Change Management Strategies of British Airways

CHANGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OF BRITISH AIRWAYS

Article Rationale

British Airways is one of the biggest airline companies in the world and UK's largest international airline, flying to over 300 destinations. It is the fifth biggest passenger carrying overall and is based in London's Heathrow Airport, which is the world leader for international airport.

The subject of this article would be how British Airways practised change management strategies to overcome issues raised in the business environment.

INTRODUCTION

British Airways was formed through the amalgamation of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA). Later on the company had to face several problems due to many reasons. However, all the issue were successfully solved through the guidance provided by 'change management.' Change management could be recognised as the ability to effectively deal with change within the organisation. The article would evaluate the issues and solutions as follows;

Issues encountered by the company

Management system conducted in British Airways could be identified as a key issue faced by the company. The company management approach was a hierarchical and inflexible, comprised with rigid rules. On the other hand the management was incapable of delivering customer needs and thereby had gained a terrible reputation in the industry.

Another critical issue was the cultural clash took place within the company. This occurred between the two merged industries (BOAC and BEA) which held diverse cultural values. Each employee had a negative feeling toward each other. These opposing ideas and beliefs led the company towards inefficiency.

The use of change management

British Airways realised the potential of change management to regain the reputation and provide best solutions for their customers. The first attempt made by the executive committee was to enhance the satisfaction of clients. They identified that there is a significant gap between customers' needs and what staff provides. Hence the company tried to minimise the gap by changing the system from staff-oriented to customer-oriented system by creating "customer is the king" concept in the organisation culture.

Moreover, the company focused on building up cohesion among staff by implementing the staff development initiative with the ultimate purpose of minimising cultural differences. It created a reward system to motivate high performers and also provided the opportunity for employees to follow MBA courses. Further, the company established a 'performance-related pay' based on an appraisal system. As a result, British

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