British Airways

Posted: September 9th, 2013

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British Airways

Organizational Structure and Culture

Companies identify the fundamental values and beliefs when developing their culture. This guides them into knowing the items to prioritize. British Airways has developed a high performance culture among its employees, and it works to encourage and motivate its employees towards fulfilling this. It has developed a high performance and customer focused center, which encourages its employees towards finding ways of ensuring that customers are satisfied by the services they receive. The focus on the customer has encouraged the company to develop innovative products suited to serve the needs of its customers. For instance, the company has introduced an iPad program, known as ‘Know Me’, through which flight attendants go through their iPads, which have the customers’ data, to determine the passengers’ preferences even before they order (Brennan 5). Such a concept shows the length at which the company is willing to go to satisfy its customers, thereby achieving its goals.

It recognizes the needs of its employees, by finding the employees who need additional training and development in fulfilling their goals and objectives. It recognizes and encourages collective bargaining among the employees, thereby making the employees feel that they have more power in their jobs (Topham 6). The company has developed a lean organizational structure. This form of structure enables companies to reduce costs and eliminate bureaucracy. The organization has become more agile because of the reduced number of layers, but this has not reduced the effectiveness in governance, or the level of accountability. The company’s management has adopted the same organizational culture, which encourages high performance. The management recognizes the need of motivating the employees towards achieving their goals.

The Company’s Organizational structure 2009/2010

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(Retrieved from http://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/ims/graphs/Management_team.gif)

Leadership and Planning

Under the transactional model of leadership, managers often delegate responsibilities to the team members and reward them according to how they have performed the tasks. The leaders usually have defined goals, which they set with their employees, and the employees find ways of fulfilling these goals. British Airways uses this concept of rewards and employee engagement. The company has identified five strategic goals, which it hopes the employees will achieve. They include being the airline of choice for long-haul premium customers, delivering outstanding services to their customers, growing their presence in major cities across the world, building their leading position in London, and ensuring that they meet their customers’ needs, which will in turn enable them to find new revenue streams and improve their revenues. The company holds constant communication with the employees in fulfilling these goals. It holds face-to-face meetings, in addition to live forums, using personalized intranet, videos, company newsletters, and mobile phone communication. The different forms and methods of communication enable employees to hold discussions and raise issues with the management, and share ideas and opinions with each other. The company uses a strategic business plan. It determines the contents of these plans by identifying the needs in the market, and setting objectives and means of achieving these objectives

Team Management

The company has an effective team management, as it makes sure that it engages the employees in different ways. This form of team management encourages democracy because it considers the opinion of different stakeholders. The company does this to ensure that the employees remain committed to achieving its goals and values. The company hires an independent firm to conduct an employee survey, and this encourages employees to raise any issues and concerns, which they might have. The company acts and implements the solutions that the employees raise. In addition, it has a customer survey, through which the customers make recommendations and the company monitors its customer’s opinions.

Decision-making

Rational model of decision-making involves identifying the existing problem, and developing solutions towards these problems. A company that chooses to use relational model of decision-making, has to identify the solutions, which will help it accomplish its goals more efficiently (Peffley). A company can do this by encouraging the input of different stakeholders, who have enhanced specialized knowledge on the problematic areas. The company comes up with different alternatives, and chooses the most suitable ones, which it implements. British Airways engage the employees in the decision making process, and this makes them more accepting of the changes. For instance, the company was the main carrier for the Olympics, and this required it to have enough employees to deal with the increasing workload. The company has experienced a substantial financial loss, and it is taking all the precautions to ensure that it reduces costs. The company was able to get the support of the employees because it had engaged them in the process. Some employees volunteered to work for no pay on a temporary basis while others chose to work part time. Others chose to take an unpaid leave, thus ensuring that the company did not incur any more costs.

Works Cited

Bacon, Jonathan. Flying the Brand Flag for British Airways. Marketing Week. 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 4, Dec. 2012. <http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/trends/flying-the-brand-flag-for-british-airways/4004567.article>

Brennan, Emily. At British Airways, iPads for Tapping Guests’ Needs. The New York Times. 14, Nov. 2012. Web. 4, Dec. 2012. <http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/at-british-airways-ipads-for-tapping-guests-needs/>

British Airways. Our Business: Our Strategy and Objectives. 2012. Web. 4, Dec. 2012. <http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.britishairways.com%2Fcms%2Fglobal%2Fmicrosites%2Fba_reports0809%2Fpdfs%2FStrategy.pdf&ei=Noq_UK7lLYaEhQfU4oCQBw&usg=AFQjCNGr18_OZm6PKZ-FumGAQnTpgEzTxw>

Peffley, Mark. Rational Choice & Psychological Models of Decision Making. 2012. Web. 4, Dec. 2012 <http://www.slideshare.net/mpeffl/474-rational-choice-psychological-models-of-decision-making#btnNext>

Topham, Gwyn. New BA Crews in Union Push for Better Pay. The Guardian. 15, Nov. 2012. Web. 4, Dec. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/15/ba-crews-union-pay>