HRM in the airline industry: strategies and outcomes
| Published date | 01 August 2001 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480110393394 |
| Pages | 438-453 |
| Date | 01 August 2001 |
| Author | Carol Boyd |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Personnel
Review
30,4
438
Personnel Review,
Vol. 30 No. 4, 2001, pp. 438-453.
#MCB University Press, 0048-3486
Received July 1999
Revised December 1999
Accepted May 2000
HRM in the airline industry:
strategies and outcomes
Carol Boyd
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Keywords Human resource management, Health and safety, Airlines, Working conditions
Abstract Within the HRM literature, health and safety occupies a somewhat rhetorical role.
Examines HRM and the management of health and safety in the airline industry. Argues that in
response to increasing competitive conditions, airlines have adopted a short-termist, cost-rational
approach to HRM and health and safety, evidenced by a range of strategies aimed at securing
reductions in operating costs and short-term productivity gains, where profit is prioritised over
employee health and safety. Concludes that HRM may have provided a smokescreen for
irresponsible health and safety management in the airline industry, while a two-tier assault on
health and safety has taken place.
Introduction
In an industry like ours, where there are no production lines, people are our most important
asset and everything depends on how they work as part of a team. This means that, to get the
best results, managers have to care about how they (the employees) live and function, not just
about how they work and produce (Sir Colin Marshall, ex-chairman British Airways, quoted
in the Financial Times, 1984).
During the 1980s, British Airways, like many other UK organisations,
implemented a range of new working practices and strategies in response to the
challenges of market forces, growing competition, and the increased freedom
for employers to reconstruct the employment relationship. A key objective of
new management strategies and reform of the employment relationship was to
``win the hearts and minds of employees'' and to secure their cooperation and
support of new business objectives. The popular cliche ``people are our most
important asset'' is indicative of organisational recognition that control and
compliance is often insufficient for survival, and that the active cooperation
and commitment of employees is a valuable resource offering the key to
achieving a ``competitive edge''. Human resource management (HRM)
principles and techniques were purported to offer a key to securing these
objectives. While corporate policies describe a responsible and ``caring''
approach to managing people, the reality in competitive markets may differ
from the rhetoric. Corporate policy statements ubiquitously promote good
health and safety practice and acknowledge the importance of a high quality
working environment in business success. This position sits uncomfortably
with the catalogue of industrial disasters, the prevalence of work-related stress,
RSI and illnesses related to exposure to hazardous substances. This raises the
question about the actual position of health and safety in HRM agendas.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emerald-library.com/ft
The author would like to acknowledge Peter Bain's contribution to the primary research and to
thank him for his continued support. This paper is dedicated to Harvie Ramsay.
HRM in the
airline industry
439
Given that health and safety is a key area covered by HRM, it is surprising
that it receives minimal coverage (or none at all) in key HRM texts and journals.
This may be attributed to an inherent assumption that people-centred
management automatically assures first-class health and safety management.
This paper seeks to challenge any such assumption by demonstrating that in
reality, health and safety is degraded and undervalued by one of the world's
largest service industries.
Our expectations of how health and safety will be managed may be
influenced by the HRM dichotomy. A clear polarisation of views is apparent
between orthodox and unorthodox accounts of HRM. On one hand, HRM is
perceived as valuing human ``assets'' in organisations, placing them at the
centre of organisational success (see for example Guest, 1987; Poole, 1990). If
this route were followed, one would expect to find organisation's championing
health and safety management. On the other hand, HRM is perceived as a tool
of the capitalist, where employees are strategically exploited in pursuit of
maximum profit (see for example Hart, 1993; Legge, 1995). If this is the
strategic choice of organisations, a cost-minimisation approach to health and
safety may be expected. The extent to which the intense competitive pressures
in the airline industry have set airlines on a course for ``hard'' HRM, and the
subsequent effects on health and safety, is therefore of interest.
According to Truss et al. (1997), companies frequently embrace the tenets of
the soft, commitment model of HRM, while the reality experienced by
employees is more concerned with strategic control, similar to the hard model
(Truss et al., 1997). This type of ``dual-adoption approach'' of ``hard'' and ``soft''
HRM is visible in a number of major organisations, for example, Hewlett-
Packard, Marks and Spencer and British Airways (BA). Keenoy (1997)
describes how BA has taken a ``hard'' approach to ``headcount'', while at the
same time implemented a wide-ranging programme of ``soft'' HRM (improving
communication and leadership, for example). However, following the recession
in the early 1990s, many UK organisations have opted for ``hard'' HRM in
favour of ``soft'' (Legge, 1995; Sisson, 1994; Storey 1992, 1995). A dual-approach
to HRM may find organisations pontificating over the importance of health and
safety, while in reality health and safety is shrewdly managed, as any other
cost variable in the profit equation. While airline management's approach of
competing on a cost leadership basis appears to be a rational response to
increasingly competitive conditions, it is argued that the ramifications for
employee health and safety have not been fully considered.
This paper analyses the management of health and safety in the airline
industry within a framework of ``hard'' and ``soft'' HRM at both macro- and
micro-levels. A two-tier analysis offers both a wide angled and close-up
perspective of the reality of health and safety management in the airline
industry. The occupational group we will focus upon in this article is the cabin
crew members or ``flight attendants'' as they are known in North America ±
who constitute some 40 percent of all airline employees. In 1996, the cabin crew
numbered almost 200,000 within the European Union (Howard, 1998), while in
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