Assessment of the Problems and Issues in Human Resource Management

When two organizations join, the influence on the workforce is a major worry, as it was with the merger of Southwest and Air Tran.

The main foundation for integrating current and new employees in a certain organizational structure is the capital of the organizations and cultural frameworks. In terms of earlier mergers, from a strategic standpoint, the executives preferred to just complete the merger and deal with the consequences when they materialized (Chapman and Webster, 2013).

However, not just Southwest Airlines but also the majority of American firms have a propensity to become more preoccupied with stakeholder reporting than with employee turnover, which results in significant losses of potential.

However, in merging the airlines, the human resource professional need to take more concern and analyze the process by use of SWOT analysis (Valentin, 2011). According to the Southwest airline and the Airline Tran, human resource team has a SWOT analysis of the merging processes of the two companies.

Strengths

The companies will enjoy training and leadership development

The turnover rate is expected to reduce to less than 5% turnover in each of the companies.

There will be multiple climate and culture for the employees

The companies will also have strong employee complaints procedures

Weakness

The history of the grievances will tend to have ultimate resolutions but with no time limits

Difficulties in communicating the cultural values to the new Air Tran employees

Opportunities

Demonstrate to the employees the values of merging

Improve labor relations and communications with the intention of positive outcomes

Reassure the Airline Tran employees for equal access to the available opportunities just like the Southwest employees

Threats

Collective bargaining of union contracts with similar nature

Observe the behavior and decisions, which are made by the senior southwest managers who were transferred to Airline Tran for promotion purposes.

Due to the merging process, the companies need to set up recommendations that are likely to address the issues that may come along with merging the employees from the two organizations. The companies have high chances of having employee’s redundant positions until the occurrence of the next shifts. In so doing, the human resource team needs to come up with ideas and processes that will ensure that the merging processes occur on a regular basis, like annually to reduce the redundancy rate (Jordan, 2008).

It is evident that employees from the two organizations have different cultures that require ultimate maintenance. In such cases, if the cultures are not well protected, the companies might experience and record a high turnover rate. The human resource managers will have to mobilize the other leaders to promote the cultures by accepting and allowing the employees to work according to their cultures (Richards, 2016). The main culture that may exist is the religious cultures. In such cases, each member will be free to have time for religion if the need arises. With the above recommendation, the companies will promote the culture before the cultural clashes may occur.

Because the companies’ employees have merged, it is likely that the organizations will also have to combine their compensation and benefit plans. The benefit and compensation plan is a critical point that may bring disunity to the organizations if not well-taken care. The management will have to come up with strategies, plans for compensation, and benefits that suit both sides before the operation of the merging process (Sigmund and Torquato, 2007). Finally, in the cases of Union involvements, the organization’s managers will have to inform and train the employees on the unions involved in their working processes.

About the various global locations, the companies will undergo various tasks for hiring and recruiting for the sake of expansion (Sigmund and Torquato, 2007). The duties of hiring and recruiting new employees include developing a hiring strategy. The strategies need to align with the goals and objectives of each organization. Secondly, provision of accurate and up-to-date job descriptions. The process holds lots of importance for a successful recruitment process. The task will help in performance management and compensation procedures (Valentin, 2011). Thirdly, candidate sourcing. It involves finding an individual with the specific requirements and have the capacity to achieve the responsibilities and duties in the job description. Finally, interview preparations. During the candidate sourcing process, the organization will end up with several candidates who will be subjected to interviews to find out the right individual for the position.

From a human resource perspective, several metrics help them evaluate the expansion of the organization as in the case of the southwest airline. From a human resource viewpoint, the ability of an organization to enroll new employees on a regular basis is a metric that indicates that the company or organization is expanding (Chapman and Webster, 2013). Ability to enroll new hires is a clear indication that the organization has grown to create new duties that are too much for the available employees, hence the need for new hires. The reduced turnover rate is also another metric for evaluating the outcomes of expansion in an organization. The reduced turnover rate is an indication that the company has great offers for their employees that are not considered in other agencies. The working conditions, maintaining the culture and decent salaries and wages to the employees reduces the retention level (Jordan, 2008). For an organization to attain such levels, it is clear that the company has undergone expansion. Finally, if an organization can compensate and offer benefits to their employees on a regular basis, the organization is growing. It offers the employees with their bonuses and performance tokens annually. It is also a motivation strategy for the organization (Richards, 2016). Therefore, the successful merging process in the two agencies illustrates the expansion rate of the organizations.

In conclusion, it is evident that the human resource management in the southwest airline and the Airline Tran, the merger of the two agencies about the employees is a great sense of expansion and strengthening the unity amongst them. The companies have steady and regular expansion rates in all the organizational dimensions. However, despite the success cases, there is a need for the companies to come up with strategies that will help in the alignment of the human resource functions of the two companies. Some of the recommendations include coming up with strategic plans that will guide and assist in the smooth expansion of the organizations. Maintaining the cultural backgrounds of the employees plays a critical role in facilitating the expansion processes. The human resource SWOT analysis about employees merging was appropriate. However, the human resource needs to indulge in activities that will promote the strengths and opportunities while mitigating the effects of threats and weaknesses.

References

Chapman, D. S., & Webster, J. (2013). The use of technologies in the recruiting, screening, and selection processes for job candidates. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 11(2‐3), 113-120.

Jordan, W. A. (2008). Problems stemming from airline mergers and acquisitions. Transportation Journal, 9-30.

Richards, K. (2016). The effect of Southwest Airlines on US airline markets. Research in transportation economics, 4, 33-47.

Sigmund, O., & Torquato, S. (2007). The design of materials with extreme thermal expansion using a three-phase topology optimization method. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 45(6), 1037-1067.

Valentin, E. K. (2011). Away with SWOT analysis: use defensive/offensive evaluation instead. Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR), 21(2).