3 key questions for industries experiencing rapid rejuvenation
Current challenges in the air travel industry are relatively complex with multiple factors at play. From an organisational development/ design perspective, they represent a very interesting dynamic. The industry was forced to contract dramatically in the context of Covid, and now customer demand is asking it to expand dramatically. The challenge for the major players is that they do not know how to scale rapidly. Like most megalithic corporate organisations, they are accustomed to managed contractions and incremental growth. While they were able to mothball their tangible assets, the thousands of people whom they retrenched could not be mothballed. They had to find alternative ways of making money. They have moved on. They haven't been sitting idle, waiting to be called back to work. This presents a monumental challenge for leaders.
Designing organisations for rapid scale requires a focus on the processes which drive and accompany growth. People development is one of those processes. Some of the questions that the airlines and their support organisations must answer are "How do we create a compelling employee value proposition to rapidly attract back the best in the industry?" "How do we rapidly recruit and develop new people to a level of competence and proficiency?" and "What other elements of the system need to change to complement and/ or support these initiatives and the rapid re-scaling of organisations?"
CEO Akbar Al Baker has attracted some disdain for his seeming criticism of ex-employees of the air travel industry. However, what he says is critically important. When we ask the question "Who's coming back?" we should not only be looking at names and numbers, but at how employee identities have changed in the last 2 years.
Contact Janet to discuss how we might assist you to think through how to design your organisation to scale rapidly or help your teams to reconnect and reconfigure as they "come back"
Comments