In the U. S aviation history, JetBlue Airways was the best-funded start-up history, founded in early 1999 with $130 million as the initial capital. JetBlue’s strategy was to merge common sense with technology and innovation in order to “bring humanity back to air travel. ” JetBlue intended to be the first “paperless” airline, replacing computers and information technology for everything from flight planning to aircraft maintenance to the utilization of e-tickets solely. The company was focused on service rather than on efficiency. As said by the founder David Neeleman, “We like to think of ourselves as customer advocates.
We believe that all travelers should have access to high quality airline service at affordable fares. ” JetBlue is a value-based company constructed on the principle that to be extraordinary on the outside one must first be extraordinary on the inside, in line with this hiring and delegating the very best people and treating them exactly the way they expect their customers to be treated is indispensable to this target. In this effort, the following components are prioritized: fair compensation/benefits programs, great two-way communication, terrific training, career growth opportunity and a safe, fun environment.
For JetBlue values lead all activities and were the basis for the formation and growth of an organization. In contrast to mission statements that could perceive as hot air, values signify the bedrock for the development of practices and management style and human resource policies. JetBLue arrived with five core values that were to exemplify the company: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun, and Passion. Having these shared values makes decision-makings much easier for the company. One of JetBlue’s top priorities is its workforce.
Managing this sector of the company is very essential in order for them to achieve their goals. Human resource management is responsible for how people are treated in organizations. It is accountable for bringing people into the organization, guiding them perform their work, compensating them for their labors, and solving problems that arise. There are seven management functions of a human resources (HR) department these are staffing, performance appraisals, compensation and benefits, training and development, employee and labor relations, safety and health, and human resource research.
The hiring practices of JetBlue shows their compliance to the following equal employment opportunity laws: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Second is the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which prohibits against exclusion from participation in, denial of benefits of, and discrimination under federally assisted programs on ground of race, color or national origin.
Third is the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination. As the paper progresses, it can be determined how these laws impact the hiring practices of JetBlue. Anne Rhoades, Executive Vice President for People of JetBlue, developed a customized human resource management approach that adapted jobs pay and benefit packages to distinct needs of different employee groups, but was deliberated to guarantee overall equity in treatment.
Some employee groups were concerned about current compensation while others worried about retirement. Employees will not receive the same package. In Rhooades’ view, conventional HR departments often do what makes their lives easier, not what the employees necessarily want. The objective at JetBlue was to provide customized pay and benefit packages that met or exceeded the industry standard. There are no probationary periods because benefits started from day one, which Rhoades found probationary period associated with unions because it is actually demeaning for the employees.
Benefits for full time employees included medical benefits and personal time off relatively than the conventional holidays with double pay for those who worked on the holidays. These shows how highly customized are the employment packages. In JetBlue, pilots, dispatchers and technicians got stock options, unlike the other group who preferred higher pay, this group opted for the options, since this group is geared to long term employment and are preparing for future retirement, in contrast with the other group, of which the majority consists of flight attendants who are not yet planning for their retirement.
Through offering stock options, the employees were given the right to buy specific amount of shares in a price and time which the employer specifies. The offering of stock options is one way to do internal recruitment, if ever a pilot’s contract ended and he opted for the stock options, then he will stay and just renew the contract. By means of this method, the company will be able to attract and keep good employees. They will be able to make their employees feel that they are like owners or partners of the business and this is a way to hire skilled employees by offering compensation higher that a salary.
Most of their job vacancies are filled by recruiting people from outside the company or those workers from another firm or organization, people who have never worked before, or people who are unemployed; this is the external recruitment method of JetBlue. In order to attract potential employees outside the company, JetBlue presents three distinct job options for flight attendants; this is due to the given fact that many flight attendants considered their jobs reasonably as short-term. One option is a one year employment contract which is proposed for college students.
They were given medical coverage plus additional monthly pay. This option is also considered to appeal to young people who sought a year of fun and travel, before they advance on the next stage of their lives. The second option was job-sharing open to two people who want to share a job. This option was considered to appeal to people looking for balance work and family responsibilities. The third option is the standard full-time flight attendant position but with a pay scale designed to appeal those who wanted to work more hours per month than industry norms.
Unlike the industry norm, pay increases were not associated with seniority. Parallel customization pertains to other types of jobs namely the customer service group and the ramp workers. Employees working part time received medical and profit sharing benefits and are double paid when they worked on holidays. Unlike other airlines, JetBlue does not have a central reservation system; as an external recruitment method, they have 500 plus reservation agents who worked from home. They were set up with computers and worked a minimum of 20 hours a week.
The customized employment packages are for listening to what each group wants. By offering more distinction in the design of jobs, compensation and benefit packages, it was probable to give employees what they want. The measure of customization would diminish the chances that employees would want union representation. It is a fact that people don’t complain when they have a choice. Moreover, contractual distinctions among people in a given occupational group might dishearten a union organizing drive, given that occupational group might discourage a union organizing drive, given that unions were adapted to standardization.
To work without unions, not having union creates a team environment, as long as they work together well, they would not need unions. A positive-environment should be created in order for the company to be union-free. When employees form unions, it is a sign of failure on the part of the company. Both the job description and the job specification are useful tools for the staffing process, someone or some event within the organization usually concludes a need to hire a new employee.
In large organizations, an employee requisition must be submitted to the HR department that specifies the job title, the department, and the date the employee is needed. From that point, the job description can be referenced for specific job associated qualifications to present more detail when advertising the position either internally, externally, or both (Mondy and Noe, 2005). The HR department should not only attract qualified applicants through job postings or other forms of advertising, but it also assists in selecting candidates’ resumes and bringing those with the proper qualifications in for an interview.
The final decision in choosing the candidate will probably be the line manager’s, assuming all Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requirements are met. Other continuing staffing responsibilities entail planning for new or changing positions and evaluating current job analyses and job descriptions to ensure that they accurately reflect the current position. In order to identify employees who were most likely to fit the vacancies, they used a targeted selection process.
The process is simply done through interviewing of the candidates and in which are the five core values translated systematically into specific behaviors both desirable and undesirable and then questions were asked regarding the past behavior of the applicant. For instance, they were asked to recall incidents in their prior job in which they showed a specific behavior, then they will be asked to described how they arrive at a decision to take the action and then to describe the consequences of their action.
There are multiple interviewers and those interviewers will have to come to a consensus decision, must not be average before telling anyone who could be hired. In an interview with a mechanic, he was asked to think of a time that “integrity” was an issue in his previous employment, he answered as a junior mechanic that he got a plum job at major airline, he was pressured to confirm an aircraft for an international flight, even though it was not in complete compliance. He then declined to “sign-off” on the airplane and the flight was delayed, which caused annoyance to the management.
The mechanic was afterward let go and that reflects the displeasure of his superiors, but he was hired by JetBlue despite of the story, because he was able to prove that he manifested the value of integrity. At another interview scenario, wherein a pilot was asked to talked about a time he or she had a customer request which is in conflict with the policies of the company and what actions he/she had taken, but with an answer that reflects arrogance, the potential firing of the pilot was refused, mainly because JetBlue is not only looking for skills but also they also give a great deal for character and attitude.