Case Study: Big Red Kangaroo Airlines (BRKA)

Case Study: Big Red Kangaroo Airlines (BRKA) Background Big Red Kangaroo Airlines (BRKA) was already facing tense labor conditions at the time the airline decided to hire competent and experienced flight attendants. BRKA saw that hiring new personnel was what the company needed to get back to business (Daniels & Macdonald, 2005). As one of the most prestigious airlines in Australia, and indeed the world, the airline along with its sister company Cheap and Cheerful Airlines (CCA) naturally attracted the interest of experienced flight attendants. However, the company was keen to have an intricate blend of both experience and fresh recruits who would rejuvenate the airlines onboard service to its clientele.

Buy this excellently written paper or order a fresh one from acemyhomework.com

BIG RED KANGAROO AIRLINES

2

Therefore, apart from the myriad of experienced flight attendants, quite a vast number of young and inexperienced attendants showed for the interviews. Among the experienced flight attendants to show were Helen and Freya. Both ladies had significant experience working for the international carrier, Ansett, for over a decade until the airline went under. After that, Helen took up employment in the UK with British Airways while Freya moved to New Zealand. Despite both being over 50 years old, their personal lives were significantly different, with Freya having a family while Helen had none. To Helen, therefore, it was odd when Freya did not get the job despite BRKA having indicated that they were in need of experienced crew.

BRKA recruitment policies In not hiring Freya, despite her experience, BRKA demonstrated bias and discrimination.

The fact that Helen, who had comparable experience, was hired and given a senior position of cabin manager and Freya not even considered was a clear indication of discrimination (Daniels & Macdonald, 2005). BRKA has an antidiscrimination policy in place and under ideal conditions ought to recruit personnel based on merit. For Freya’s case, merit was clearly not a factor that was considered because if it were, she would be in the job working next to Helen in possibly the same position. Instead, what Freya faced was a case of a company exercising open discrimination of women with families and other family based obligations in favor of those who do not. This is demonstrated by the fact that Helen realized that she were the only new recruit who happened to be over 25 years. Of course her case was comparatively different from that of Freya since she did not have a family of her own. The negative notion that companies have against women with families has been identified as being one of the main reasons why there exists disproportionate gender employment statistics (Daniels & Macdonald, 2005). The scenario is particularly worse for older women, who not only have to grapple with society’s preconceived

BIG RED KANGAROO AIRLINES

3

discrimination but also the additional bias towards family-oriented women in the work place (Gregory, 2003).

Issues Freya is facing As a woman, Freya does not face any significant issues on equity given BRKA as an employer, based on Helens on description, happens to be actively recruiting women. Thus, with regard to equity, Freya’s situation is representative of a company based belief that women in family commitments do not measure up to BRKA’s standards. The reason why such bias against women might not have previously been a significant issue in the company can credited to the lack of subtlety in recruiting Helen as the only mature attendant (Gregory, 2003). Traditionally, women in the age bracket of Helen and Freya are not actively looking for jobs as most of them are gainfully employed by the time they reach fifty (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009). Instead, the job market in normally flooded by young females fresh from college looking for employment.

Therefore, when it comes to gender equity, many firms only reflect this by the proportionality of their new recruits who consequently tend to be the young women. To this effect, the airline seems to be an equal opportunity employer for both genders, unless one specifically looks at Freya’s case.

The issue of discrimination against Freya on the face of it shows that the airline, during recruitment, actively sought to employ a specific kind of woman. Discrimination in recruitment tends to be rather visible in the case of an employer openly disregarding merit in favor of negative preconceived notions (Gregory, 2003). Freya’s age discrimination is clearly the reason she was not recruited as the HR manager confirms to Helen when she goes to follow through on Freya’s issue. Companies, especially those in the hospitality industry, have taken up a trend in which women are recruited specifically on the basis of their looks and not necessarily their skills

BIG RED KANGAROO AIRLINES

4

level (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009). Freya can move to court in order to have her age discrimination by BRKA go to the public gallery. She might not necessarily win since the airline did not break the letter of the law; however, by going forward and filing a petition she can influence recruitment in other ways (Sargeant, 2006). One of the most effective ways is that her case can be used as a legislation framework in which companies are stopped from using pretence and false advertisement in their recruitment. For instance, if recruitment is to be based on merit as advertised, then merit ought to be the determinant factor during recruitment and nothing else (Sargeant, 2006).

Organizational and management role in discrimination In this day and age, no company worth its weight would want to appear as being against women empowerment, or discriminating against women for that matter. However, every employer under law still has the right to employ whomever they deem to be fit for their organization. On the face of it, employing young women to such positions indicate that the airline is more interested in the long term goals of the company (Sargeant, 2006). The other positive is that BRKA is clearly an equal opportunity employer that gives women opportunities to further their carriers. The problem with their choice of not hiring based on family commitments is that the company exposes its myopic nature of looking at sustainability (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009). The truth is that in the long run, recruiting personnel such as Freya who already has a family will have proven more sustainable as opposed to the young women who at some point in their careers will opt to start families (Sargeant, 2006).

In order to safeguard the reputation of an organization against seeming biased towards a specific group of individuals, employers have to be more specific in their terms of recruitment (Daniels & Macdonald, 2005). For instance, if BRKA specifically needed to recruit only young

BIG RED KANGAROO AIRLINES

5

and pretty women as their flight attendants, then they should have advertised the positions in a different way. The management was wrong to emphasize that they were recruiting based on solely merit and then turn around and completely do the opposite. The job adverts would have, for instance, had an age bracket for interested candidates, which would have reflected that although they were considering merit, age would also be an overriding consideration for the job (Sargeant, 2006). Although superficially such a move seems to be unfair and cruel to mature candidates, it is still a better approach than quoting specifics, and later going against them in the recruitment process.

BIG RED KANGAROO AIRLINES

6 References

Daniels, K. & Macdonald, L. (2005). Equality, diversity and discrimination: A student text.

London: Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Gregory, R. F. (2003). Women and workplace discrimination: Overcoming barriers to gender equality. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Sargeant, M. (2006). Age discrimination in employment, Vol. 13. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.

Sriramesh, K. & Vercic, D. (2009). The global public relations handbook, revised edition. New York, NY: Routledge.