However, regardless of the existence of 'culture management', it does not guarantee that the relationship between employees and management is reliable and therefore the conflict or misunderstanding may occur that will lead to possible problems (Salama, 1994).
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) is a perfect real life example of successful airport management. They claim that the best airports in the world require a diverse range of skills. Therefore they only hire best people for a job from all around the world. Due to structural unemployment HKIA introduced a Management Trainee Programme in 2005 (www.hongkongairport.com). The two years long programme’s purpose is to develop new dynamic and professional managers that will meet HKIA standards. The intensive course provides knowledge about different aspects of airport organization from management of passenger and cargo flows, airfield operation, retailing and advertising to aviation logistics. The long term investment creates not only possible careers for young generation but also a guarantee for a successful future for HKIA.
The management approach that HKIA use can be described as Bureaucratic that was developed in early 19th century by Max Weber. The organisation prepares perfectly suitable workers for certain jobs insuring that future staff has a deep knowledge and are aware of centrally imposed rules and procedures which are made and enforced by senior managers. However in this case in contrast to the theory, candidates do not just concentrate on one specific role but have an experience and understanding of a variety different aspect in airport business. This is a great advantage for a company over competitors in the market. Also this is a great change in nature of employment and in addition this helps to develop long term relationship between the company and its employees due to variety of skills they may offer.
BA can learn from this contemporary example and introduce training courses for candidates that would like to have a career in airport business that would include baggage handling process. Additionally training could provide work experience in the airport, working with experienced staff and observe as well as practice the procedure. This approach can help to overcome problems like lack of training that BA faced at the opening of new terminal in May 2008. This is beneficial because training can provide advanced knowledge on future technology that will be employed as well as current needs like improving communication skills that are crucial for airport staff that can help deal with problems like passengers that go ballistic due to flight cancellation. Training can also support in introducing trainees to organisational culture that will help to learn about internal and external factors including actions, beliefs, and values as part of creating a committed workforce (Linstead & Grafton-Small, 1992This technique can provoke change in Bureaucratic BA organization and transfer it into where workers follow values rather than rules (Lewis P, 2008).
Cultural differences might play an important role. HKIA is located in China, the communist country where society has different principals and understandings about authority whereas BA is in democratic country, Great Britain. It might be complicated to apply bureaucratic management in contemporary UK where ‘managing through culture’ approach is admired and considered to be ethical.
Each management theory proposes a variety of different factors that can motivate staff and therefore improve efficiency in the organisation.
From one of the Frederic Taylor studies it is claimed that activities on a shop floor have to be accurately analyzed by using a mixture of techniques like time and motion studies, to monitor the precise time required to perform each task separately. This practice helps to eliminate deliberation and autonomy (Buenstorf, G., Murmann, P.J., 2005). This would lead to determining the best way of performing a particular task and therefore production efficiency will be improved through this focus on management, labour and detailed observation of technology (Nigel Slack, 1995). It is crucial to find suitable worker for each job as it is presented in the study of ‘Pig Iron’ (Taylor, 1899). Factor of ‘recruiting best people for the job’ is adapted by contemporary business world and is now a necessary procedure for almost all jobs. Therefore from scientific management point of view BA requires to observe carefully baggage handling process as well as check-in and measure the precise time that is required for luggage to get to its destination point on aircraft or storage facility as well as analyse all other variables that might occur. Through the analysis of the observation one best way will be found and the right workers can be employed that are the most successful in this operation at the airport.
But this will only cover technical side of operation. In BA case, where ‘passengers can’t put their bags onto the belts and therefore staff can’t check them in, and then it means that aircraft are going to leave without people's bags’ must be managed in different way. As with the case of terminal five this problem lead workers to actions like deception of the passengers and false assurance that the baggage is loaded just to calm the chaos (O'Halloran J, 2008). Due to these actions Heathrow and BA lost their long term trust and reputation that was the key factor for most of the customers. First reason minor staff making this crucial mistake is that they did not have a plan or any written guide about how to deal with cases like that and therefore initiative was taken by staff that appears unethical but at same time it seemed to be an appropriate action to take. Second reason is due to hierarchical and very specialized structured, vertical communication between staff that was restricted at the time of chaos and overcrowdings so it was hard to contact the centralized decision makers. Therefore the structure of the organisation must be changed in order to improve service and increase efficiency.
Due to repetitiveness and technicality, employee de-motivating scientific approach still can take place in contemporary society but in a different more ‘humane’ form that was found by German physicist-manager Ernst Abbe. Abbe unlike Taylor has recognised the importance of individual differences and has concentrated on social organization in a addition to the technical system Abbe argued that specialization is important but the loss of already trained and experienced worker due to moral dissatisfaction and boredom at work is very costly (Guido, Murmann & Johann 2005).
Trade union leader at Heathrow, Mick Rix of the GMB, believes there was not enough testing of the baggage system under realistic conditions. Senior executives also believed that the British Airports Authority, that owned the baggage system have tested it to full capacity but as they found out later that the software problems were such that if the system had been tested correctly and for long periods of use, then those problems would have been spotted a lot earlier (Rix, 2008). Staff from British Airways did not transfer to that terminal until the day of operation, so the testing would have, in the main, been carried out by the British Airports Authority, BAA. Instead the software claimed to be tested by its developers and the volunteers that were invited to test it a few weeks before the opening. Before terminal five opened, volunteers had been brought in to act as passengers during test runs. Sue Knight, a teacher from Hillingdon, was among about 250 people who rehearsed departure, arrival and transfer about two weeks before the opening day. “She says all did not go exactly according to plan.”
It would have been useful for BA to apply scientific management in procedures like software testing instead of what can be described as ‘Contingency Organic Approach’ developed by Burns & Stalker due to very loose and flexible atmosphere at the important, (Burns & Stalker, 1996) highly technical procedure like the baggage handling system testing that plays crucial role at an airport that serves as a central connecting point through which handles about 30 million passengers per year (Webster's New World Dictionary). After the testing Sue Knight and the other ‘guinea pigs’ had to fill in feedback forms which might have been a useful procedure in finding out possible problems or failures. However this research is not real life situation and cannot be highly representative because it is artificial and the sample of 250 people is not big enough so the results have been unreliable. Yet, one independent expert Peter Morris chief economist at the international aviation consultancy ASCEND, questioned the value of doing dummy runs with only a few hundred people because he believed the Terminal five trials were on too small a scale. But his opinion was not taken into account, this shows poor management and ignorance from testers because they did not feel the responsibility that they have if some kind of empowerment or cooperation with BA staff was shown that states to be good motivational factor in Mayo’s ‘human relations approach’(Bernard,1939).
If the test was conducted under scientific management; under precise real life circumstances and representative amount of participant in extreme situations, that would have been costly but in retrospect it would turn out to be cheaper because significant losses of profit, costumers and reputation would have been saved.
In conclusion it is important to say that airports should not progress to more complex automated systems until it is tested under extreme circumstances because in the end only professionals will be suitable to fix it and even they will require precious time that costumers may not have. As it was demonstrated in the essay there is a number of important point that were made that can be useful in order to minimize damage, and maximise opportunities. Some of the key factors that attention should be given is an appropriate management approach that should be used for specific procedure like software testing. Another factor is the good training of staff, with not only specialized technical knowledge but also an overall awareness of guidelines and appropriate communication skills that are required in order to work with such diverse and unique costumers. However there is no one best way to manage such a diverse global airport environment like Heathrow. But BA should benefit from a variety of different theories that can be applied in order to improve service.
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