Human resource is defined as the people who constitute an organization’s workforce (employees). Human Resource Management is defined as a function in the organization that is designed to facilitate the maximum performance of the employees. This is achieved through various activities included in the function. These activities include employee recruitment, training and development, managing their performance, and rewarding. The human resource department is also responsible for ensuring that all the activities in which the organization engages in are in accordance with the law. The employees are one of the critical necessities required for the smooth running of operations and achievement of strategic objectives. The HR department ensures that …show more content…
The company also offers its employees learning opportunities, which facilitate individual and organizational growth. The management believes that in order for the employees to effectively show caring, respect, and concern to the customers, they should be treated the same way themselves.
Southwest Airlines was initially created to serve as a low cost carrier, whose costs were structured to compete with bus and car transportations. The low cost strategy meant that, unlike other high-priced carriers, the airline did not offer any food, movies, set reservations, or first class. The unique market approach created a new niche, which led to the organization’s fast growth. The airline’s main agenda was to offer air travel opportunities to customers who could not initially afford it. The simple market approach, with a motivated workforce has made Southwest airline’s market value to be greater than all other airlines in the country combined. The merger between Southwest Airlines and AirTran is being considered to be the first major merger between Low Cost Carriers. AirTran runs on a similar strategy to that of Southwest Airlines. AirTran is ranked the second largest low-cost carrier airline in the market. The merger is expected to affect the initial strategies of the two airlines, by stretching their limits towards a more complicated model. This may affect Southwest’s competitive advantages of employee focus,
Human resource is an appellation used in referring to the workforce of an organization or company. Human resource management is involved in the act of putting together employees in an organized manner to assure the objectives of the organization are achieved in a competent and experienced manner. Human resources are the most important services of any organization since they are the catalysts of non-human resources and the medium for developing competitive advantages and sounds of creativity. No organization can exist without a human resources department (Walsh, 2009). A company without an HR department would be reducing its operations and could collapse within a short amount of time.
Human resources management is a business department and function that has the strategic approach to the management of the company’s employees. Armstrong (2006, p.3) defines HRM as ‘a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organisation’s most valuable assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of it objectives.’ The HR business function provides an organisation with administrative support regarding the laws and legislation of
The domestic airline industry transports 711 million souls a year. That translates into a staggering $709 billion a year revenue flow (statista.com). One firm, named Southwest Airlines, accounts for 18.3 percent of that market. That 18.3 percent market share places Southwest at the number two spot, behind American Airlines. How does Southwest Airlines successfully compete and thrive in this environment? How do they differentiate themselves from the hoards of legacy carriers? Southwest Airlines encapsulates its strategy in a simple statement: “Meet customers’ short-haul travel needs at fares competitive with the cost of automobile travel (Grant, p.23). As a pioneer in low cost air travel, Southwest has successfully brought down airfares through its short route point-to-point business model, “no-frills” service, single flight strategy, and highly productive employees (Cederholm, 2014). In the following analysis we will investigate Southwest Airlines standing within the industry as a whole and their differentiation models driving success. We will also identify the firm’s competitive advantages as they relate to similar firms in the industry.
Human Resource is a governance of organizations employees. A company 's human resources department is responsible for implementing and overseeing policies governing employee behavior and the behavior of the company toward its employees. It is the people in the organization that carry out important work activities. Managers and HR professionals have the important job of organizing people
Thus, Before the merging of AirTran, Southwest’s main objectives consisted of various business strategies. For example, Southwest Airlines first strategy focused on point-to-point routes because it eliminated the need for connections, resulted in more direct routes, reduced delays and overall travel time. Southwest Airlines lands at small airports to steer clear of the congestion, to achieve high asset utilization, and to provide maximum convenience for passengers. In addition, Southwest has a workforce that is motivated in providing quick aircraft
The term human resource is defined as a system of activities and strategies that focus on successfully managing employees at all levels of the organization to achieve organizational goal (Niles, 2013). Human resource management is the process of proper use of available limited skilled workforce. The main purpose of the human resource management is to make efficient use of existing human resource in the organization.
Southwest has based their original strategy on maintaining low fares, high frequency of flights, on-time arrivals and focusing on the customer experience. However, Southwest has altered their strategy, which previously made them unique in the industry, due to a rising amount of competition from larger airlines that have developed alternative low-cost carriers, essentially diminishing that competitive advantage the “Southwest Effect” once had. Kelly notes that there is “new competition from leaner, larger airlines, low-cost carriers as JetBlue Airways Corp. and Spirit Airlines Inc.”7, making the competitive advantages that Southwest offered less and less sustainable.
In 1971 Southwest Airlines started their operations with a vision of being a low cost/low fare carrier for passengers traveling between San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. After early legal battles and struggles gaining market share, their fighting spirit, integrity and will to succeed paid off. Over the course of the next 40+ years, Southwest has become the world’s largest low-cost carrier, while carrying more domestic passengers that any other U.S. airline (“Southwest Corporate,” 2015). Their culture, values and operating practices are what have driven this company to its current success and should continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
Based on my analysis of the case, I discover that one of the biggest problems facing by the Southwest is the dilemma that whether they should maintain their focus on short-haul flight or they should alter their strategy to generate more revenue. To be more specific, can Southwest continue to be profitable under stiff competition if they stick with their initial focus. Southwest usually flies mainly to uncongested airports with less competitions; nevertheless, as they gradually expand to more busy areas, they are confronting with more competitors. If they provide short-haul flight service only, there is not much room for them to earn profits. Besides, another problem that Southwest facing is how they can reduce cost since their operating costs continue to rise. Labor and fuel are inevitable for Southwest’s operation. However, as the cost of both continues to grow, Southwest’s cost advantage comparing with other airlines will get narrower,
The objective of the Human Resource Department is to design management systems to ensure human talent is maximized to effectively and efficiently achieve organizational goals. HR has seven functions that are intertwined. These functions are global, environmental, cultural geographic, political, social, legal, economic, and technological. Human resource management has the potential to drastically impact the success and effectiveness of an organization. Human Resources has heavily focused on recordkeeping and paperwork. It has often been considered a clerical and low-level administrative department. In most organizations, Human Resources is looked upon as the employee mediator in the organization. They tend to be the voice of the employee, building company morale and putting out fires involving crisis management. The problems they deal with are both employee work-related and not work-related. HR strives to ensure fair treatment for all employees. They work with varying departments throughout the organization in order to create and implement necessary programs and policies. HR works with equal employment opportunity and other laws, to ensure compliance. They work to fill current job openings by processing applications, interviewing, and training. They answer questions regarding benefits and wages and address safety issues. The expansion of technology and outsourcing have drastically transformed the
Southwest Airlines has been a cost leader in the airline industry with continuous growth and profits for the past 35 years. It has been the fourth largest domestic carrier with low priced routes and a no frills policy - free of in-flight meals and baggage transfers. The low cost fares, almost comparable to automobile transportation costs, have created both an unprecedented growth and new markets for this airline. Southwest was able to achieve this cost leadership by sticking to its strategy of exclusively selecting point-to-point high consumer demand routes as opposed to a traditional hub-and-spoke model of routing used by most large carriers. Also its routes operate
Human Resources (HR) Management is a multifaceted function. This entity has an important place within companies in helping key personnel decide on the best staff for their needs, among other things. Sometimes, the employees chosen are full-time employees already working for the company or they could be contractors. Regardless, the goal of HR Management is to choose the most qualified person for the job.
When a company or organization understand the strategies of human resource management and utilizes them well, it can be a great asset to the economic development of that organization. Human resource management is the process of acquiring, training, appraisal and compensating employees and of attending to their labour relations, health, safety and security.
Human resource management (HRM), “the management of human skills and talents to make sure they are effectively used and in in alignment with an organization’s goals” (Youseff, 2012, Glossary), is an important part of any organization that deals with personnel procedures, managerial duties, and policies that affects the workforce. Human Resources deals with all issues and makes many of the decisions that are related to employees within the company. HR is important to the company because it helps take care of the most important part of any company, the people that work there. Many companies look to the employees that work there as one of the most valuable assets since they help the company achieve their goals and objectives. Therefore, the work of Human Resource Management (HRM) is to ensure that the company 's employees are treated fairly, that the employees hired are the best for the company’ strategic development, that they are compensated fairly through salary and benefits, employees are safe in the work environment and there are good relations between the employees and the company.
The Human Resource Department is one of the essential divisions in an organization with a complete structure. Its function involves maximizing employee performance, improving the company policies, enhancing the skills of the employees through training, established system in the organization, managing people, give rewards and privileges, planning, implementing and a lot more.