Retaining talent a major issue for Royal Brunei
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Aviation News > Retaining talent a major issue for Royal Brunei
4-Aug-2015 1:21 PM
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Royal Brunei Airlines deputy chairman Dermot Mannion, at the
CAPA Australia Pacific Aviation Summit, said (04-Aug-2015) managing and maintaining talent is a major issue for the airline. Mr Mannion said the aviation industry is “at its most predatory” when it comes to talent. Mr Mannion said the carrier faces challenges in maintaining its
pilot and engineer workforce.
Rather disingenuous Mr Mannion, the truth is:
1) No other airline is being predatory, some are certainly proactive (look that word up) because they at least realize jets without pilots are expensive ornaments. The fact is you are allowing your management to drive people away. The buck stops with you.
2) RBA has not lost anybody to a predator airline for about 2 years, Pilots have either found life in Royal Brunei and/or Brunei Darussalam just too difficult and drifted away, often without securing employment elsewhere first.
3) You have done absolutely nothing or shown the slightest willingness to retain a single pilot or engineer. In fact the last pay deal: can you tell us was it 6% 3% 2.5% or Zero because we really haven't got a clue what we were supposed to get. All we know is it was not 6%, and only Boeing Pilots got 3%, the Airbus Pilots got a maximum 2.5% and new joiners got 0%.
4) You treat pilots like a commodity but seem unwilling to pay the market rate, especially for Airbus Pilots (the 2.5%ers). In fact some of your Senior First Officers, nearly all on the Airbus, recently had a pay cut. Those brave enough to stand up to it will see their careers blighted. A number of Boeing Senior First Officers will soon receive a cut in take-home pay after being bullied and threatened into transferring to the Airbus.
They have not been 'stalked' by' predatory' airlines but 'startled' by the oncoming and incomprehensible 'Career Progression' into looking elsewhere for real progression.
4) You have a Fllght Operations Management 'team' that is by any measure inept.
Note: the letters Pg. Do not automatically confer infinite wisdom to the individual to whom they are attached. Neither does the ability to eat 5 meals a day.
5) Your Human Resources Dept. needs to be kept well away from anything human.
6) Staff Travel has the word 'Travel' in it.
Yes I am sure lots of 'talented' people have left, and for reasons that could easily be corrected, but you and your management team(s) are quite clearly uninterested. Tell that to CAPA.
Anybody thinking about joining moving their family half way around the world and/or signing up for 3 years should seriously consider other options, of which there are many.
Anybody planning a long term career needs to read these:
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/2...ay-and-no-work
All pray and no work
"An autocratic sultanate turns more devout as oil money declines"
"Without new discoveries, Brunei’s oil and gas reserves will last only 24 years, according to a report by BP, an oil company."
"The IMF has advised it to freeze public-sector wages and hiring, cut fuel subsidies and abandon big projects. It calls for measures to boost low productivity and encourage job growth".
"Many men find comfortable jobs in government: attendance at Friday prayers and royal ceremonies is compulsory;
hard work is optional."
"Zealots assert that a more pious Brunei will probably grow faster, because Allah will perhaps let it discover more hydrocarbons. The growing consensus, as one analyst puts it, is:
“You don’t need to work, but to pray.”"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle22750399/
Brunei’s oil-fuelled economy running on empty.
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Brunei is fast heading back to earth after a joyride fuelled by fountains of oil. Brunei has no income tax, no sales tax and loopholes big enough that many companies pay no corporate tax. It subsidizes basic foodstuffs and sells gasoline for 47 cents a litre. It is the world’s fourth-richest nation in GDP per capita. Oil brought outrageous riches to the royal family, which has accused one of its own of personally squandering $16-billion (U.S.)."
"But the bounty in the “abode of peace,” as Brunei Darussalam translates to, is starting to run thin. Oil production is down 40 per cent since 2006, while plummeting prices have robbed a good deal of the value from what remains."
“In some ways it’s one of the luckiest countries on earth, because they’re a small population with lots of oil,” said Todd Wilcox, the chief executive of HSBC Brunei. “But in some ways it’s a bit unlucky, because they have nothing else.”
Now Brunei finds itself struggling to find that something else.
"Nearly 96 per cent of Brunei’s exports are oil, gas and related products, more than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates. At its current pace of extraction, Brunei has enough oil left for just 22 years, according to the BP World Energy Outlook. Saudi Arabia, by comparison, has 63 years left, while Kuwait has 89 (Canada has more than 100). For the past decade, Brunei has found only a half-barrel of new oil for every one it removes from the ground."
"“I don’t think any economist would be very bullish about the future of Brunei’s non-oil and gas sectors, to put it mildly,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore."
"A culture that hasn’t had to do much competing for business –
heavily-subsidized Royal Brunei Airlines is one of the region’s least profitable air carriers – can be a frustrating place to work."
Mash'Allah