People power

By Joaquím Schmidt, Deputy Editor

Global giant Emirates has people queuing around the block to join its 39,000-stong global workforce. To find out why the group is such a popular employer and to discuss Emirates’ approach to the ‘three Rs’ – recruitment, retention and reward – BM’s Joaquím Schmidt catches up with Sophia Panayiotou, SVP of HR Business Support.

If 300,000 job applications landed on your HR department’s doormat in the space of 12 months it would be safe to assume that you were doing something right as a company. This avalanche of CVs that arrived for Emirates in 2008 illustrates just how high the group, and especially its airline business, has soared since it was launched in 1985 with just two aircraft. Today, it’s an instantly recognisable global brand with a fleet of 113 aircraft flying to 100 destinations in 60 countries. “Dubai as a destination is a big name and Emirates is big as an employment brand,” suggests a buoyant Sophia Panayiotou, SVP of HR Business Support. “We use our name to our advantage and this helps us to recruit people.” Indeed, the Dubai lifestyle is a big draw for candidates and gives the business an upper hand in the air travel industry.

With the group spreading its wings into new regions of the world and other sectors like the luxury hotel and resort business, a unique mix of nationalities and cultures have been recruited. “We have 156 nationalities working here at Emirates, almost as many nationalities as the United Nations,” Panayiotou jokes. “This makes an interesting culture and this diversity across the group, not just the airline, creates challenges. But because Emirates has been so visionary and grown so far, people have thrived on this, creating a sense of culture and a desire for them to do better.”

Selection process
The desire to do better will be particularly apparent with a global recession bites. Air travel is one industry that will have to fight tooth and nail to get bums on seats but how will affect staff recruitment and retention? Panayiotou, a British national who joined the company in 1993, says Emirates used to recruit from the traditional markets like the UK, Australia or the US but it is increasingly looking to emerging regions like Eastern Europe. Due to the economic climate she notes that more applications are landing in the HR wing’s in-tray and less staff are choosing to leave; a perfect blend it would seem. Panayiotou is bullish about the situation: “To bring people in at this current time is not a problem. From a retention point of view we are able to keep people and develop good staff during these times – we need to keep the high performers and manage out the poor ones.” Of 300,000 applications, the check-in desk staff and cabin crew are the most sough-after positions. Last year, Emirates was employing, on average, 90 additional cabin crew per week. “For cabin crew positions we have made DVDs so they can see what the job and lifestyle is like in Dubai. We really do try and create awareness of the brand.”

But while ‘front of shop’ jobs like cabin crew and check-in staff are oversubscribed, Emirates has pressed home the need to expand the number of people who keep the planes in the air  – engineers and mechanics. The in slump in the aviation industry following the 9/11 terror attacks led to a fall in the recruitment of engineers and mechanics but this shortfall is now being felt by the major carriers since air travel picked up again. Emirates expects to operate 400 aircraft by 2025 so these ‘back room’ staff will be vital. In the next four years, aircraft engineers will expand by 30 percent and mechanics by 50 percent, a HR executive from the group was quoted as saying recently. For Panayiotou, the benefits are clear: “If we make an investment in engineers this will see us in good stead for the future. We realise that we are struggling to bring people in with engineering skills which is why we have apprenticeship engineering programmes for both UAE nationals and expats.”

Career ladder
Of course, staff training and development paramount the Emirates’ sustained growth through 2009 and beyond. The group takes a long-term view with recruitment and retention. “We have a very good selection process in place when we look at recruiting people to try and get the right people who we can develop and retain,” says Panayiotou. “It is important not to just get people in who can do the job for now but to look at developing them for the future.”

To aid with training and staff education, Emirates has its state of the art aviation college, which has become a source of skilled aviation professionals, including air traffic controllers, aircraft engineers, electronics engineers, flight dispatchers and tourism specialists. The Emirates Aviation College offers a diverse range of vocational and academic programmes in the fields of aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineering, electronics and computer engineering, business management, air transport management and travel, and tourism management. There are MBA programmes, too. “We are looking to use the vocational side more and we hope that will make the difference for Emirates and set us apart from the others,” Panayiotou explains.

Once in a job, employees have the option to try out different roles, offering them an insight into how different parts of the business work. It also prepares them for a position in the future. “People may not be promoted straight away but they move laterally so they can develop and become multi-skilled to prepare them for a bigger role later. Our finance department is currently running a job rotation programme.” When looking for suitable candidate for a particular position, Panayiotou says the company’s first preference is the look within. She goes on to say: “We look at key managers in the company that we think we can develop and train them in different skills before they move up in the company.”

Of course, one key reason for the 300,000 job applications last year is the benefits dished out to employees. Indeed, Emirates prides itself on its perks, which Panayiotou describes as “absolutely fantastic”. But it’s not just the upper echelons of the business that land the spoils; junior staff also receive attractive packages, too. For instance, senior management are given free accommodation but this option has been extended so that lower level employees get the choice. “Junior staff now get this options because the cost of living here in Dubai is a problem for some,” Panayiotou remarks. On top of this, some people are covered for health and schooling, along with the Emirates Group Provident Scheme – a fund for end of service benefits for employees. 

But while Emirates offers an attractive packages, the unadvertised benefits get trumpeted not nearly enough, says Panayiotou. “We are excellent at looking after people but this is sometimes forgotten. We have a very good welfare system in place so that if people have deaths in the family or medical emergencies we have procedures and people in place to assist; this isn’t a figure you can put a price on.” She notes how the group is considerate when it comes to staff requesting flexible working. “We have realised that we need to be more flexible with staff hours and although we don’t have an exact policy on this, we are certainly working on it. Also, we never used to have a maternity policy for cabin crew; before they used to have to resign when they got pregnant. Now they can go off and we can later train them and they can come back to work.” She adds: “We have had to do these things because we have to move with the times. Sometimes it has been slower and more frustrating than I would have hoped but I think we have made progress.”

With all of Emirates’ HR efforts and practices Panayiotou suggests that Emirates has moved “ahead of the UAE”. “I was invited to a meeting recently to discuss the introduction of part-timers in the UAE, but we are already using part-timers because we are ahead of the game and ahead of the UAE in some respects.” And with Emirates HR efforts it looks as if the competition could be left trailing in its wake.