The success of every organization wholly depends on capabilities of its human resource department. This is because it is the department responsible of coming up with strategies used in not only recruiting staffs in the organization but also employee motivation. Human resource department makes sure that it is in conversant with the most current methods of employee recruitment to ensure that it has introduced competent staffs to the organization. Failures in human resource strategies, policies and practices might lead to collapse of the whole organization. This paper is aimed at analyzing some of the human resource strategies, policies and practices with respect to JetBlue Airways.
For many years there have been complaints about people being discriminated against when it comes to job recruitment. Discrimination takes various forms which range from age, gender, race or even disability. As a result, United States came up with regulations to guarantee equal opportunities when it comes to job recruitment. The laws cater for employment aspect such as promotion and training. These regulations are to be obeyed by every organization that recruits employees in the country. Some of the national equal employment opportunity laws that affect the manner in which JetBlue Airways conduct its employee hiring practices include age discrimination in employment act of 1967 (National Archives para. 2). This law stipulates that so long as a person is qualified for a specific job discriminating the person against his or her age is prohibited. There have been cases of people who are over forty years being denied opportunities to work in most organizations. A person denied to work in an organization due to his or her age has the right to file a case against the organization. In its recruitment exercise, JetBlue Airways ensures that its recruitment procedure does not discriminate on the age of employees. Everyone capable of performing different responsibilities within the airways receive equal chance of getting employed despite his or her age.
Another law is that dictates on the method to be used by the company in recruiting its staffs is the Americans with disability Act enacted in the year 2008. The laws states that despite a person being disabled, if he or she is in a position to perform a certain responsibility in an organization, it is his or her right to be accorded equal opportunity when it comes to employment. JetBlue Airways is expected to ensure that it does not discriminate against a person due to his or her disability if he or she has qualified for the job. It also has the responsibility to ensure that it has provided all the necessary facilities to help these people carry out their duties with minimum hardships. This is only excepted where the airways can prove that by providing these facilities, it would lead to severe hardships on the side of the company. It is the duty of JetBlue Airways to ensure that it has treated all its employees equally. This is according to fair Labor Standards Ac t of 1958. In the past there have been cases where people working within the same department in an organization receive different pay based on gender. The law orders all organizations to ensure that people working in same department with thin an organization are treated equally. This is with respect to salary and working conditions (National Archives para. 4).
In recruitment exercise within an organization, there are various options that are open for organizations to take. These include internal and external recruitment methods. Internal recruiting methods are mostly preferred as they are cheaper. This is with respect to time consumed as well as cost of making announcements of the vacancies. Staffs recruited are also familiar with the organization and thus requires less training to be oriented with their new positions. One of the methods of internal recruitment used by JetBlue is personal recommendation. Based on performance of individual employees within the organization, people are elevated to high ranks in the company if they are found to be productive (Mondy 17). Employees are taken through a panel where they are required to give a brief explanation on how they have managed to overcome problems affecting their department. Those found to offer viable explanations are promoted. The method acts as a motivation to staffs leading to improvement in organization performance as every staff strive to ensure that he or she is promoted if there arise another chance. Companies can also use external recruitment methods to fill vacancies found in their organizations. This is where they look for employees outside the organization. This form of recruiting helps organization in pooling together diverse experiences. People recruited come to the organization with different working experiences from their past organizations. However, organizations fail to use it as it takes time before the recruited staffs get acquainted with operations in an organization. The method is also expensive as the companies have to offer competitive packages in order to acquire competent staffs. It also demoralizes organization employees leading to poor performance within the organization. One of the external recruitment methods used by JetBlue is head hunting. This is where the company’s recruitment agents look for competent staffs from other organizations and promise to offer them better packages and working conditions to lure them join their airways (Mondy 25).
In recruiting mechanics and pilots to the company, Jet blue Airways uses a certain guideline. The organization uses five values of the recruits to determine the most competent person to take. Recruiting staffs comes up with attractive and non-attractive behaviors that are identified from the applicants. From this, applicants are asked to elaborate on methods they have ever used in countering problems affecting their areas of working in their previous jobs. They are also to give some of the reasons that made them to take that action and the repercussions of their actions. For a pilot, he is asked to give an account of an incidence where he or she encountered a customer request that contradicted company rules and regulations and how he or she dealt with the problem. The interview process involves a panel of interviewers who have to arrive at a consensus for a mechanic or a pilot to be recruited into the airways. The company is best aware of the responsibilities assumed by pilots and mechanics in maintaining company performance. Their job requires persons with highest degree of integrity when it comes to dealing with customers and certifying planes for freights. Using this technique in recruiting mechanics and pilots, JetBlue is sure of getting the most competent staffs hence ensuring not only company progress but also creating good image of the company to the public. The method would also help them in managing to acquire pilots and mechanics from other competing airlines thus cutting down on cost incurred in recruiting and training pilots and mechanics.
For the success of every organization, there is need for establishment of a performance appraisal system. This helps the organization in determining whether employees are performing to the expectations of the organization. There are various factors that affect performance appraisal system of an organization. These include clarification of performance expectation prior to rating of the employee performance. Failure to have a clear outline of the performance expectations might lead to the system rating employee performance poorly. This might have detrimental effects to the organization as well as employees. The system may show that employees are performing as per the expectations of the company whereas in actual sense they are underperforming (Mondy 37). This would lead to an organization experiencing loss. On the other hand, it might underrate employee performance at the time when they are actually performing. This would lead to them being demoralized and failing to perform well. Fairness in the system is another factor that affects its success. Employees might fail to meet company expectations if they happen to know that the performance appraisal system in the organization does not rate them fairly. Integration of career development in the appraisal system greatly affects the success of the system. This is because the system helps employees in developing new skills with respect to their areas of operations thus improving organization performance which is the main aim of conducting the appraisals.
360 degree feedback evaluation method is a performance appraisal method that combines staffs from varied levels of management within an organization. It can also gather information from external sources such as customers and suppliers. This method helps in understanding how others take the organization. Some of the advantages of using this method of appraisal include the method reflects a more comprehensive view of employee performance. This is because it covers all levels in the organization. It might also include some external sources such as the customers. The outcomes of the appraisal are more credible compared to those from other methods of appraisal. As the method involves many people, chances of the method being biased are very low. This is because it contains views from all fields within the organization. No one can alter the results to make them appear to favor his or her department. Feedback corrected from peers can help in improving staff performance. With all the above advantages being accorded by 360 degree feedback method of appraisal, JetBlue would opt to use the method. It is the aim of the airways to ensure that it has emerged competitive. To achieve this, it needs to get feedback from external sources on how it is performing. 360 degree feedback method allows it to collect information from its customers which might be vital in helping it improve its performance (Mondy 145).
Employee compensation is a very sensitive issue in most organizations. People tend to be ardent when coming up with criteria to use in employee compensation. A lot of considerations need to be made before deciding on the mechanism to adopt for employee compensation. This is because it might lead to some employees feeling dissatisfied. Fair and adequate compensation within an organization helps in employee motivation, retention and attraction of competent employees from other companies. When coming up with employee compensation method, there are some employee-related factors that organization need to put in to consideration (Newman para. 4). These are job qualification of the employee, skills and abilities of the employee, prior experience and employee commitment to the organization. There is need for an organization to offer a good package for employees who are qualified for a specific job. This will help in ensuring that the organization has retained the employee saving it costs of recruiting new employees every time. It will also be able to attract new competent staffs for the job. Rewarding or compensating committed employees helps in motivating them continue improving the organization. It also acts as a wake up call for other employees who also strive to see that their effort is recognized in future. To retain people with past experience in certain work within an organization, it is important to com up with a good compensation package. Experienced employees shift from one organization to another where their experience is acknowledged. To avoid loosing experienced personnel, organizations have to come up with attractive compensation package (Newman para. 7).
Discretionary benefits refer to benefits given to employees at the discretion of the employer. These may range from health related benefits such as vision care for the grown ups to non-health benefits such as employee training (Mondy 149). Some services offered to employees by organizations also fall under this category. These are services such as accommodation and transport. JetBlue offers some of these benefits to its employees. Examples are the medical benefits offered to full time employees and leaves offered to staffs who wish t spend some time off the work. Medical coverage and house allowance offered to flight attendants also forms some of the discretionary benefits given to employees by JetBlue Airways.
Works Cited
Mondy, Wayne. Human Resource Management. (10th Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2007.
National Archives. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Laws. 2009. Web.
Newman, Pam. Determining Employee Compensation. 2007. Web.