FOUNDATION IN BUSINESS

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Student Name Alvin Choi Kah Ming
Student Number 15463
NRIC no / Passport no 021023-06-0915
Intake & Year April 2020
Subject (Module) Human Resource Management
Assignment Title Report
Lecturer Ms.Lavinia
Tutor (if applicable)
Word count (length) 2561
Assignment due date 20/9
Date Submitted 20/9

OFFICE USE ONLY

Date Received
Grade/Mark
Lecturer’s remarks
A SIGNED COPY OF THIS FORM MUST ACCOMPANY ALL SUBMISSIONS FOR
ASSESSMENT. STUDENTS SHOULD KEEP A COPY OF ALL WORK SUBMITTED.
Note: There are penalties for the late submission of assessments. Plagiarism: the
unacknowledged inclusion of another person’s writings or ideas or works, in any formally
presented work (including essays, examinations, projects, laboratory reports or presentations).

Declaration of Authorship
I declare that all material in this assessment is my own work except where there is clear
acknowledgement and appropriate reference to the work of others.

Signed…………………Alvin……………………………………
Date…………………………20/9/2020……………………………….....

Table of Contents
Members..................................................................................................................................................3
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................4
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................5

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Future Challenges........................................................................................................................................6
1. Retaining and rewarding talented candidates.....................................................................................6
2. Career advancement opportunities.......................................................................................................7
3. Flexible work arrangement..................................................................................................................8
4. Changing job roles...............................................................................................................................9
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................10
 Retaining and rewarding talented candidates...................................................................................10
 Changing job roles.............................................................................................................................10
 Career advancement for employee...................................................................................................10
 Flexible work arrangement................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................12
Reference list.............................................................................................................................................13
Appendix I – Group Report Rubrics.................................................................................................14

Group Member IC Number

Alvin Choi Kah Ming 021023060915
Muhammad Azmi bin Mohamed Maideen 020424140487
Alyssha Sharleen Bt Satiadass 020802130148
Vethanayagam
Ghayathri A/P Kannappan 021002101140

Report turnitin...........................................................................................................................................15

Members

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Executive summary

Air Asia is one of the best companies in the low-cost carriers in Asia. To maintain their position
in the market as the best low-cost carriers, they should be reliable in every single aspect and
mainly in Human Resource Management (HRM) field.
If they look down upon their employees and fail to fulfil their employee’s requirements by only
focusing to achieve their company’s goals, they will be in a big problem.
With this, they will be facing some extremely hard challenges in their future. Some of the future
challenges that they will be facing are lack of motivation given by the company and no
increment of salary to their employees.
Next challenge is that they will be facing finance crisis during pandemic such as Covid-19
outbreak around the world. Moreover, they also have to retain their workers and develop a good
leadership in the Human Resource Management (HRM).
Finally, they also have to provide a flexible or arrangements to their employees.

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Introduction

First and foremost, employees within an organisation is one of the most important assets. With
that in mind, organisations tend to spend time and effort to develop and discover the potential in
employees in order to achieve the target set by the organisation.
Human resources management is a department where the development of employees is involved.
It is a procedure of filling up the vacancies (recruiting), selecting the applicants, providing
different types of training and development, monitoring the performance of the employees while
providing proper benefits and guidance to.
Nowadays, the practice of human resource undergoes radical changes due to many trends which
define the shape of human resource management. Some of the trends that shaped the practice of
human resource management include globalisation, technology innovation, slower economic
growth, increased competition due to population boom and etc.
The innovation of technology is an example of a trend that causes a massive impact on all types
of jobs. The jobs are now less labour intensive and is becoming more technology dependant
which require higher skill levels and knowledge in employees. Behind every effective and
efficient department, manager can play big roles and the manager of human resource
management is no exception. Before a plan can be executed, human resource manager usually
assists the top managers in devising functional with plans that support the organisation’s overall
strategic plan.

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Future Challenges
1. Retaining and rewarding talented candidates

In Air Asia’s point of view, employees are their biggest contributor. Many leading
companies offer many more benefits to recruit talented employees. So, Air Asia’s approach is to
create a moto. Their moto is “we care and we make it easy”, it constantly reminds the
management to ultimately looking after their employees and simplifying their work lives easier
so that they can focus more on their jobs. Air Asia stated they put a lot of effort to become guest
—centric and therefore they introduced a programme which covers three important aspects of
their employees’ lives: their physical health, personal finance and emotional state. So, for
example, their employees have access to financial education, free physiotherapy, free emotional
therapy sessions with trained counsellors and get subsidised meals at Air Asia’s cafeteria.
(Newsroom, 2020)
In this way, employees gain self-esteem and a sense of belongings, this would boost their
motivation to work more effectively and eventually establish job loyalty. Due to the pandemic,
aviation industry is now facing significant financial issues due to travel restriction and therefore
there is a slump of demands among travellers and as a result Air Asia will suffer financial loss.
Money matters, the benefits Air Asia provided to their staff requires money. At the meantime,
losing quality employees can be a downfall for an organisation’s finance and this placed Air Asia
in a terrible financial position. Air Asia has to deal with both high employee turnover rate to
retain talented candidates and reduced revenues.
As a result of reduced revenues, Air Asia will have low budget and therefore the needs of
their employees would not be satisfied. With low motivation, employees are most likely to leave.
Moreover, it will become even worse to recognise and reward the real performers as the market
competitiveness and the demand for personnel with greater professional and technical knowledge
is growing and that requires Air Asia to put more collaborated efforts to establish job loyalty
among employees in order to retain them. (→, 2020) Talented employees are able to keep Air
Asia leading in the market. Thus, this makes them a valuable asset.

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 2. Career advancement opportunities

Future challenges face by Air Asia is career advancement opportunities of employees.

Air Asia is facing problem in giving advancement for employees as they are facing financial
problems. For example, Air Asia is well established as a low-cost carrier in Malaysia and has
been named the top low-cost carriers in the world in 2014. From the previous year to today, the
aims of Air Asia are easy to book, pay and fly, and most seats are booked electronically. Asia
increases their sitting with the capacity and provides customers food, beverages, earphones and
movies. However, as we are currently facing the covid-19 pandemic, this make the company
having a hard time in giving the advancement for employees.
Besides of giving them advancement, the company had to fire their employees instead.
Benefits will be provided if you are Air Asia employees such as discount promotions for ticket
flight family members and travelling safety. Employees that work with Air Asia airlines are
guaranteed with good salary and good working environments. Moreover, their policy is to
prevent racism among the colleagues even though there are multi-racial staffs in the company.
Air Asia is practicing clear and transparent working work culture where they are hiring
employees with different background and cultures. The ethos of the Air Asia business puts our
citizens first and they are committed to that. They aspire to produce the best in Air Asia and aim
to be one of the greatest places to work with countless achievements.
However, the cons of the benefits are the food is not good and no variety even though
food allowance are provided. Besides, parking allowance is not provided for employees. They
have to pay for their parking or need to apply for the monthly pass which is quite expensive and
need to wait for more than five months. Moreover, Air Asia has a plenty of career opportunities
that they gave. Air Asia has provided the world career opportunities to the youngster.

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 3. Flexible work arrangement

A former pilot from Air Asia recently revealed about the Air Asia Human
Resource Management (HRM) where they are not quite flexible when it comes to the well-being
of their staff. It is stated by the former employee that this company has an unfavorable sick leave
policy. He narrated an incident which happened on 24th of March 2020. This particular employee
was feeling sick thus requested leave. However, he was insisted to report into work despite being
sick. He felt that this call for work in his condition at that time was unreasonable as it may
compromise the safety of a flight piloted by a sick person.
The former pilot was disappointed as the passenger’s safety was put at risk because of his
health condition. He tried his best by requesting the company to get a replacement for his duties,
but it was in vain. The former pilot had to put his foot down by taking a leave on his own. Later
he performed his duty as a responsible employee of the company by raising an issue to the
management regarding this matter. The consequences of his action were not in his favor, as he
received an email from the airline’s authorities calling out “his regulatory and lifestyle
problems”. On top of that the employee received a show-cause notice from Air Asia for taking a
leave causing an enormous financial hit to the company.
He implied that he was framed by the company in many “admin” related accusations for
no other reason than him making public about his dissatisfaction in the company’s operation. He
called into question the airlines integrity in questioning his medical condition despite being given
a clean bill-of-health by the authorities. He added that pilots are actually made to go through
such rigorous testing and training to be able to make sound decisions that place the safety of
passengers before profit. In a more heart-breaking note, the employee made a YouTube video
revealing the mishaps of the company in Human Resource Department. Moreover, the employee
shared how the airline has constantly compromised on various safety protocols for the sheer
reason to continue flying during the Covid-19 pandemic. The former employee conveyed that
previously he did share his personal observations and findings about the wrongdoing of the
company in many internal WhatsApp group. However, he stated that his observations which he
shared to his colleagues and peers were mostly fell on blind eyes. Most of them preferred to not
voice out about the wrongdoing and violations which are being made by the company. Adding
on, the pilot specifically called out a particular flight that violated many of the DGCA protocols.
The former pilot went on by making it clear about the poor management skills by the company.
The former employee told that with the way things are, he practically can’t guarantee passenger
safety in his flights. He said that if things went wrong, it will be on his neck and not the airlines.
He’ll be grounded without an enquiry and his license will be revoked. Therefore, Air Asia should
take appropriate action and effective measure so that this problem can be overcome in future.

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 4. Changing job roles

The major future challenge which might face by Air Asia is constantly change the job
role of the employees, this may not seem to be a challenge. In Air Asia, the employee gets to
work in all department. Every 1 month, the staff in Air Asia get to work in a different
department. For an example, the flight attendant can also work in the check-in counter. This
might seem to be motivating to the employee in the beginning. To be said it is a very good move
by Air Asia, but this concept will never sustain. This has been said because if the employee in
the particular department have never complete the duty which is given in the 1 month time
period and left the department, the next person who going to take over it next will face a very
hard time, this may lead the employee to get frustrated and also de-motivate.

Moreover, the particular department might receive a lot of customers complaints such as
flight delays, extra charges and no refund. If this move has been taken place than Air Asia might
face the same problem which they have faced in the year of 2012 which is they receives a lot
complaint from the customers for bad services. In addition, this future challenge might affect the
employee salaries. This is because, if the employee don’t know where to begin and where to end
the incomplete duty which is left by the previous employee, the current employee might get a
very bad name no matter how long is their working experience, they will never going to receive
increment in the salary. For an example, in the year of 1997 no increment or reward were given
to the employee because the employee for the department were receiving a lot of bad complaints.
(The Motivation and Rewards Management Essay, 2020)

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Recommendations

 Retaining and rewarding talented candidates

1. Air Asia should provide a learning environment and new opportunities that creates a
work environment that increases employee morale and improves performance within the
organisation, it might support to retain contributing employees because the employee
gains experience even as they become more marketable. This would be in Air Asia’s
favour as it is low cost and will not significantly increase the turnover.
2. An effective retention starts right at the beginning. Air Asia should introduce employees
into the organization which employees acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to
become an effective member within the organization. This would allow the employee to
use their talent and skills. Not only it would boost productivity, it will most importantly
establish loyalty among the employees.

 Changing job roles

1. Air Asia should really give some training to the employees and give the employees some
freedom and don’t pressure them so much to achieve their company goals. In addition,
they should choose a well-educated employee, for that department, and stop constantly
changing the employee’s department. The main purpose of doing this is to avoid the
employees to feel bored. Rather than doing this to avoid the boredom, the manager in
each department should motivate the employees under them, so that they don’t feel bored
or tired with their jobs.

 Career advancement for employee

1. Air Asia company is a good place to start and build career. It cannot be denied that
everyone is treated equally and having fun casual working environment when working
with Air Asia. Besides, Air Asia never fails to give bonus and meal allowance for their
staffs even in loss. However, Air Asia should make sure to give the advancement
opportunity to the right employees. The growth of employee employment has emerged as
a critical factor of loyalty and retention. Recommendations in giving career advancement
for employees are by letting the employees to join leadership programme first before
giving the opportunity in order to make sure the employees are the right one for the
opportunity. Employees today seek more chances to fine tune current skill sets, develop
new skills and aspire to leadership roles. Next, Air Asia should provide the employees
with parking allowances.

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 Flexible work arrangement
1. Air Asia should take an immediate action by providing the employees suitable working
environment. As what as mentioned before in the challenges, the company should give a
leave to the employees if they are in poor health condition. If they don’t act immediately,
the company image and reputation will be destroyed. Furthermore, the people’s trust on
the credibility of the company will take a hit.

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Conclusion

There are countless of benefits for Air Asia if they consider the challenges they will face in the
future.
It is important for the human resource department is aware of these challenges so that they can
put the right policies and procedures in place now.
In order to stay ahead of the competitors and meeting the targets of the business, understanding
employee complexities is crucial. To summaries, future challenges in human resource
management will continue due to changing trends such as technological innovation, diversities,
different workforce and demographic. Therefore, a company must be faster and more responsive
to these trends.

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Reference list

1. AirAsia Berhad. (2018). AirAsia wins best use of technology at 2018 loyalty
awards. Retrieved from: https://www.airasia.com/my/en/press-releases/airasiawins-best-
use-of-technology-at-2018-loyalty-awards.page
2. AirAsia group Berhad. (2017). Annual report 2017. Retrieved from:
https://ir.airasia.com/newsroom/AirAsia_Group_Berhad_AR2017_-_1.pdf
3. AirAsia. (2019). AirAsia wins 11th consecutive World’s Best Low-Cost Airline
award at Skytrax. Retrieved from: https://newsroom.airasia.com/news/airasiawins-11th-
consecutive-worlds-best-low-cost-airline-award-at-skytrax
4. Bernama. (2019). AirAsia wins world`s best low-cost airline title. Retrieved from:
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2019/06/497350/airasia-wins-worlds-bestlow-cost-
airline-title
5. Centre for aviation (2019). Malaysia aviation: growth, slows, profits under
pressure. Retrieved from: https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/malaysia-
aviation-growth-slowsprofits-under-pressure-463080
6. Essays, UK. (2018). A Marketing Analysis Of Air Asia Marketing Essay.
Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/a-marketinganalysis-of-air-
asia-marketing-essay.php?vref=1
7. Faure, P. (2017). 82.6 million foreign tourists in France in 2016. Retrieved from:
https://www.entreprises.gouv.fr/files/files/directions_services/etudes-etstatistiques/4p-
DGE/2017-06-4p-N71-EVE-ENGLISH.pdf
8. JobDB. (2011). A marketing analysis of AirAsia. Retrieved from:
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/a-marketing-analysis-of-air-asiamarketing-
essay.php

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Appendix I – Group Report Rubrics
Component Criteria Grade
Relevance of Discussion completely relevant to the businesses and all aspects well integrated. HD
discussion
6% Discussion relevant to the businesses however not always well integrated. D

Discussion relevant to the businesses but not well integrated and contains repetition C

Discussion irrelevant at times and/or contains significant repetition P

..
The discussion does not address the businesses identified businesses MF/F

Analysis of Coherent & logical analysis; high level evidence-based outcomes HD

strategies & .
conclusions
Well organized & clear analysis; sound evidence-based outcomes D
8%
.
Well organized analysis; appropriate evidence-based outcomes. C
Satisfactory analysis with some evidence-based outcomes P
Mostly description rather than analysis; not well supported; limited evidence-based MF
outcomes.
No analysis –description only with little/no supporting evidence; F
limited/no outcomes
Evidence of Demonstration of extensive, accurate and systematic reading and research that has HD
appropriate allowed a thorough discussion of all aspects
research and
reading Demonstration of a high level of appropriate reading and research that has allowed a D
4% thorough discussion of all crucial points
Demonstration of a reasonable level of appropriate reading and research that has allowed C
a thorough discussion of most crucial points

Demonstration of a reasonable level of appropriate reading and research with some P

inconsistencies
Unacceptable level of reading and research is demonstrated MF
F
Clarity of Report is extremely well structured, cited written and presented HD
expression, and Report is well structured, cited written and presented D
adaptation of Report is generally well structured, cited written and presented C
report format Report structure and/or citation and/or writing and/or presentation is satisfactory P
2%
Report is poorly written and/or contains frequent spelling and/or grammatical and/or MF/F
citation errors and/or poor structure and/or poor presentation.

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Report turnitin

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