Now that spring is here, we turn our thoughts to blue skies and growth. Growth in the business of flight of course. As the business expands and more and more corporations are dealing with private aircraft management, it’s important to understand and support the people that keep you in the air. Like many companies we experience personnel challenges, but we’ve learned to minimize them by making sure we get below the surface of just an employer/employee relationship.
Over the last 20 plus years we’ve developed some skills that have allowed us to evolve to more of a partnership with our flight support teams. Here are 4 examples that might be what your valuable staff are sometimes really thinking that you’ll want to avoid:
- “I don’t understand what they want me to do”. In today’s texting, emailing, “broken telephone” kind of world we need to be more careful in how we communicate. It’s too easy now to send or respond to something too quickly leaving your team members at the other end confused or unclear. This is a costly outcome in two ways – it can slow down their ability to act and it can hurt morale. Don’t let yourself or them fall into the belief that a quick text can get the result you want. Have clear protocols in place for complete, clear discussions that may take a little longer but will leave no chance for ambiguity which can have costly results.
- “We never know if they liked what we did or not”. We hear this from people all the time. They have no idea if their company is pleased with what they’re doing or not. People need feedback. It’s great to have teams who are confident and can make decisions, but they still need to hear from you. Always communicate your satisfaction with any solution that’s been achieved (In contrast to point 1 of this article, in this case a simple “Thanks, good work” text might actually be effective). Just as importantly, when things don’t go as you desire, you can turn a negative into a teaching opportunity if you handle it properly.
- “I don’t really understand what we’re trying to accomplish”. Everyone knows how to do their job, to go through the motions of moving things forward, but you’d be surprised at how many support staff would like to understand and share common goals about what the company is trying to achieve. This helps to make them partners in the growth of your company and feel like they are contributing to something bigger, rather than just today’s flight. Communicate your goals and vision to them a couple of times a year. Let them know what you’re doing and why… and how important every employee is to making that happen. This is good for both morale and performance.
- “This doesn’t feel like the level of service we should be delivering”. Especially in this business, support teams want to feel they are delivering to a high standard of quality and service. If management starts to allow shortcuts, or create extreme cutbacks, they’ll be the first to notice. This can lead to disenchantment with the company and a loss of pride in their job. That leads to low morale and eventually the likelihood of seeking opportunity elsewhere. Make sure they can always feel that they are the best at what they do.