Gentlemen, another few 'truism's' regarding the reality of management....good OR bad.
...............
Clearly if a business entity's sole revenue earning activity is to transport people or goods by air, then it follows that if Pilots, (which are a key resource for this business activity) are not performing at optimum efficiency, then revenue earning capacity is decreased commensurate with the degree of deviation from optimum performance. In this industry, where profit usually constitutes less then 10% of revenue, it is quite easily possible for a disenchanted Pilot group to cause significant damage to the bottom line by simply exersizing passive resistance. Many airline managers do not recognize that, apart from manipulating the controls of an aircraft, the Pilot is the ultimate manager of a large part of his employers assets. The Pilot is the one who ultimately blends all the contributions from the other participants in this industry into a more or less successfull combination. Often the Pilot finds him/her self dealing with the partners from other divisions in this business, such as maintenance, inflight, catering, dispatch in addition to dealing with ATC etc. Many times the Pilot makes up for shortcomings in hard- and software and deals with idiosyncracies of equipment.
The Pilot is the one manager in the company that cannot put off a difficult decision to another day and while we occasionally read or hear about some tragic error by some Pilot, the fact that we take more note of that then the average murder in a big City, is testament to the fact that most Pilots do an excellent job almost all of the time. Now, about which other human resource in your Company can you say that?
The employer that ignores the welfare of the Pilots, will pay dearly for that ignorance.
............
I could sum it up this way. Remember the golden rule, do unto others as would others do unto you? There's a variation of this rule that applies to management in business (any business). Do unto the employees as you would have them do unto the customers. That rule works both ways, good or bad.
It's paramount that management takes a very high interest in the welfare of the employees, or the employees will never have a high interest in either the company or the customers. The impact on the bottom line will naturally follow the attitude that management has towards the employees. I can't tell how strongly I feel about this.
------------------
Safe flying to you...
.............
Right on, Fluffy.
We (cockpit crew), operate a multi-million dollar mobile revenue centre that has little tolerance for errors or time wasting. We have the final authority and ultimate responsibility in a more immediate way than any Chairman or CEO.
Our performance is minutely scrutinised by everyone from the (many) regulatory bodies, our supervisors, the operations audit staff, to the media and even the general public.
We (this time flight crew, including cabin staff) are the ones who manage the presentation of the integrated product of the organisation's work to the customer.
How we do this can have a big impact on customer satisfaction.
Those managers who do not realise the implications of this, fail to get optimum results from their staff, and the bottom line will reflect this
............
Copenhagen
I do not think that there is as much difference between large and small companies as you think. Small companies are more flexible and generally react more quickly where finance is not a problem.
Although a large company will usually have more resources to dedicate to supporting the pilot, it's very size limits flexibilty, and beaurocracy can clog up the works in the slightest deviation from the norm. And it is simply impossible to predict the outcome of the many variables that go into operating an aircraft.
So the pilots still end up tying up lots of lose ends.
Which is why "withdrawal of enthusiasm" and "work to rule" are such effective tools for getting management attention in all airlines, large or small.
With regards to your example of failure to turn up for work, somebody has to do the job, and whether it's someone you know or someone you don't know ,it still represents a cost to the company in that somebody has to be available to do the work.