from the competition they felt could live the dream of the new Airline and recruited them into the company.

External recruitment: as the company grew in operations, more employees were needed to sustain the company operations. JetBlue adopted external recruitment based on employee referrals where employees would refer peers from competition who they see can live up to the values of JetBlue.

Effectiveness of the Methods

The use of selective recruitment during the very beginning of JetBlue operations was important to get the very best employees in the market who can live the values of the organization. Being a startup Airline, it was critical that all employees are aligned towards nurturing it to become what it had purposed to be. Thus, it was paramount to employ employees who can best lead the company to its success at its early stages of operation. The use of employee referral as an external recruitment method was effective as the JetBlue employee from their work experience in other companies could establish peers who would live to the dreams of the company hence bringing them onboard would make JetBlue a great team. The two methods were successful in ensuring the company recruits employees who are aligned to the company values hence also aligned to the attainment of the company objective.

Personnel Selection

Personnel selection is the process of hiring an individual to take a position of work. It a methodological process for it entails choosing the appropriate for the task. At JetBlue, the selection of employees was purely based on the ability of the employee to live by the company values. The human resource personnel reviewed the employee's ability to fit into the company culture before selection for the position.

The Personnel Selection Interview Process for Mechanics And Pilots

All pilots and mechanics that joined JetBlue had prior working experience in other Airlines and exhibited an element of having the ability to fit into the JetBlue corporate culture. However, the pilots and mechanics selection entailed a one on one interview where the potential employee was subjected to a thirty minutes discussion of various aspects of his work. In the one to one interview, the human resource personnel doing the interview were specifically looking at how the employee fits well into the company values. The aspects of ensuring security was of great concern to all recruited pilots and mechanics and were asked questions with regards to decision making on security compromise (Gittell and O'Reilly, 2001). Pilots and mechanics that showed high levels of integrity, care, and no compromise to security would be selected as they best fit to company's culture.

Why JetBlue used personal interview process for mechanics and pilots

Other than the qualifications, skills, knowledge, and experience in performing a task, it is important for an employer to establish whether the potential employee is aligned with the company values. The one on one interviews provides the human resource personnel an insight on an individual's way of thinking, feeling, and the opinions they hold and relate them to the companies values. The interviews also enable the human resource personnel to have an in-depth investigation of how the employee would handle a situation during his normal course of work. A good example from the case study is where a pilot was dismissed and was not selected for being arrogant.

Three Factors that Influence a Performance Appraisal System

Businesses have the sole motivation for maximizing profits from the resources it employs. The success of a business is thus dependent on the employees' effort to achieve its goal. Companies adopt the use of performance appraisal systems to evaluate the performance and productivity of an employee over a period of time. In the appraisal system, the appraisal of an individual employee is dependent on the individual performance towards the company's set objectives over a specific period of time. In the context of JetBlue Airways, the company developed a unique human resource management system and structures. As at the entry point of each employee to the company, the human resource department scrutinized the employee to ensure they fit into the company's culture and are aligned to the company's goal. It is possible expected that the company's employee performance appraisal system was influenced by the following three factors.

The values of the company: Traditionally, companies have values they live for. It is conventionally expected that all company employees abide by or are fully aligned with the company values. Lack of alignment to company values can lead to poor performance and productivity to the organization. In the context of JetBlue Airways, the company has five main values; safety, caring, integrity, fun, and passion. Rhodes said, ".... it is the values that drive all the companies activities..." (Gittell and O'Reilly, 2001). It is expected that all employees who live up to these values in the organization are performing well as those who do not live up to the values are not performing towards the company objective just as a case provided in the case study of a pilot who was dismissed from work for being arrogant did not meet the value of being caring.

One on one conversation: At JetBlue, the human resource department used a one on one conversation as a mean to establish whether the employee fits into the culture of the company. From the conversation, the human resource personnel would establish if the employee is aligned with the company values and objectives. It is also expected that the same concept was used in performance appraisal to establish whether the employees still live to the company values. An example is when a technician is asked the worst decision he has ever made and indicated a lack of compromise to security and was seen to be aligned to the company's value of safety.

The technological factors: JetBlue Airways had the intention of revolutionizing the air transport industry by offering high quality and cheap flights. One element of the Airline was the use of technology and being paperless. The employees had to be well versed with technology to be able to deliver optimal productivity. Pilots, technicians as well as flight attendants and customer relation officers used technology. Thus, it is expected that that technology use was an important factor during the employees' performance appraisal for poor understanding of technology would mean poor performance in the Airline where technology plays a major role in its operations.

360 Degree Feedback Method

360 degree feedback is also referred to as multiple source assessment, and it involves getting feedback from multiple sources during a performance appraisal. Thus, 360 degrees is a feedback method where an employee has the opportunity to get receives feedback on his performance from multiple sources and not the supervisor or manager only. 360 degree feedback entails an employee getting his performance feedback from the supervisor or manager, peers - between four to eight) coworkers as well as customers. Through the 360 degree feedback method, the employee also does a self-assessment to self. 360 degree feedback is rigorous, but the feedback provides insight on whether the employee is aligned to the company values, and goal. The feedback method has many advantages, that include:

Improved and comprehensive feedback: through the 360 degree feedback method, there is well-rounded feedback from coworkers, reporting staff, peers, and manager or supervisor, which is definitely improved feedback compared to feedback from a single person. Being a method that provides feedback from many sources, managers and supervisors can spend less energy on monitoring employees so as to develop comprehensive feedback as the others input into the feedback counts. The feedback from both internal and external parties to the organization makes the appraisal feedback comprehensive in assessing employees' performance.

Reduces bias and discrimination risk: feedback on employee's appraisal from a single source can be biased. For no man is perfect, it is possible that the person doing the appraisal is skewed to discrimination factors like gender, age, race, and so forth; hence the feedback may be prone to "horns and halo" effects. When feedback is received from many individuals, then the "horns and halo" is minimized since a manager may rate employee performance based on their interaction and recent performance in their duty.Improves customer relation and service: 360 degree feedback for both product and service industry employees entail collecting feedback from the customers. Since employees know the customer has a contribution in their appraisal and will offer feedback, employees become more customer-centric and deliver high-quality goods and services to the customers hence working towards the organization's objective. Employees strive to deliver quality and reliability services to customers so as to attain good feedback.

Why JetBlue use 360 degree

JetBlue had adopted the 360 degree feedback method of appraisal and dibbed it as 320 degrees named after the A320 AirBus the company used (Gittell and O'Reilly, 2001). Since JetBlue was a new airline with a unique human resource management process, the use of a 360 degree feedback method of appraisal would ensure that it is easy to fully understand the employee's performance so as to establish whether the employee is aligned to the companies values and objective or not. The company culture was clearly set and developed from the company values, and all employees would work as a team to attain the company goal. The use of 360 degrees feedback would ensure each employee evaluates the other to ensure they are all performing optimally as a te...