The commercial airline is an extremely competitive, safety-sensitive, high technology service industry. People, employees and customers, not products and machines, must be the arena of an organization 's core competence. The implications are vast and pervasive affecting no less than the organisation 's structure, strategy, culture, and numerous operational activities. Completed by 13 respondents (executives), this audit presents a series of select findings of a human resource management audit carried out in 2001-2 and contains extensive data on airlines from nine countries form around the glode.
The conclusion drawn from these three bodies of work is that, with the exception of a handful of high performing airlines, the industry as a whole continues to function as per a traditional, top-down, highly divisionalised, industrial model of operations and governance. This model is manifestly inappropriate in such a highly knowledge-based service market as the airline industry.
HRM expertise in general and recruitment and selection as well as diversity and equal opportunity in particular are required now, more than ever, to spearhead the strategic development of acustomer-centric, learning-oriented workforce that is capable of adapting quickly to the strate-gic goals and change imperatives facing the airline industry.
Strategy in the aviation and airline industries is premised upon two fundamental drivers that have been evolving since deregulation of the US airline industry in 1978: one, a growing global concern for safety; and two, an ever-increasing consumer expectation of broad service choice and service excellence.
Research has long shown that accidents and poor service quality are primarily rooted in soocio-technical human factors, not technology per se.
Sub-optimisation, or poor quality in regards to management, decisionmaking, teamwork, employee motivation, or communication can translate into loss of customers, loss of market share, loss of organization assets, and above all, loss of life.
In such a safety-sensitive, customer service-centric environment, the traditional product-centred industrial model of corporate structures and industrial relations is inappropriate.
Human resource management (HRM) expertise is required now, more than ever, to spearhead internal marketing strategies in order to gain customer lock-on.
The primary area of focus of strategy is the manner in which the HR department in general aligns activities, policies and procedures with the recruitment and selection and diversity and equal opportunity imperatives of the organization.
This staffing and employee equity-maintenance function is the focus of this article.