Although a tremendous cynicism surrounds this very topic, especially among airline employees (of which I have been one), the fact that a title such as "How Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging their Employees" can both be possible and draw people into discussion is remarkable in a day and age when employees are told they're too expensive, they demand too much and are imbued with the sense that they "are in the way of profit".
This is of particular interest to a safety specialist (and retired airline captain) because unhappy employees are first unmotivated and therefore don't care about equipment damage. At my airline, that was over $10m per year just in hangar rash to airplanes and doesn't even touch damage to ground equipment. I should think both shareholders and managers (leaders) would be interested in such outcomes.
This isn't to say that a corporation is responsible for employees' happiness - not at all. But ordinary people merely want to have fair trade for their time in and have their knowledge and skills respected and used to the betterment of their employer and their managers. Usually that's through dealings with the customer (or clients or guests or SLF's...
) but the vast majority of airline employees don't see their customers and don't even see their airplanes and can lose touch with the business they're in.
Those interested might google Andrew von Nordenflyscht of Simon Fraser University for a taste of what may go on at this conference.
Such a conference is an encouraging sign in what is for most employees of airlines today, (not to mention their passengers), a pretty dismal, depressing and constantly-angry enterprise that fewer and fewer graduates want to be a part of.