Evaluation Paper Example on Air Canada

Introduction

The practices of human resource management rely on the assumption that the significant assets of a company are the employees (Mostafa, GouldWilliams, & Bottomley, 2015). The human resource management, therefore, attempts to understand the best ways of creating the asset and make use of it for the benefit of the organization and the stakeholders. It is also the responsibility of the human resource management to facilitate all the procedures which are aimed at building up, maintaining and effectively make use of the trust and respect that exists between the employer, workers and unions. Creating a useful human relation with the employees is essential. According to Brewster (2017), the proper human relationship established through facilitating communication, enhancing trust, and effectively utilizing the confidence to manage the issues affecting the company to develop efficient complaint systems and improve performance.

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The paper aims at looking into Air Canada as an employer of choice. The study utilizes the internet, databases and library resources to obtain relevant information. The research methodology applied is the content analysis of secondary resources from the internet and library. The organization involves clearly stating the business strategy of Air Canada and providing a brief environmental scan. The study then discusses relevant resource practices related to Air Canada business strategy and also describe the appropriate human resource practices expected from Air Canada but not found.

Air Canada Organizational Strategy

Canada (2019) explains that Air Canada is a company under the category of air transportation. The company was established in Canada in 1937 with an objective of providing efficient air transportation services. It is a public limited company with major Canadian hiring locations in Toronto ON, Montreal QC, Vancouver BC and Calgary AB. As of 2019, Air Canada has 26, 714 employees in Canada. The total number of part-time employees in Canada is 2, 351 while the number of full-time employees across the world is 28, 015. The company also engages 1.3% workforce on the basis of a contract. The average age of Air Canada workers in Canada is 44 years while the longest-serving worker is 52 years old.

According to Air Canada (2019), the company has two primary strategies. The first strategy involves communicating the objective of maintaining a consistent safety, luxury and reliability message to the customer by facilitating traditional media outlets. The company achieves this strategy conductingby communicating the upgrades to the targeted audience. The company also achieves this strategy by providing first-class beds and touch screen television sets to enhance uniqueness available on the majority of its aircraft.

The second organizational strategy of Air Canada is to strengthen and expand the company brand through interconnecting its affiliation to the nationwide identity of Canada. To achieve this strategy, Air Canada was the official supporter of the Vancouver Olympics 2010. The company also launched its Elite Podium Program in preparation for Vancouver 2010. During this period, every coach, athlete and mission team staffs that were part of Canada's Olympic and Paralympic teams got the opportunity to be recognized through Air Canada.

Besides the above two strategies, Air Canada works on a sustainable business model which involves recording financial outcomes from international champion strategy (AirCanada, 2019). The sustainable business model exhibits improved financial targets. The company partners with willing, able and ready corporates to match the distinct qualifications of candidates. Air Canada also works closely with the communal partner to advance a workshop for recruiting the team to work with, especially those with the disability. It is therefore considered to be Canada's best diversity employer because of its disability policy. The maintenance division of the company is committed to integrating the female employees by providing them with a forum to explore individual development, network and also be guided on ways of establishing personal career goals.

Air Canada Environmental Scan

Ecological Environment

Air Canada is striving to consider the environmental requirements while making its business decisions to minimize environmental footprint (Air Canada, 2019). The company achieves the environmental considerations through two significant ways: Leave less and Do more. It leaves less by releasing less carbon to the atmosphere, and also considering the wastes released on land, water and also reducing incidences of noise pollution. The company does more by addressing environmental matters through participation, partnership and collaboration with other industry partners. The company also involves the communities to achieve a more significant impact in line with its environmental goals.

External Business Environment

According to Air Canada - Sustainability Report (2019), Air Canada mainly focuses on expanding its quality services rapidly in identify international markets while regulating its growth in the local markets at the same time. The segmentation of the company includes offering cargo and passenger freight services. The segmentation also involves the size of the customer which consists of an essential section of the people. It is because of this reason that various government officials, households, non-governmental organizations, individuals, small and large business organizations use the services of the company.

The external business environment also includes industry concentration. The airline industry is fragmented. The fragmentation is evident through lack of essential competitor controlling the majority of the market in the industry.

The industry life cycle suggests that Air Canada external business environment is at the maturity stage since it has a competitive advantage over the competition. The company enjoys a competitive advantage. The competitive advantage is as a result of the inefficiencies of other business models of the same kind. The competition has been more aggressive because of numerous competitors and product substitutes.

It is therefore evident that the business environment of Air Canada is a broad industry which is already developed. The development is visible in the mature state of the company in the industry life cycle. Concerning this, the primary focus of the company is to focus on its activities which are aimed at improving its operations and revenue. The improvement is facilitated by increased cost structure to increase operating earnings and cash flow.

Human Resources Practices Related to the Strategy

Air Canada - Sustainability Report (2019) further explain that the human resource management of Air Canada plays a strategic role in managing the performance of employees. These include recovering the employee of the reputation of the organization, employees' job satisfaction and performance. Air Canada Inc. prides itself with several aspects of good performance management practices in achieving the success of the organization through performance improvement, decentralized compensation systems and performance assessment. Air Canada Inc. facilitates the decisions based on decentralization of compensation to respond to the regional market conditions.

The supervisors qualify to evaluate the performance of the employee in decentralized systems. Air Canada employs the merit pay system which empowers supervisors and has the tools which are vital in linking the performance of supervisors to their compensatory pay systems.

Human resource management also provides management counselling to improve the performance of employees. Management counselling also provides feedback and in-depth knowledge through face to face counselling sessions. The company offers counselling for its employees ranging from the senior management to junior staff. The counselling involves mentoring and coaching initiatives to obtain wisdom from senior employees, resolve conflicts and also help the staff cope with change. Human resource management provides employees with adequate career development support to improve their morale and motivation.

Through performance improvement, the company helps the employees to identify enhancement areas through external evaluation and constant monitoring. The IBM provides human resource management for the company and helps in eliminating the possible human resource challenges to improve employee performance.

Human Resource Practices Expected but not Found

The needs of Air Canada are in a constant state of flux. Brewster (2017) observes that the human resource management, therefore, needs to establish an effective system which provides a regular evaluation of the necessity and then enrol in line with the evaluated obligation. The various positions at Air Canada range from flight attendants to maintenance team, executives to pilots among others. The role of human resource management is, therefore, to recruit and cater to the diverse needs of the staff. There are three main issues which the human resource management at Air Canada faces. These are hiring unqualified personnel, increase amount of outsourced jobs and the ability to handle the disgruntlement of employees through union based actions such as strikes.

Conclusion

Air Canada is a company that is considered to practice the best human resource practices for its employees. The company is among the global leaders in the provision of efficient airline services. The key strategy of Air Canada Inc. is to operate to achieve top effectiveness, and also provide high satisfaction for its customers in the air transport industry. The critical features of Air Canada are the ability to create, innovate and also employ the newest ideas to makes sure that it remains top employer in all the possible facets of the contemporary business.

References

Air Canada - Sustainability Report. (2019). Aircanada.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019, from https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/about/corporate-responsibility/corporate-sustainability-reports.html

Air Canada (2019). Aircanada.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019, from https://www.aircanada.com/content/dam/aircanada/portal/documents/PDF/en/csr_2011_report_en.pdf

Air Canada (2019). Aircanada.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019, from https://www.aircanada.com/content/dam/aircanada/portal/documents/PDF/en/quarterly-result/2015/2015_MDA_q4.pdf

Brewster, C. (2017). Human resource practices in multinational companies. The Blackwell Handbook of CrossCultural Management, 126-141.

Canada, A. (2019). Air Canada Named One of Montreal's Top Employers for Fifth Consecutive Year. Newswire.ca. Retrieved 28 January 2019, from https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/air-canada-named-one-of-montreals-top-employers-for-fifth-consecutive-year-672205923.html

Canada, A. (2019). Top Employer: Air Canada. Content.eluta.ca. Retrieved 28 January 2019, from https://content.eluta.ca/top-employer-air-canada#

Mostafa, A. M. S., GouldWilliams, J. S., & Bottomley, P. (2015). Highperformance human resource practices and employee outcomes: the mediating role of public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 75(5)...