Qf Staff Morale

[DEFCON4]

Qf Staff Morale..Another Perspective

CONTRAILS
with Geoffrey Thomas
In the wake of theAirline Partners Australia(APA) buyout collapse,Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon delivered the investmentcommunity a 21 page Powerpoint presentation on the airline’s strategy going forward.Longer suffering Qantas
staff, whose morale is at an all time low, would have been disappointed to note that there was no mention of any new staff initiatives or incentives to lift the morale off the runway and up to 40,000ft where it should be.One Powerpoint slide said the staff had “performed superbly” and there were
“some concerns on job security and future”. Both are gross understatements.
The Qantas staff were more than superb and morale is rock bottom – although it understandably jumped after the failure of the takeover.Dixon conceded to investors that staff – along with most Australians – were very pleased the bid had failed.Staff morale is the cornerstone of any service industry and an airline is the most service-oriented industry ofall. Across the globe wherever you have inspirational leadership, the airline soars.Ralph Norris, now CEO of the Commonwealth Bank,and current CEO Rob Fyfe at Air New Zealand are excellent examples of howi nspirational leadership has turned an airline around.
Norris adopted a philosophy along the lines of“I don’t care so much about
shareholders. I care about my staff, who in turn look after my passengers and my passengers look after my shareholders.”Qantas management has brushed with wannabe shareholders and has come off second best. Reputations have been tarnished at best and some business scribes even argue that their name shave been sullied, which is a shame as the team is one ofthe industry’s best.
But it is now high time to get back to basics. Qantas and Jetstar carry passengers from all over Australia – not just Sydney – and every passenger remembers a bad experience which tends to be retold countless times at
dinner parties or over morning coffee. This writer has never heard a bad Emirates,Cathay or Singapore Airlines story.There is no reason whatsoever
that Qantas cannot be the world’s best full service airline and Jetstar the world’sbest low cost carrier. All the ingredients are there.Qantas staff want to
connect with senior management and they want to share their fears and frustrations– not at round table survey sessions where they are polite for fear of their jobs– but at the coalface with John Borghetti serving economy passengers, Geoff Dixon checking passengers in and Peter Gregg lumping
baggage.
It is time to take a leaf out of Air New Zealand management’s book and
engage the staff in a real and meaningful way that will galvanise the airline and its staff.
Dixon and his team are being told what they want to hear by middle management that appears not to be connected with staff in the
workplace.
On the ABC’s The World Today, Scott Connolly from the Transport Workers
Union said: “The road ahead for the board, for the management team is not going to be any easier unless they refocus on what’s important to Qantas workers, what’s important to the Qantas community and what’s important to all Australians for their national carrier.”
Peter Somerville of the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA)
added: “Qantas and its board have made one attempt to go ahead without the staff. Now it’s time for a new start and to do it with the staff.”
Somerville added in a sobering note that: “We’ve had years of Geoff Dixon talking crisis, talking problems,talking cost-cutting, talking sacrifice. We all understand that, but now after the APA bid and the amount of information
that’s come out, it’s time that part of the benefit was shared with the staff.”
Clearly, Qantas’s senior management needs to “walk the walk and talk the talk
with staff ”, not in a sanitised environment but on the job.Air New Zealand management works side-by-side with staff at least once a month and the results have been incredible, according to the airline’s employees.
Only by working shoulder to shoulder with frontline staff will senior management get a true understanding of the enormous pressures on, and the true value of, its staff and the effect on productivity will
be sky high! Geoff Dixon’s briefing to investors said the staff had “performed
superbly” during the APA takeover period, despite “some concerns
on job security and future”. Will management now work shoulder
to shoulder with its most important asset ?
Qantas – time to focus on the staff
Dixon feels that "morale"is a funny overused word
While ever he is around things wont change because he just doesnt get it