Emirates Airlines Strategic Hrm

Emirates Airlines

Reflective Essay

Andreea Stefanescu

Glion University, Switzerland

March 2015

Emirates Airlines

Reflective Essay

The purpose of this paper is to provide a personal insight of how the compensation and reward system can affect the organizational culture in the hospitality industry, using as an example Emirates Airlines strategic HRM.

Part One: Emirates Airlines Compensation and Reward System

     First time someone mentioned to me the Emirates Airline name it was just next to the phrase “dream job”. Interesting enough the airline was not even flying to my country, nor it had a recruitment office or any marketing exposure at all, but the compensation and benefits of working for one of the biggest aviation names in the most glamorous city in the world created a massive pool of applicants. The tax free competitive salary and the chance of traveling the world even on days off with amazing ticket discounts are the first benefits I came to discover prior to the open day that the organization schedules worldwide in order to maintain its cosmopolitan character. The Emirates recruitment process lasted five days and it included a series of language proficiency, group discussion, height, personal appearance, personal conduct, language and psychometric assessments followed by a face-to-face interview. All the recruiters are hired internally, experience as a cabin crew and HR being a must for filling the job. I found this to be an excellent strategy considering that on the open day there were over 800 people inspired not only by the glamorous Emirates Career video but further more by the personal experience in the role that the recruiters had to share.  This has a major impact on the growth of the talent management pool considering the 480,000 job applications from across the world in 2014 adding to the existing 12,000 cabin crew and 75,000 globally placed employees (Sharma, 2015) Considering that the airline industry is a very competitive market and the number of applicants for the  hospitality and customer service industry are generally very low due to the increased competition from other industries, poor image of the job, the specific talent profile needed to adjust to the emotional labor and low remuneration (Gehrels & DeLooij, 2011), Emirates airlines manages the impossible. In the strongly competitive industries nowadays, the organization maintains its excellent employers branding strategy to attract people in such big numbers mostly by using its psychological contract promise based on the perceptions that people worldwide get around the brand, its benefits and its organizational culture (Jackson, Schuler & Werner, 2009).  Furthermore so the organization maintains its brand promise with “people” as one of the group’s core values, ensuring stability, career opportunity growth and a range of generous benefits for permanent employees recruited globally to live in Dubai. All this make Emirates a definite “employer of choice”, considering that individuals prefer to work for an organization that they can be proud of with values that matches their needs (Jackson, Schuler & Werner, 2009). The Airline Industry Handbook noted that in the United States of America there are nearly 100 airlines and 500,000 people employed with excellent benefit packages; Emirates, as world class airline alone, creates more job opportunities than the USA by running a great reward system (Investopedia Staff, n.d.). This creates a great sustainability in the market and it has more to do with promotions, training, internal growth opportunities, benefits and other incentives which are meant to motivate the employees (Deeprose, 2007) Michael le Boeuf, business consultant and author, stated that the greatest management principle is that “you get what you reward” (Kotelnikov, n.d.) That is why Emirates sets every year some very specific targets that need to be achieved on board and on ground as a team. For example, the “On Time Departure (OTD)” goal was a massive cost saving campaign and percentages of achieved OTDs of the day were updated on the screens around the employees’ headquarters. This implied security checks in less than 12 minutes; boarding under 15 minutes, pre-departures timing of 7 minutes imposing a record departure time from the moment of staff boarding the plane of under 20 minutes. All these had as motivation and reward achieving the financial target of the year and therefore getting a bonus. The teamwork goal was efficient parking time, considering how busy the Dubai terminal is, therefore allowing a plane that is on hold to land and park; the massive costs of parking outstations and last but not least the customer’s satisfaction and performance rating which would grow the company value. I remember in Emirates Leadership program we were told that the main strategy of motivating the workforce to do a better job is if, as a leader, you are able to present the answer to their question of “what is it in it for me?” (Marston, 2007) This was an excellent strategy meant to target the new younger generations of employees that are working for Emirates airlines considering the only 30 years of existence of the organization all together. Compared to any other industry and even within the hospitality market, a cabin crew position, including the ground opportunities of customer service have an age limit of 35 years of age which adding to the young character of the brand concludes in a talent pool formed solely by Generation X and Millennials that look for benefits, rewards and compensation “here and now” (Marston, 2007). Emirates has become an example of human resources strength adapted to the younger generation and diversity. Furthermore the vice Chairman of Emirates, Sir Flanagan, noted that high salaries in American commercial airlines and large pension costs create a huge impediment to the growth of any organization. Emirates does not share these challenges due to its lower human resource costs compared to the rest of the industry, partially due to attracting employees through rewards, training, accommodation, discounts and tax free salaries that are more attractive to younger generations and nearby low-wage nations (Sundaram, 2011). The group follows a detailed research analysis on compensation and benefits policies around the world in order to ensure its competitiveness and retain the top talents on the market. That is why Emirates is very transparent displaying on their global career portal their employee benefits split in both cash and non-cash elements. (emiratesgroupcareers.com)