Work Design in AirAsia: a background analysis

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 23rd of May 2014

1.0 Introduction on the organisation and work design

A number of studies have been conducted and geared towards understanding the influence of work design in organization performance. The importance of such studies is based on the understanding that it would help enhance the performance of the company as allocating jobs based on competence, skills and talent will have a direct positive influence on the individual performance of the employees and the company in general.

Richard (2005) is one of the authors that have written on job design and the author made known that job design is highly linked with organization structure and functions. In the authors’ view, it was made known that the nature of any given work and how it is structured are related to the effects of human activities on every aspect of the organization. In the language of a layman, work design is basically how the work is conceived in the broad terms, translated across different levels in the organization, and structure for the respective units and individuals designated to perform such work. Fundamental to the meaning and value one places in work is the structure and technology that are available in the workplace. On that account, the design and structure of an employee’s work has a direct influence on the performance of that particular employee (Richard, 2005).

There is a continuous change in the nature of work (Howard, 1995; Cappelli, Bassi, Katz, Knoke, Osterman, & Useem, 1997) as a result of the change experienced in the modern business environment (Adler, 1992; Tenner, 1996). As a result of the increase in information availability and globalization (Schick, Gordon, & Haka, 1990), there is a fundamental change in the modern work processes s compared with what was obtainable in the past (Barley & Orr, 1997; Luff, Hindmarsh, & Heath, 2000; Norman, 1998). This means that new work requirements have yielded significant changes in the design of work in the modern business (Parker & Wall, 1998; Osterman, 1994).

Based on the above argument, it can be seen that work design is something that is necessary in every organization and this is based on the understanding that it would help define what is expected of every individual, the control and monitoring measures and how these individuals go about their work.

Before being bought by Tune Air Sdn. Bhd in 2001, AirAsia was initially owned by DRB-Hocom, a government linked conglomerate (AirAsia, 2008). Its airline was not able to take off and resulting in sale of the airline to Tune Air for RM1.00 (US $0.26) coupled with an accumulated RM40 million in debt (AirAsia, 2008).

However, Fernandes was able to transform AirAsia into a profiting company after two years by modeling it after US based Southwest Airlines, Dublin based Ryanair and UK based Virgin Air.  This success ensured that AirAsia was listed in Kuala Lumpur bourse within the course of 3 years of operation, with one of the biggest IPO offer at RM 717.4 million (AirAsia, 2008). In addition, the company bagged numerous awards and Fernandes won the best entrepreneur of the year as awarded by Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Award in 2006 (AirAsia, 2008).

By March 2006, the airline’s passenger base expanded to such extent that a new low-cost terminal (LCCT) had to be built for it, and this terminal has the capacity of accommodating 10 million passengers per annum (Khor, 2009).

The reason for focusing on AirAsia is that it is a very big corporation in Malaysia and discussions that will be presented about the company in this paper can easily be verified. Additionally, the focus allows for higher access to information as there are vast information about work design in AirAsia, which improves the overall quality of the paper.

2.0 Models of work design in AirAsia

In this part of the paper, the focus will be to highlight and discuss three different models of work design in AirAsia.

2.1 Job characteristics model – researchers have made known that one of the most influential models derived from the sociotechnical system theory of job design is job characteristic model (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Another significance is that this model is one of the most popular and complete theory that can be used to explain the characteristics of job design and its relationship with innovation in the workplace. The theory is of the notion that any give job can be described based on the terms of five core job dimensions as: skill variety, task identify, task performance, autonomy, feedback. Being a transportation industry with high market value, AirAsia adopts this form of job design in the five dimensions listed above.

From the first approach, the company takes extra measures to employee the best people for the services needed in the company, ensuring that these people are well equipped with the different skills needed to make the job process a success. Additionally, the company has different task that ranges from catering for in-service orders, flight crew, booking, maintenance and other jobs which are identified based on the departments. Since there are different tasks that must be undertaken in order for the company to meet its objective of providing quality transportation services at low price, one most easily conceive the fact that differences exist in terms of the job performance in AirAsia. Different departments undertake different tasks with the same purpose of meeting the company’s set objectives. For instance, the dispatch department is responsible for making sure that all luggages are in the right airplane, while the crew members have the responsibility of ensuring that customers always have a good time while aboard the plane. As such, it can be seem that AirAsia adopts a job characteristics model in the right order towards ensuring sustainability in its businesses.

2.2 Process improvement model – it has been noted in researches that irrespective of the purpose for running an organization or the offerings provided by the organization, corporations are always run in a series of phases, or processes from which the value is created in the businesses. Since the work processes is valuable for the completion of any given task, it is a very important aspect of organizational job design. Davenport (1993) presented the definition of work processes to be a structured, measured set of activities that are well designed and coordinated towards the aim of producing a specific output for a given market or customers.

The major difference between this model and job characteristics model is that job characteristics model focusses on defining the job functions, while the process improvement model focuses on understanding how the job processes can be improved in order to ensure that the outcome from any given job is as designed original and continuous productivity is ensured.

AirAsia also adopts this model and it is based on the understanding that the company values maintenance of its machineries and improved productivity highly. A number of jobs in the company are designed towards process improvement and they come in the form of repair tasks in the company. For instance, a number of employees are employed in the maintenance department and control tower to ensure that all faults in flights are easily detected and that take-offs and landing of aircrafts are conducted in a very safe environment by providing the pilots necessary information to ensure that such success is achieved.

From the above analysis, it clear that the company understand the value of maintenance and control measures in its system towards establishing sustainability in the business process and have included such in their job design which means that employees are given the task of ensuring the improvement of the job processes.

2.3 Adaptive structuration theory – this model deals with the framework for understanding the difference in organizational change as it occurs as a result of changes and advancements in technologies which are implemented and used in the organization (DeSanctis & Poole, 1994). The main notion presented by the adaptive saturation model is that as the business environment chances, there is a need for subsequent changes to be made in the organizational processes in order to ensure that the company is better positioned to meet the demands of its customers and enhance productivity and profitability.

Noticeable in AirAsia is the differences between how the company goes about its business processes in the present environment when compared with the past business processes. For instance, the adoption of internet and technologies in the business process has significantly increased and the company now offers different platforms for booking flight and making complaints as well as handling the complaints of customers effectively and efficiently. On that account, there is a need to have a department that will ensure successful transition of the business process form one stage and point in time to another stage.

The company adopts this approach in its job design as can be seen from the functions undertaken by the research department. The research department are responsible for understanding new features that will be included in the business process through a subsequent understanding of the change in customers’ demand and business environment. On that account, their research department is tasked with the responsibility of conducting researches in different segments of the market in order to understand the best way to improve their services and offer their customers advanced solutions that will be able to not only meet their expectations but actually exceed it.

3.0 Job design in AirAsia

This section will look to understand how job is designed in the company by taking into consideration a number of factors in the form of job rotation, enlargement and enrichment.

3.1 Job Rotation in AirAsia

Tor and Jaine (2002) presented a definition of job rotation to be the act of allowing the workforce to shift from one job performance to the order in the process of performing their duties in the company. In AirAsia, this is most common in the mechanical and maintenance department as well as the control unit. The implication is that engineer can shift their job performance from either services the plane or maintaining the control units. There are also noticeable shift between the dispatch system the employees can engage in loading and offloading of the travellers’ luggage or checking-in and direct customers towards their boarding process.

Tor and Jaine (2002) also noted the benefits of such to be an increase in learning and innovation as well as skill acquisition. This is based on the understanding that by working in different areas, the employee will be forced to learn more about their rotated job areas and as such their skills will improve, which will mean an improvement in their innovative competence as well. In any case, there is the disadvantage of lack of standardization. Since employees are rotated, the final output might be varying in standards because not all the employees will be able to perform the job description with the same standards.

3.2 Job Enlargement in AirAsia

Still on the same definitions presented by Tor and Jaine (2002), it was noted that job enlargement is a situation in which there is an increase in the task performed by employees. This is very much common in AirAsia but it is not usually as a result of the company’s designation but because of the variations in the volume of task available in the company. For instance, there is always a noticeable increase in the luggage to be loaded and offloaded during the peak hours and holiday period, which means that the task of employees are increase during an increase in travellers’ volume. The benefit of such is that it allows the employee the opportunity of defining new ways to handle their business process and as such they are better competent in the business processes because they have drafted the best approaches to ensure speedy and quality delivery through the new skills acquired by undertaking the job when it was extremely difficult. In any case, this also comes with a disadvantage as increase in the volume of task will led to fatigue, stress and decrease in the performance of an employees.

3.3 Job Enrichment in AirAsia

Tor and Jaine (2002) also defined job enrichment as the process of providing necessary supports to employee in the job undertakings. This is very prominent in AirAsia as the company offers numerous troubleshooting supports to the workforce that comes in the form of supervisors or technical supports to aid their job performance. In any case, Tor and Jaine (2002) noted that this is disadvantageous in the sense that it decreases the level of innovation in the workforce. However, it must be noted that it has the advantage of increase in performance and productivity as a result of the fact that the supports given to them increases their understanding of the job process and their performance on the same wing positively.

From the above discussion, it can be seen that AirAsia has designed its job process in such a way that sustainability is ensured in their productivity and profitability. This is because employees have been well integrated into the production process with respect to working in the sections that best meets their talents and skills, and being offered necessary supports to ensure that they better achieve set job objectives.

4.0 Summary and conclusion

Based on the discussion presented above, it is clear that job design is very important in the business process. Basically, job design deals with understanding how the job processes will be undertaken, defining the approaches and appointing the respective people that will be performing such jobs. While the product or services offered by a company can be very unique, it is very important to understand that the processes are varied and different processes are involved in order to make the final output possible. On that account, it is important for the company to define these processes, the necessary requirements needed make it a success, how it would be undertaken and the people responsible for ensuring that such processes is possible.

While the purpose of this paper is to not define the benefits associated with job design, understanding such is considered important in order to ensure that the overall research objective will be achieved in the end. Meanwhile, the paper was designed to understand the different forms of job design with a view on AirAsia and based on the understanding, it can be seen that the job design adopted in the company is behind their continued success. This is because AirAsia has been able to adopt the most appropriate job design in order to ensure that the job processes are well coordinated and the people involved in the job know exactly what they are expected to do and how they will do such. The three job design discussed in this paper as it related to AirAsia comes in the form of job characteristics, processes and assistive approaches. All these comes together to form the background of the job processes in the company in the sense that employees are given exactly what they are supposed to do, told how to do it and be supported with the right tools to ensure that they end up doing it very well. In conclusion, it can then be stated that job design is very important in the job processes because it helps to define what is expected of every individual in the company and the right processes that must be followed as well as supported that will be given in order to ensure sustainability.

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