Introduction
Hiring professional and skilled employees is the key objective of the Human Resource Management (HRM) department. For the purposes of the realization of this strategic objective, the HR manager is obliged to pursue equality in provision of working opportunities for all employees regardless race, sex, nationality or any other supplementary factor giving ground for unequal attitude. In this particular situation, the managers of the company request the Human Resource Department to resolve issue pertaining to division of quotas between ground crew and other employees. With that, the attention of the managers is focused on the age of the employees due to the assertion that it is better to challenge qualifications of older staff members in comparison to the capabilities of younger employees. In view of this direction, the human resource department should be able to present evidences on the violation of the human rights obligations and appearance of additional implications with introduction of policy aimed to limit access of older employees to work. It should be noted that increasing age workforce in the staff of the company raises several concerns (Riach, 2009). However, the efficient human resource manager should be able to consider this issue accordingly. Given the merits of the case, the human resource manager should present strengths of the older workers over younger generation so that to draw importance of the maintenance of balance in keeping representatives of both categories of the employees in the airline company. Any company faces challenges from time to time in conduction of business activity while during these events the leadership should use internal and external resources with the purpose to find proper solution from the situation. In fact, the dismissal of some employees of the ground crew or other department in favour of younger generation can be justified to some extent in view of the democratic principles, while the company and Human Resources department should put quality of services and satisfaction of the needs of the clients at the first place (Beck, 2016).
Analysis of Plan of Reorganization of Staff
Considering the nature of the suggested plan on the reorganization of the human resource practice in the airline company among employees, the human resource management should take into account current legislation on the national and global scale. The majority legislation of the advanced economies including Singapore states that the age requirements and prohibitions pertaining to the age of the worker should be established so that consider whether practice of the company is in direct violation of this regulatory framework. At the same time, the issue of access to work is governed on the global scale. Given the nature of the work of the airline company, the special attention should be paid to the fact that this business unit performs in different jurisdictions while the employees are hired from diversified regions. Hence, the proper compliance with the fundamental rights and freedoms should be made so that to avoid any discriminatory behaviour, limitation of human rights and freedoms (Gilbert, De Winne and Sels, 2015).
The adoption of the strategy suggested by the management of the organization will give rise to appearance of several implications and challenges. This implies that the company will refer to the unlawful employment practice so that any employee of older category will have legal standing to sue company against discrimination at work with imposition of directly unfavorable requirements and conditions so that to force these employees to leave company. Therefore, the company appears at the risk of financial loss or damaging of the status in the market. Due to the fact that the company has just started its path to the renovation, the human resource department should advice on the development of positive image around the company with the realization of the proper legitimate strategy. According to the majority of the rules of employment legislation in several countries, the employers are not allowed to expose to direct or indirect segregation or classification of staff members so that to influence the status of the employees in the company because of the age of the person (Beck, 2016).
For the maintenance of the equality in treatment to the employees, the human resource manager should give instructions and recommendations to all leading offices in the company in pursuit of age management practice. Under the age management one should understand availability and usage of the measures that are aiming to tackle age barriers and take care of the expansion of the age diversity. With that, the age management should cover such practices as recruitment and training, development, conduction of working practices. Moreover, the broader version of the age management is referred to the age related grounds that should be taken into account by the managers of the company in performance of the functions of the employee so that this person will have personal interest on promotion of the corporate objectives and strategies (J., 2014). Finally, the usage of age management should be treated by the leadership of the organization as enhancing opportunity in the promotion of the interests of the organization. The efficient implementation of the properly construed age management policy can be used as the advantage for the company due to the possible withdrawal of the reason pertaining to the limitation of the staff of older age group (Chauhan, 2012).
Legal Implications of Realization of New Strategy
For the avoidance of legal proceedings against illegal policy of the company as tot he age discrimination, the main priority of the human resource manager is to develop and adopt this plan based on certain grounds. First, the human resource manager should be properly notified about the ageing of the staff of the company. This principle should be read in a manner that human resource manager should be aware what limitations are seemed reasonable for certain positions. Given the nature of the airline industry, it is reasonable that certain positions in this sphere of employment require specific physical capabilities and skills. Therefore, the company should properly justify and prove the fact that younger officers will perform better on range on positions in comparison with the volume and quality of the services of the older group of employees. The realization of this suggestion can be made through conduction of expert assessment where the outcomes of the experiment will be concluded in written form (Urwin, 2006).
In addition, fair attitude to the employees of different social groups and status should be accepted by the human resource manager in opening new vacancies. Regardless the fact that the leadership of the company intends to limit amount of the officers working in the airline company, the human resource department should take care of reduction with the reasonable approach. The amount of employees in ground crews can be made without any prejudice for age discrimination in case the company can claim new business strategy that will be aligned to this new priority and objective. With that, the maintenance of age management within the premises of the company is one of the function of the Jimenez resource manager that should align hiring policies and supervision of the workers with the strategic objectives of the organization. In this respect, the introduction and realization of age-friendly activities should be used for creation of comfortable conditions for older workers in performance of duties at work. Meanwhile, the human resource manager should find balance between the interests of the leadership of the company and its employees. This means that effectiveness and high productivity of every employee should be achieved by all available instruments in order to support the position of the company in the market. The absence of comfortable conditions for workers, poor satisfaction of the employees with the attitude of the employer at work or absence of relevant skills on behalf of the employee will diminish effective performance of the organization in the market (Frierson, n.d.). However, with regard to the current offer it is recommended to define whether younger employees can manage the challenges and new opportunities at work in much proper manner.
The Table 1 gives insight that the financial expenses can not be reduced with the reduction of the amount of staff members. Hence, all elements in this table should be taken into account. The adoption of any strategy by the human resource department will have direct influence over the productivity of the managers. If the leadership of the company starts implementation of reduction of amount of older workers with creation of unfavorable conditions pertaining to the discrimination in form of provision of low quality accommodation or additional working hours with the obligatory certificate, there is a risk that all staff of the company will be depressed with this strategy and level of productivity will fall dramatically. Meanwhile, the leadership of the company should clearly understand the risks arising with the introduction of initially discriminatory policy. According to the position of managers in the dialogue, they expect to reduce expenses for payment for workers with the reduction of amount of older workers in favor of younger generation. The implementation of this objective is expected with creation of unfavorable conditions at working place for older people. Given the legislation of the advanced economies and provisions of legal instruments as to the protection of human rights and freedoms, the maintenance of such conditions at work will be in violation of the right of the person to work as there will be direct discrimination among workers of the company (Du Toit, 2001). Hence, the company should take into account and consider whether it is better from financial perspective to implement this strategy on the creation of discriminatory treatment towards older generation and sue with these employees in further years or achieve reduction of the expenses in some years with subsequent change of the age of the employees without any exposure to discrimination in violation of current legislation pertaining to the democratic principles (Duncan and Loretto, 2004).
Improvement of Levels of Productivity
Given the fact that the company is in the complex situation because of its new status in the airline market and industry as the whole because of the reorganization, it is highly important to stay focuses at the first years on the increase of the productivity of the employees in favour of the positive change in delivery of high quality goods and services to the customers. Due to the fact that satisfaction of the workers with the conditions at work depends from the nature of cooperation among employers and employees, the age management should be reviewed in reference to some levels of productivity. This approach is necessary so that to define what element of productivity will be challenged with implementation of the plan on the introduction of new working conditions (Beck, 2016). There are several levels of productivity that should be taken into account before the reformation of organizational structure in the company. These levels are the following:
Proper organization of the working place that influences the level of productivity of the employee;
Availability of skilled managers that recognize the importance of conduction of regular training among employees so that to increase their capabilities to cope with new challenges at work;
Resolution of the conflicts in the proper manner where all interests of the parties will be met and satisfied;
Understanding of the rights and responsibilities of every person within the organizational structure of the company so that to avoid any deprivation of human rights and their violation;
Equal treatment of the employers to workers so that the later can feel themselves valued and comfortable;
Existence of strong contribution of the employees to the activity of the company where the interests and position of the staff is taken into account by the managers of the company;
Maintenance of high level of trust where the employees can share their opinions with the managers of the company (Anderson, 2000).
The analysis of the levels of productivity shows that the implementation of the plan of the leadership of the company can undermine three of these pillars as referred to the trust among the employees, value and appreciation of the workers where the younger will view themselves as much valued, absence of the skilled managers that will lose respect of the staff. Therefore, the realization of the plan in question will result to the appearance of several concerns that will not affect the position of the company in the market in positive way. In contrast, there is a risk that professionals in the airline industry will unit have desire to file applications to work with this company because of the presence of disregardful treatment. If the leadership of the company can use discriminatory policy at one stage of the business year in the market so that to save time and resources instead of satisfaction of the needs of the staff with subsequent increase of productivity, it is possible to predict that this tendency will continue towards other groups of the staff (Grima, 2011). With that, it should be said that age equality does not usually mean presence of the equal treatment among the workers of the organization. This means that the management of the company has the legal right to take certain actions in order to allocate human resource capital in favour of improvement of efficiency of the organization in the airline industry (Garavan et al., 2001). Besides, the practice and experience of the companies in the human resource management dimension confirms that it is highly important to justify different relation to the older generation in comparison with the conditions of the other groups of the staff. This means that usually the leadership of the companies stand to the availability of the wide stereotypes about the inability of the older people to cope with new technological opportunities or other innovations (Zwick, n.d.). However, this assumption is not always truthful. In majority cases, the older people can hold leading position in comparison with the performance of the other generation in the staff of the company due to the availability of the appropriate skills and experience. The existence of this experience allows to achieve necessary level of productivity that can not be referred to the situation with young people that can fail in fulfilment of professional duties for the first time. Accordingly, the older people usually tend to rely on the objectives of the company and internal values in the promotion of the goods and services of the company, while young people are ambitious and guided by the personal interests to that to earn more profit at particular position (Newton, 2006).
The realization of the new strategy of the company in the reformation of productivity of the staff should be made with the implementation of four elements of appreciative inquiry. The method of appreciative inquiry should be understood as the suitable theory and practical reformation of the operation of the company through the main pillars. Under the pillars there are verbal norms that are discussed by the people, positive attitude resulting in the positive action, quality of the cooperation between staff members and non-evident opportunities that should be discovered (Reed, 2010). The analysis of these elements and their inclusion into the text of the new strategy of the company will result to the improved productivity of the staff members.
Effects of Categorization of Members of Staff
Some scholars believe that categorization of the individuals among the staff of the company is the source of the several internal problems. This means that the leadership of the business unit attempts to cover with one notion certain amount of the workers of appropriate age or status, while these employees can have different skills and perspectives that will positively or negatively affect the performance of the company in the airline market. Therefore, the categorization of the staff members is not recommended in view of the experience of the human resource managers (Longo and Mura, 2011). Moreover, the division of the staff into classes can result in appearance of several practical concerns. In particular, the training of the employees should be provided for all employees within the company. Besides, some business units believe that there is no need to teach older group of staff with new innovations or other developments as it requires more time and other resources. In this respect, the older people are adhered to new functions or become subject of withdrawal as such that can not perform duties that are required by the leadership of the company. However, it appears that company itself limits access of the older people to this training. From this perspective, this practice should be avoided as the older people sometimes can mix available skills and experience with the knowledge that further will be regarded as additional competitive advantage of the company. In fact, German companies do no set strict requirements as to the members of cabin crew as they believe that these people can contribute to the performance of the company and satisfaction of the needs of the customers. Furthermore, the old people are usually kinder to customers and open-hearted in comparison with the behaviour of young workers (Campbell, 2009).
Conclusion
The analysis of the human resource management practices in relation to the suggested plan of the leadership of the company reveals existence of several risks that should be tackled before the realization of this policy. With that, it is better to amend its offer in favour of creation of almost equal conditions for older people and young staff members. This approach will allow to keep reputation of the airline company in the market and hold interest of the employees in performance of professional duties for the benefits of the company. Consequently, the older people should not be restricted in access to the training that is launched by the company for all employees. If the leadership of the business unit believes that some employees lack particular skills, it is better to improve knowledge of these workers as the human resource capital should be properly respected and supported. Finally, all employees should be provided with equal conditions in view of accommodation and working terms. There should be no categorization among employees as it will result to the violation of legislation on labour matters. In this respect, all workers should be given with accommodation in same hotels with adequate rating while additional burden should not be created for older people instead of young generation.
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