Training and Development (Example of Emirates Airlines)
1.0. Introduction:-
Emirates is one of the fastest growing airline in the world amongst all the other international airlines even though it is one of the youngest airline flying the skies. Emirates airline was born just 20 years ago as an official airline which is an international airline of the UAE. Emirates started of in Dubai and flew out with only two aircrafts in 1985 on 25th October which involved just “a leased boeing 737 and an airbus 300 B4”. (emirates story, 2010)
Emirates main goal from the beginning was of attaining quality and not quantity. The government of Dubai made an investment in the beginning in emirates and looked at it as a purely independent business entity ant till date the growth of emirates has never been below 20 percent yearly.
Emirates strives to provide best services to their consumers and expand their business by doing so, to achieve goals and objectives in order to be successful. “An award winning international cargo division, a full-fledged destination management and leisure division, an international ground handler and an airline IT developer” are the reasons for its major success.( ) For excellence and for outstanding services emirates has received more than 400 awards all over the globe. At the moment emirates flies to over 100 destinations in about 60 countries all over the world by constantly expanding. Emirates airlines flies in and out of Dubai almost on a daily basis and around 700 flights of emirates fly out of Dubai each week by reaching six different continents. Emirates airlines accounts to about 40% of the total movements of flights coming in and going out of Dubai International Airport and their aiming an increase the market share by the end of 2010 to 70% without sacrificing their quality of services and reputation. (emirates group, 2010)
2.0. The need for human resource management:-
The human resource management is responsible for the employees’ satisfaction and how efficiently they work. The human resource management has a goal of helping the organization to meet its objectives and strategic goals by effectively managing employees and maintaining them.
Political /Legal Factors:- emirates is a government owned airline and gets a competitive advantage over other airlines in United Arab Emirates since it has its own separate terminal and traffic moving in and out of this terminal makes it convenient faster and easier for them.
Economical Factors:- emirates always had the government support due to this emirates again always had an advantage, for example when the economy is booming it can make further investments such as buying more aircrafts. During recession the human resource management reduced the inflow of employees or it can even be said that they froze the recruitment of any further employees.
Socio-cultural Factors:- Dubai is a cultural hub so it has a multi-cultural population which gives emirates an international exposure as it is bound to have flights to many international destinations thus giving it more international coverage.
Technological Factors:- A380 as a technological asset for emirates which most of the other air carriers don’t have. And A380 currently flies to over nine different locations which are “London Heathrow, Sydney, Auckland, Bangkok, Toronto, Paris, Seoul, Jeddah and Beijing.” this again came to them as an advantage that the human resource management invested in A380 before recession came and after that no other airline could match up to this airbus a380. (emirates A380 flight Schedule, 2010)
3.0. Training and Orientation:-
Emirates cabin crew is regarded as on of the best. The cabin crew is of a variety of nationalities from around the world. According to the Emirates annual report, the crew come from over a hundred and twenty countries, and speaks over eighty languages (Emirates, 2009). Since the cabin crew are constantly in immediate contact with the customers and also responsible for all on-board operations, Emirates spends about five to six percent of their revenues on training and development, as opposed to other airlines that spend a mere three to four percent (as stated by Mr. Brendon Noonan, Senior Vice President, Group Learning and Development). Training and Development are a very important process for an organization. Training emphasizes on the skills an employee will learn which would be used in their immediate job. Big payoffs for the employer are guaranteed in terms of productivity and contribution, if employees are provided with training at the right time (About.com).
Emirates Airlines follows a systematic approach to training. Theoretically, this refers to a three step process: assessment, which is basically a question as to what is needed, where when and by whom. The second step is training activity, which helps attain the objectives of that would satisfy the airlines goals. The third step is the evaluation process, which is measuring the outcome of the various training activities (Stone, R., 2005). According to Mr. Noonan, Emirates Airline recognized that frequent flyers wanted a better of quality service when they flew from one destination to another. Hence this was the assessment stage. This fueled their objectives as Emirates Airline did the best they could to provide this service to their valued customers, a service offered that was better than any other competitor.
The Emirates Airlines training facility is a specifically built only for employee training. It is a seven story, state of the art center (Emiratesgroupcareers.com). The training activity phase of the three step process to systematic training is further broken down into different types of training activities and processes. Classroom education is one such type. This form of training is the most economical and also enables trainees’ to share their opinions and exchange ideas with each other, hence expanding each individual’s knowledge. Most airlines use this type of education as their primary training method, where as Emirates Airlines uses it only as a basic method, which is collaborated with many other types of training methods. Since Emirates Airlines also owns the Dubai Duty Free, and also has an on-board shopping store, classroom training is used to educate their trainees and provide them with sufficient information on the entire range of products available. Specific classrooms are allocated for this purpose (Emiratesgroupcareers.com).
Simulation is another form of training that is usually one of the most expensive type of training methods. Emirates Airlines uses simulation training in the form of machine simulation. Machine simulation is a term given to facilities that are provided to employees that are exact replicas of the equipment in the actual work environment. Emirates Airlines has commissioned thirteen such simulators that cover all types of aircrafts (Emirates Annual Report, 2009). These are exact copies of the actual cabins in the aircrafts. These simulators are very important with respect to safety and emergency training of employees. They are equipped with smoke simulators and visual and audio displays, as well as two flight demonstration kitchens with fully functioning equipment (Emiratesgroupcareers.com).
On the job experience is another method used by Emirates Airlines to train their employees. When on duty, the emirates employees are to use the purpose-built, exclusive departure and arrivals terminal. This type of training extinguishes the issue of transferring the learning situation to the job (Stone, R., 2005). Action Learning is also a type of training that deals with learning by experience. Emirates Airlines also provides their cabin crew with ‘mock-ups’ that enable the employees to receive hands on training, as Mr. Noonan said. They are also given assignments related to issues and problems that are dealt with on the job and assessed as to how they react to these issues and solve them. These assignments are either individual or group assignments. Project based group assignments aid in enhancing an individual’s tolerance for team building and coordination. Mr. Noonan believes that Emirates Airlines uses this method of training to evaluate one’s strengths and weakness, thus playing to the strengths and developing the weaknesses.
Lastly, with respect to the different types of technologies used in training of employees, Emirates uses Multimedia training and Web-Based training. Multimedia training is a combination of both Audio-Visual and Computer-Based training. Computer-Based training helps in developing the computer skills of an individual where as Audio-Visual training is the use of interactive video’s so as to help trainees understand actual on-duty situations and interactions with customers (Stone, R., 2005). Web-Based training is provided to employees through a internet or intranet browser. Hence it is accessible anywhere, thus working to the advantage of Emirates Airlines’ cabin crew who are constantly traveling.
The last step, evaluation, is a process of measuring the training activities and determining as to if they attained the objectives and to what level. As in the case with Emirates Airlines, they have attained innumerable awards for their service quality. They are known for the experience they provide their customers and are considered one of the best airlines in the world.
4.0. Career planning development:-
Earlier, jobs lasted forever. Once a person found a job, he had no reason to hesitate or think twice about a job shift or a career shift. However, those times are long gone, and now careers are boundaryless. Boundaryless careers are those that are not fenced by a particular organization and expand through ‘project based competency among firms in an industry network’ (Arthur, M., 2006). The reason behind this is the modernization of the society, an increase in competitive forces and restructuring of organizations. Emirates airlines prefer those candidates with previous experience in the customer care field. Thus, an employee working in an organization as a customer care officer may also be applicable to work in the airline sector.
HR planning and career planning is a process used by companies to ensure that the right candidate is selected to do the work. It means applying the right man to the right job. It consist of staff retention, training and analysis of the candidates skills (www.work911.com). Emirates Airlines need those employees who are extroverts and ready to face new challenges. Their crew is also required to function in groups, with colleagues from various cultural backgrounds (Emiratesgroupcareers.com). Thus, these requirements are accounted for in the HR planning process of fitting the right employees to the job.
At a workplace every employee has certain rights, and along with these rights comes the responsibilities. With boundaryless careers in existence, it is the employees’ responsibility to keep themselves up to date with the required skills. Emirates Airlines requires that candidates must have at least a high school degree. It is also the crew’s responsibility to be well groomed at all times while on duty (Emiratesgroupcareers.com).
Career plateauing is a high stage in an employee’s career where the ‘probability’ of further enhancements is minimum/very less. Emirates airline employees start their career at grade two, and then progress to business and first class attendants based on their performance. Ultimately, they can attain the position of SFS, which is senior flight supervisor (Emiratesgroupcareers.com) Once the crew reaches this position, they face a position of career plateauing. In order to avoid career plateauing, employees can adopt the process of career transition. Under this, employees can change their careers by either shifting from once county to another, by going up or down the occupational ladder with a promotion or demotion (www.selfgrowth.com). This career transition may be planned in some cases and unplanned in some. Unplanned situations may occur due to illnesses, family issues or environmental factors.
To further discuss family issues, the topic under discussion is the work-family conflict. This is the ‘conflicting demands’ made on an individual by his family and work environment. (Barling, J., et al, 2005). It is seen that those who work as crew for Emirates Airlines do not have fixed hours of working, and May often be required to travel places far from home. This brings about the work-family conflict and often adds to the stress level of an employee. Many times employees do not give in their full working capacity under this work-family stress. Under this work-family conflict, employees have two options- the down shifters and the flame out track. Down shifters are those who voluntarily give up their hectic 9 to 5 jobs to adopt a less challenging job (www.thedownshifter.co.uk, 2007). On the other hand flame-out trackers are those who work hard to make abundant money and then take time off (Stone, R.,2005) . Thus, an Emirates employee who wants to downshift may adopt a job which may be ground based in a probable Emirates site office, or may work for many years and then retire.
5.0. Conclusion:-
Thus to conclude, Emirates Airlines is one the leading airlines in the airline sector and the credit goes to the practices and strategies they follow. The HR department at Emirates integrates the aims and vision into the strategies. Besides this, they also have facilities for internal growth of employees and an up-to-date training and development program. Finally, they take career planning very seriously and make sure all their employees are suitable to each of the vacancies or positions.
6.0. Reference List:-
Barling, J.,Kelloway, E., et al. (2005). Work-family conflict. Handbook or work stress. 1 (1), p1-3.
Cannon, R. (2007). The Downshifter. Available: http://www.thedownshifter.co.uk/. Last accessed 1 April 2010.
Emirates Group Careers, 2009, Available at:[http://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/english/Careers_Overview/cabin_crew/default.aspx]. Last Accessed: 4th November, 2009.
Emirates Annual Report, 2008-2009.
Emirates Group. (2010). Explore our Careers. Available: http://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/english/Careers_Overview/cabin_crew/requirements.aspx. Last accessed 2 April 2010.
Human Resources. (2010) Available at: [http://humanresources.about.com/od/training/Training_Development_and_Education_for_Employees.htm.] Last accessed 3rd April 2010.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15, No. 4, Special Issue: The Boundaryless Career (Jul., 1994), pp. 295-306
(article consists of 12 pages)
M. Reza Abdi. (2007). International Journal of Information Management. Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB4-4N4S0V9-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_cdi=5916&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1272856684&. Last accessed 1 April 2010.
N.A. (2009). Strategic Planning and Business Planning Free Resource Center : Human Resource Planning . Available: http://work911.com/planningmaster/Human_Resource_Planning/. Last accessed 1 April2010.
N.A. (2009). Definition: Career Transition. Available: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Articles_Career_Transition.html. Last accessed 3 April 2010.
N.A. (2010). Emirates A380 Flight Schedule. Available: http://www.emirates.com/english/flying/our_fleet/emirates_a380/emirates_schedule/emirates_flight_schedule.aspx. Last accessed 1 April 2010.
N.A. (2010). The Emirates Group. Available: http://www.emirates.com/ae/english/about/the_emirates_group.aspx. Last accessed 1 April 2010.
N.A. (2010). Emirates Story. Available: http://www.emirates.com/ae/english/about/the_emirates_story.aspx. Last accessed 1 April 2010.
Stone, R. (2005). Human Resource Management. 5th ed. Australia: John Wiley & Sons. p371-378.
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