Introduction

 

Human resource is the important entity of any organization which influences every part and activities of different departments. The process of making every plan into real needs human resource because; it is human resource that handles the technology even. Operation management contains the area of management supervise, design and control the process of production. This paper will discuss the relationship between HR and management operation systems of Southwest Airlines.

 

Operation Management in Southwest Airlines

 

Southwest airline is the major airline of the U.S. which has founded in 1971 as a regional airline. It is famous for its low cost carrier among JetBlue, AirTran, Southwest, Airways, and Frontier Airline. It has got along with its one vision to become the most short-haul carrier and to provide low fare from other brand name. Southwest airline always believes to keep operation at simple road. The main focus to low cost provision makes all operations quite simple to proceed and achieved. It uses only type of aircraft that is Boeing 737 whereas other airlines use different kind of aircrafts. Second operational effort denotes towards no policy to assign seat numbers of passengers (Bettley, Mayle & Tantoush, 2005). This operation benefited in the condition, if a plane is swapped out, and a different one take place on this but contain some different seat configuration then there is no need to make adjustments with the whole seating arrangement and new boarding pass as well.

 

Along with this, the policy of operational system, includes a different approach of checking bags. Southwest airline does not check bags as it works apart from the trend which generates different benefits to the company. Forth and last one operational effort of Southwest airline is denoted towards the flight scheduling. It is generally point-to-point as to facilitate short-haul flights not on international travel (Young, S2009). These four operational efforts have made Southwest airline profitable due to the low cost provision. Its operation among different carriers is shown below:

 

37d1e7bcdae306c9d3a477016410dfb3.gif

 

Human Resource in Southwest Airline

 

Human resource in Southwest Airlines is responsible for connecting people with the culture of organization. This connection includes the process of recruitment, selection, hiring and training. HR is the sole of the whole system as it hire most suitable new employees with the aim to achieve the vision. It is the airline, which is highly dependent over human resource performance and maintenance of organization culture with high market competition (Miles & Mangold, 2005). The policy to put employees at first place, then customers and lastly the shareholders come into a preference. Employees are timely motivated and get promotion on excellent work performance is the core of this company. As per the performance appraisal concern, it has adopted the Balance Score Card method which includes following aspects:

 

Objectives

 

Measure/Assessment

 

Customer Satisfaction

 

Survey Complaints

 

Employee Satisfaction

 

Internal Complaints System

 

Absentee Rates

 

Time with Company

 

Time till Promotions

 

No. & Type of Recognitions Given

 

Employee Fit

 

Suggestions Made

 

Interview Employees Regarding Interactions with Customers

 

Operations

 

Turnaround time, changes in Load Factors / No. of Vacant Sea

 

Link between HR and Operation Management

 

Human resource and management of operations system is intensively interrelated as per the above separate discussion shows. Southwest airline has made its operations different from other available brands (Kochan, 2004). The assessment of low and short fights in such globalization oriented market is not an easy task but it has made and got success year by year (Appendix 1). Both human resource and operation systems are incomplete without each other. Through following points, the link can be easily identified:

 

HR as Developer: Human resource is the one which is firstly works to develop operations system which will be followed in future. The inclusion of four operation systems includes the contribution of HR at best. It is the employees and management who develop ways to make such plans. The creation of success into such competitive country wasn’t easy task, but all involved people make it happen which is quite appreciable (Kochan, 2004). The development of different procedures to attract customers is the contribution of managing people.

 

HR as Transformer: Human resource works at every level of the organization as it works in higher authority and it works as a sweeper. All have their own importance, it is only human resource which transform the plan into reality. The plan to not to check bags of passenger can only be transformed into real when employees have made such system among brand (Lowson, 2004). The process to influence customer for any procedure is the important role which cannot do without human resource.

 

HR as Plan Implementer: The operations regarding flight schedule include implementer importantly. The process to develop a such environment where customers and new employee follow the culture of the company is the appreciable efforts of Southwest airline’s human resource. The implementation of point-to-point working system needs such human resource that can have skilled to convince people if any flights can change their timing (Naughton-Travers, 2001). Such ability to implement and helps operation can be available in human resource because machines only works on orders.

 

HR as Success Achiever: Human resource not only helps to make plans into reality but also give efforts to achieve the success in organizational objectives. As per the Southwest airline’s operations concern, employees keep the most important palace from all. Today, it has got success only due to effective HR even with the low cost provision in the US. The provision to include four of operational strategies only can be possible with the efforts of human resource (Bettley, Mayle & Tantoush, 2005).. The operation to keep focus on the domestic market with low cost provision wasn’t showing a good idea but with the help of the human resource Southwest airline has made its own success way.

 

Conclusion

 

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that HR relates to the management operations system of any organization because it is employees and management that make plans and get success. Operation of Southwest airlines belongs to the category which only can be achieved with the help of human resource.