Unit 14 HRM in Working with Leading People Assignment

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 14 HRM in Working with Leading People
QFC Level	Level 5

Introduction

The Unit 14 HRM in Working with leading people assignment discusses about the recruitment and leadership process of human resource management. The unit initiates with the discussion of the documents that needs to be recorded to recruit a new member of the staff. Impact of legal regulation of UK has also been discussed that have their great impact on the recruitment and selection process of the organizations. Different theories of leadership and the leadership styles have been argued upon in the report. The report also throe some light on the adoption of the different leadership styles by the leaders according to the situation. The later part of the unit argues about the teamwork and the assessment of the work performance of the individual in the organisation.

Task 1

1.2 Prepare documentation to select and recruit a new member of staff.

Recruitment is the process of attracting the candidates for a vacancy available in the organisation. There are many methods that can be used to recruit the candidates. It is the positive process as it involves engagement of more and more number of people in the process. The methods that can be used in an Airline industry for recruitment of a Cabin crew member are:

• Internal methods

            Transfer

• External methods

            Recruitment firms, Advertising, Job centers

Selection is the negative process after recruitment. It is negative in nature because it deals with rejecting the irrelevant candidates and selecting the appropriate one. Following methods have been used by  British Airlines  to select the employees. (Dale, 2003)

• Interviews: face to face interviews involves a panel that ask questions to the candidates who have been shortlisted by their applications
• Application short listing: short listing of the CV’s according to the relevancy of the job requirement is done by this method.
• Psychometric and aptitude tests: these tests are conducted to check the technical knowledge of the candidates.
• Background verification: this method is used to verify the documents given by the candidates.

Job description of the cabin crew member:

Job description is the description of the roles and responsibilities associated with the job.

Designation: cabin crew assistant

Reporting to: cabin crew head

Roles

• Greeting passengers and making them comfortable during the journey.
• Serving meals to the passengers.
• Demonstrating the safety procedures.
• Informing the passengers about the emergency.
• Producing written reports after the journey.

Characteristics required

• Communication skills
• Excellent conversation skills
• Hospitality and greeting skills
• Should have the skill to deal with emergency situations
• Tactful, diplomatic and soft spoken
• Proper knowledge of the field
• Flexibility of  working in partnership
• Pleasant appearance with standard height (varies with airline to airline)

Job specification: It involves the qualification required for the job

Qualification

• Graduate in hospitality management/tours and travel management
• Graduate with any subject having diploma degree of hospitality/travel and tourism/airline courses etc
• Minimum experience in the same industry: 0-6 months
• 60% and above in English in all grades of classes

1.2 Assess the impact of legal, regulatory and ethical considerations that are needed for the recruitment and selection process

Legal and regulatory framework of UK affects the functioning of each and every industry. The Acts formulated by the UK government has its impact mainly on the HRM practices of the organisation because the practices are directly to the employees of the organisation. The main aim formulating the contract law  is tie safeguarding the rights of the employees and employers. (Edenborough, 2005) Laws have been made for every process of HR department that needs to be followed. Any illegal practice in recruitment and selection processes by the organisation would be subjected to legal punishment. Therefore, it is necessary for the organizations to consider the Acts framed by government before making the HR polices of the organisation. The Equality Act 2010 is the one which needs to be considered majorly for all the process along with recruitment and selection. There are many other Acts like Racial Discrimination Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Employment Equality Regulation 20013, Race Relations Act 1976 etc that also needs to be considered. These Acts are formed to avoid the discrimination in terms of caste, race, religion, colour etc among the employees at the time of selection and recruitment.

Impact of legal Acts on recruitment:

Job postings: According to the equality Act 2010, any airline industry of UK is not allowed to post advertisement about the vacancy that give preference to any particular caste, colour, sex, origin, religion, marital status, etc. (Www2.cipd.co.uk, 2016)

Impact of legal Acts on selection:

• Interviews: It is illegal to ask the irrelevant questions to the candidates by the panel. It is ethically and legally wrong to put questions that are directly or indirectly related to the caste and colour of the candidates. Biasness should be avoided between the candidates. Any such practices by the panel are legally not correct and candidate may file a case against the employer or the panel to ask such questions. If the panel found guilty than they may be subjected to punishment for breaching the law.
• The Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority would be responsible for the maintaining the legislation among the aviation industry in UK. (Gregory, 2013)

1.3 Take part in the selection process.

As I am the part of the Human resource department , I am responsible for almost all the activities under the process of recruitment and selection. This is because recruitment and selection is the hard core function of the HR department. Selection is the very important and critical step as this is the final step of staffing a new member in the organisation. The judgment should be appropriate and free from bias. Responsibilities of Human resource department in selection process:

1. Selection of recruitment and selection panel: It is the duty of the Hr department to selection the judgment panel for the interview process. In British airways, this panel includes the head of Cabin Crew department, Hr manager and sometime other member of cabin crew. The panel may change according to the job profile.
2. Recruitment and selection methods: It is also the duty of the Hr team to select the appropriate recruitment and selection method that needs to be conducted to recruit the new staff. The method should be cost effective and efficient in performance.
3. Time and venue: Time and venue of the interview or the test conducted should be decided by the Hr team considering the views of the department head.
4. Communication: the selection and rejection information should be communicated to the candidate on time. This communication is the responsibility of the Hr team.
5. Short-listing: It is the most important task to be done by the HR department. The Hr department needs to short list the CV’s of the candidates according to the requirement of the job. There is need to match the job and the person specifications so that resources would not be wasted on the wrong candidates. (Grint, 2005)

1.4 Evaluate own contribution to the selection process.

As an employee of the HR department, I was the one who was looking after all the activities one by one. We work as a team in the department and I contributed in almost all the processes. My contribution in before the recruitment and the selection process was to evaluate the need of the staff in the Cabin Crew. The need has been realized by matching the objectives of the organisation with the present working conditions of the cabin crew. At the time recruitment, I was the one who was involved in the team to generate the advertisement. My main contribution in the process of recruitment was to act as the mediator between the recruitment firm employee and the HR manager. I was also involved in short listing of the CV’s by matching the person specification with the job requirements. I was responsible for some of the activities of selection process like deciding the judging panel of the interview and also to arrange the interviews on time. Communication is the most important task at the time of recruitment and selection. Proper information flow provides effective results of the processes. I was responsible for communicating the results to the candidates as well as to maintain the records of the new member were also my duty. (Kelman, 2006)

Task 2

Slide 1: This slide provides the topic of the presentation.

Slide 2: Contents

Slide 3: Introduction- Managers of the organizations need to be a leader as well. They have to manage the employees and their work at the workplace. This can only be possible if they have that leadership quality in them. There are many theories about leadership that argues different things regarding the topic.

2.1 Explain the skills and attributes needed for leadership.

Slide 4: Leadership is ability of an individual to lead others. It is the quality or the skill posses by the individual to act as the guide. There are many theories that argues about different leadership styles according to the personality of the individuals.

Slide 5: The great man theory suggests that leaders are born and the leadership qualities cannot be acquired after birth while trait theory suggests that people can acquire the qualities of leadership after birth with the experiences. Some more theories have also been introduced for better understanding of the topic. The theories were transactional and transformational theory, behavioral and contingency theory. Behavioral theory divides the leaders in two categories. One is task oriented and other is employee oriented leader. Contingency theory is about using different styles of leadership according to the situation. Transactional theory focuses on the transaction between the leaders and the followers by which both can be benefitted and transformational theory is about building a sense of trust and relationship between the leaders and the followers.  These theories give different approach to leadership. (Osborne, 2008)

Slide 6: Leaders need to have some qualities and skills in them that make them a good leader. For the company with decreasing sales, it is very important to guide and lead the staff properly. Following characteristics must be there in the leaders to lead the sales staff:

1. Communication skills: It is very important for the leaders to communicate properly and freely. Leaders need to lead many people at a time and that is the reason communication skills are very essential for them.
2. Knowledge: Leaders must have the full knowledge of the field they are working in. It is their duty to guide the employees or the followers. They can guide them only when they have proper knowledge of the work.
3. Relevant experience: It is very important for the leaders to have the experience of the relevant field. Leadership quality develops in a person with the experience of the field. They can lead the followers by sharing their experiences.
4. Overall knowledge of company and the industry: overall knowledge of the company and the industry is also very important for the leaders. They should have the knowledge of all the functions of the company as well as of the industry.
5. Problem solving skills: This is one of the most important skills that should be there in the leader. Leaders have to coordinate many followers so they should have the skills to solve the problems instantly. (Sparrow, 2006)

2.2 Explain the difference between leadership and management.

Slide 7: In today’s era, employees need to be very versatile in nature because they have to perform nay functions simultaneously. Managers are the one who needs to manage the employees as well as guide them. As per the scenario, the organisation with declining sales needs to manage its sales staff so that they can cover up the sales target early. Managing is not the only solution in the situation; manager has to play the role of leader also to guide the sales staff.

Slide 8: There are many differences in the functions of the leaders and managers that have been discussed below:

1. Management is about managing the staff at the workplace while leadership is about guiding the staff for their functions.
2. Management deals with getting work done from the employees while leadership deals with developing the interpersonal skills of the employees or the followers.
3. Employees under management works according to the direction of the manager while followers follow the practice of the leaders.
4. Manager’s work is restricted to the completion of the project while leaders have to deal with the followers for long term.
5. Managers always keep their focus on completion of the task by the employees on time while the leaders focus on teaching the way a task has to be done.
6. The main aim of manager is to achieve the organisational target with the help of employees while the main aim of leaders is to develop the individual skills in the followers.

2.3 Compare leadership styles for different situations.

Slide 9: There are many leadership theories proposed by the theorists to provide the idea of different leadership styles. Leadership styles can be defined as the way to lead others. The choice of leadership styles depends on the situation as well as the personality of the leader and the culture and structure of the organisation.

Slide 10: Following are some of the leadership styles that have been used in different situations:

• Commanding: Commanding is the style that is used by the leaders who commands the follows to perform a particular task according to the leader’s will.
• Visionary: This style is very effective as it focuses on including the visions of the followers as well.
• Associative: the leaders with this style keep their leaders in priority.
• Democratic: Democratic leadership deals with involving the opinions of the followers at the time of decision making but power remains in the hand of the leaders.
• Pacesetting: These leaders set the standard for their followers that can be followed by them. (Dale, 2003)
• Coaching: The leaders with this style are the one who lead the employees or the followers throughout their working duration in order to develop their skills.

Slide 11-12:

Leadership style	Situation	How it works?
Commanding	Crisis	Commanding style is used at the time of crisis. This is because crisis is the situation where decisions have to be taken urgently. The leaders at this time need to command the followers accordingly.
Democratic	Change	Democratic leadership style is very appropriate at the time of implementing change in the organisation. Implementation of the change is only possible with the involvement of the employees and followers.
Coaching	New strategy	Coaching is the appropriate style for implementation of new strategy as employees requires the assistance of the leaders to at the time of implementing new strategy.

2.4 Explain ways to motivate staff to achieve objectives.

Slide 13: Motivation is the driving force that influences employees to work efficiently. It is very essential for the organisation with declining sales to motivate the sales staff for increasing the sales. Some of the motivational theories have been proposed that forms the framework for the motivational factors to be used:

Slide 14:

1. Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory: This theory focuses on fulfilling the needs of the employees at different levels. The level of the needs initiates with physiological needs that are the most basic needs of the employees. Next is the safety need that includes the safe work environment, love needs include the needs related to the nature of the employees working together. Further it focuses on the self esteem and self actualization needs that cover the self realization needs of the employees. (Noone and Hultberg, 2011).
2. Herzberg two factor theories: This theory argues about the things whose presence creates a sense of dissatisfaction in the minds of the people. It suggests that management should consider the factors that satisfy the customers as well as the factors whose absence may dissatisfy the employees.

Slide 15: Following are some of the factors that can motivate the sales staff:

• Rewards: Rewards are the monetary or non monetary benefits that can motivate the sales staff to work efficiently.
• Involvement in decisions: Considering the opinions and the view of the employees at the time of decision making creates a sense of belongingness among the employees and this motivates them to work.
• Equality: Management should treat every employee equally so that there is no discrimination in the organisation. This somehow motivates the employees to perform towards the completion of the goals of organisation. (Rudolph, 2016).

Slide 16: Conclusion- It has been concluded that leadership is very necessary to deal with different situations. Various styles need to be used at different times accordingly.

Slide 17: References

Task 3

3.1 Assess the benefits of team working for an organisation.

Teamwork refers to working together with others in order to complete the task with more effectiveness. It also helps in enhancing the communication between the employees of the organisation. It has been srgues that organisation with team work culture are more successful than the organisation where employees work on individual basis. In aviation industry, teamwork has its immense importance and it provides benefits to the organisation as well as to the employees working in a team. Some of the benefits have been discussed below:

1. Development of interpersonal skills: Teamwork allows the members of the cabin crew to communicate with each other. Easy communication facilitates the members to share their views and experiences that in turn help each and every member to develop the interpersonal skills. (Agnihotri and Krush, 2015).
2. Communication skills: It is very essential for a Cabin crew employee to have great communication skill as they needs to handle the customers. Teamwork provides them the opportunity to enhance their communication skills as well.
3. Ease of dealing with customers: Team work in cabin crew staff helps them to deal with the customers easily. If any of the passenger is not satisfied with one of the member’s services than other members of the team can help him out.
4. Enhance speed: Teamwork allow the team to work with high pace. More members in the cabin crew can deal with more and more customers simultaneously and hence increases the speed of the work.

3.2 Demonstrate working in a team as a leader and member towards specific goals, dealing with any conflict or difficult situations.

Teamwork supports the working of the organization but also brings some of the conflicts as well. As far as the airline industry is considered, cabin crew workers in British airways face many conflicts like different views of the members, difficulty in customer handling etc. leaders have to manage all these conflicts. Belbin's theory provides nine team roles that need to be applied in the organisation to handle the conflicts:

• Coordinator: Coordinator is the leader that tries to coordinate between the work and the person. He focuses on maintaining the balance between the task completion and the employee satisfaction.
• Shaper: The leader with this style is task oriented and focuses on shaping the strategies to complete the task effectively.
• Plant: These are the people who are imaginative and idea maker.
• Resource investigator: These are the person who are more into investigation of the things and try to build more contracts. (Dessler & Teicher., Dessler and Teicher, 2004)
• Implementer: They are the people with cool minds and concentrates on implementing things silently.
• Monitor evaluator: These people evaluate the things properly before taking decisions.
• Team worker: Team worker are those who tries to build relationship with others and prefers to work in a team.
• Finishers: They are not much worried about the way of performance but focuses on finishing the tasks on time.
• Specialist: these are the people who are very much sound in the technical skills.

Dealing with conflicts requires patience by the leader as well as the followers. As a leader of the cabin crew, it is necessary to maintain the balance and the work load among the members and to teach them the way to handle the customers. (Edenborough, 2005)

3.3 Review the effectiveness of the team in achieving the goals.

The main conflict or the issue that has been raised in the British airways is of customer satisfaction. The cabin crew members were not performing so well in theory field and the reviews about the airlines have gone to the negative side. After implementing the teamwork culture in the organisation, it has been observed that the customer reviews have turned into positive reviews. This is because the cabin crew members were working constructively by helping each other. They were sharing their views to each other so that any other worker does not repeat the mistakes. All the 6 members of the team distribute the work load so that any of the members does not face the difficulty in completing the task of dealing with passengers. It has also been observed that the team of the cabin crew working simultaneously to attend more and more customers at a time and this results in positive reviews of the customers. The positive reviews of the customers show that there is an increase in the customer satisfaction.

Task 4

4.1 Explain the factors involved in planning the monitoring and assessment of work performance.

Monitoring and assessment of the work performance refers to the evaluation of the performance of the employees at individual level. There are many factors that need to be considered in order to make plans for the monitoring and assessment of the performance of the cabin crew members:

• Learning needs diversity: It is very important for the leader to analyze the different learning needs of the people. This is because it acts as the factor that is used to assess the performance of the member in the team. Learning needs diversity refers to the variety in the learning needs of the learners. Every learner possesses different skills and wants to learn the skills that are not present. Therefore, evaluator needs to consider the learning needs of the individual before assessing his performance. Some of the cabin crew members want to learn the communication skills while some other wants to develop their personality. Diversity in the needs of the employees affects the assessment process of their performance.
• Age: This is also the factor that needs to be involved in assessing the performance of the individual. It is very necessary for the assessor to consider the age of the learner at time of monitoring his performance. With growing age of the employee in cabin crew, they get the experience and have brushed up skills. The assessment of the old employees is very different from the new one with younger age. (Gregory, 2013)
• Cultural diversity: Every department in the organisation have employees with different cultural background. As far as the case is considered, there is cultural diversity among the staff of the cabin crew. Employees with different culture have different learning needs and thus require different type of assessment process to be assessed.
• Resources available: The available resources for the learners to learn are also taken into consideration. These resources determine the level of learning or the opportunity of learning for the learners. The monitoring process should be according to the availability of the resources.

4.2 Plan and deliver the assessment of the development needs of individuals.

It is essential to deliver the assessment of the development needs of the cabin crew members. This ensures the organisation as well as the team members that they have developed the skills after assessment. This assessment can be delivered to them by many ways. Some of the ways have been discussed below:

• Motivation: Motivation to the employees by the leader suggests that the team member of the cabin crew has developed the skills to perform better. Motivation by the leader signifies the enhancement in the performance of the individual motivation also helps the team worker to perform more efficiently in future. Developing the motivation need is necessary for the employees so that it can benefit them as well as the organisation. Motivation drives them to perform better.
• Delegation: If the leader finds that someone is performing better, he will delegate more work to that worker. The delegation of the work also signifies the improvement in the performance of the employee. Delegation needs should be developed in the employees of the cabin crew so that they can realize their responsibility towards work. Team work is very important for them and they themselves should have the ability to delegate the work accordingly so that all the responsibilities can be managed simultaneously.  
• Communication: Communication is tool for information flow. The information of the assessment of an individual’s performance can be reached by communicating the results to the individual. Need for communication should be developed in order to make the cabin crew member realize that communication is the most important tool to handle the passengers as well as to work in a team effectively.

Assessment

Assessment of the individual’s performance is the planned process and should be delivered to the individual so that the performance of the overall organisation can be evaluated. This provides the idea of the weakness and strength of the individual that affects the functioning of the organization as a whole. (Grint, 2005). Various assessment techniques can be used to deliver the assessment. Role plays and group discussions are the most relevant techniques that can help in assessing the development needs of the cabin crew employees.

• Role plays: Role play is the method in which the artificial environment of the work place has been created and employees act according to the role they have been delegated. This helps in determining the development of the skill needs among the employees.
• Group discussions: Group discussion is the method in which all the members of the group can share their views on the topic. Cabin crew members and the head participate in the GD session and discusses about the needs they developed.

4.3 Evaluate the success of the assessment process.

Evaluation of the success of the assessment process determines the improvement in the skills of the individual that affects the overall working of the organisation. There are many ways to evaluate the success of the assessment process.

1. Appraisal: Provision of appraisal to the individual signifies that the individual; has performed well in the task and being praised by the organisation in the form of appraisal. It also motivates the employee to perform even better next time. Appraisal has been given to 60% of the cabin crew members after assessment of the work performance.
2. Feedback: Feedback by the leaders assists the employee about his performance. If the feedback is positive, employee gets motivated to perform and if the feedback is negative than he tries to solve the issues in his performance and tries to achieve the target next time. Feedback can be taken from the assessment attendees also. It can provide their experience of the assessment process. Leaders suggest that most of the employees has been found to have satisfactory performance. Feedbacks from the employees suggest that that all the employees are happy with the introduction of performance assessment methods.
3. Promotion: Promotion to the individual determines the quality of the performance he has given. The improvement in the skills and the performance of the individual leads to recognition and promotion that determines the success of the assessment process. After assessment 30% of the employees get promoted due to high level of performance.
4. Outcomes: The outcomes of the performance of the employees determine the success of the assessment plan. If the outcome of the employee has raised that means, the assessment plan is successful and if there is no enhancement in the performance than this suggests that, the assessment plan may not be so much effective to develop the required skills. After introduction of the practice of assessment, most of the employees have been observed to have improved performance. This is because of the needs that have been developed in the employees of cabin crew. (Kelman, 2006)

Conclusion

Recruitment and selection is the very critical process of HRM as it affects the overall working of the organizations. It is very important to recruit right people at right time. It is regulated by many legal and ethical framework of UK. This is to safeguard the rights of the employees and the employers. Leadership is another important factor that affects the working of the organisation. There is difference in management and leadership but mangers need to play the role of both at times. Teamwork has found to be very effective in enhancement of the interpersonal skills as well as in improving the performance. Assessment and monitoring needs to be done for the evaluation of the performance at individual level.

References

Books:

Dale, M. (2003). A manager's guide to recruitment & selection. London: Kogan Page.
Edenborough, R. (2005). Assessment methods in recruitment, selection, and performance. London: Kogan Page.
Frazer, R. and Oswald, P. (2009). Teamwork!. New York: Simon Spotlight.
Gregory, H. (2013). Teamwork. North Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press.
Grint, K. (2005). Leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kelman, J. (2006). Teamwork!. London: Hodder Wayland.
Osborne, C. (2008). Leadership. London: DK Pub.
Sparrow, P. (2006). International recruitment, selection, and assessment. London: Chartered Institute of Personal and Development.
Tracy, B. (2014). Leadership. New York: American Management Association.