Academic Year

2022/23

Semester

1

Module Number

BSM202

Module Title

Project Leadership, Teams and Behaviours

Assessment Method

Individual Report (Coursework 1 Weighting:100%)

Deadline (time and date)

Submission

Word Limit

2200

Module Co-ordinator

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What knowledge and/or skills will I develop by undertaking the assessment?

The assessment will help students develop an understanding of the individual, group and

organisational factors required to develop and lead high performing project teams.

On successful completion of the assessment students will be able to achieve the following Learning Outcomes:

1. Critically analyse the impact of leadership on organisations and in the context of project management.
2. Critically appraise the contribution of individual factors on people`s behaviour and performance at work in a project management context.
3. 3.     Critically appraise the contribution of group behavioural factors on performance at work in a project management context.
4. Critically appraise the contribution of organisational factors on people`s behaviour and performance at work in a project management context.

Please also refer to the Module Descriptor, available from the module Moodle study area.

What is expected of me in this assessment?

Task(s) – content

This is an individual assignment

(A) You are expected to carefully read the brief below on staff shortages in the UK Airline Industry.

BRIEF

The Coronavirus is going nowhere soon, and people are learning to adapt to living with it. Countries are beginning to open their borders as the pandemic`s scare slowly disappears. However, the adverse effects of the induced layoffs and growing concerns about the labour crunch exacerbated by Brexit are beginning to emerge.

One of the sectors worst hit by staff shortage is the airline industry. These companies provide services for transporting travellers/passengers and goods by air. EasyJet, Loganair and British Airways are some airline operators experiencing high demand for human labour, resulting in flight disruptions and cancellations. There have been chaotic situations at departures gates and long waits at security queues lasting more than an hour and a half (Topham, 2022)

UK`s flag carrier airline, British Airways, which laid off about 10,000 jobs (BBC News. 2022) at the height of the pandemic, is now forced to recruit hundreds of workers, including call centre workers (Gill, 2022) and cabin crews (BBC News. 2022). Incentives are being offered to those in ground handling roles to get staff back in (Topham, 2022).

EasyJet, on the other hand, claim staff shortages is due to delays in vetting new staff rather than recruitment problems.  The CEO of the company, Johan Lundgren, suggests that Brexit is responsible for the disruption in airport and airline because many of the candidates applying for jobs do not have UK working permit (Macola 2022; Calder 2022).

Loganair, the Scottish airline and UK’s largest regional airline, see the reduction in staff as one of the impacts of Covid (Walker 2022). Disruptions at the airports are also linked to passengers carrying too much luggage through airport security which creates pressure points, arguably this could be as a result of a lack of ground staff (Cromar 2022).

Current Situation

Recruitment is on the way in many airline companies. Even though airline workers usually must pass a series of training and security checks, there is mounting pressure on the existing staff. There are concerns about recruiting competent people for roles, the time required for training,  active participation, and collaboration with new team members.

A new project has been created to examine the current working climate in all airlines, the potential impact on existing projects and how team spirits could be established. You have been placed in charge of this initiative called Leading the Team and Managing Change initiative.