In the first of Jenny’s two group discussions at the Talent Summit, she moderated a conversation among Chief HR professionals in the aviation industry
As Venari Partners’ Head of Client Relations, working with people is the name of the game for Jenny Walsh. She has singular insight into how airlines are hiring and what they are looking for – topics that have been especially prevalent over the past few years, with the aviation industry having faced numerous challenges around retention and competition from other sectors for candidates.
Naturally, HR teams have a huge role to play as aviation businesses navigate the new landscape – not least given the prominence of topics like diversity and flexible work policies post-pandemic – so it was an obvious choice for the first of Jenny’s panel talks at this year’s World Aviation Festival in Amsterdam. On the morning of Tuesday 8th, she chaired a CHRO panel discussion subtitled ‘Exploring HR strategies for diversity, engagement, and future-proofing the aviation industry’, which featured the following speakers:
Juliet Thomson: Chief People Officer, Menzies Aviation
Renato Covelo: Chief People & Talent Officer, Avianca Group
Pernille Vang: Chief People Officer, Scandinavian Airlines
Darrell Hughes: Chief People Officer, Ryanair
It was wonderful to have a panel comprised of aviation professionals from all over the world, from Renato in Latin America to Juliet in Scotland, that showcased the breadth of talent and experience in the industry – which includes lifers like Darrell to people such as Pernille, who have come to the sector from other backgrounds.
So, what did our panellists discuss, and which conclusions – if any – did they reach?
Overcoming hurdles in hiring and retaining
For Darrell, recruiting and keeping talent are inherently connected issues, so it’s something Ryanair make a significant effort to address by building up candidates internally. This covers everything from graduate and management development programmes to pilot training, with nearly all of the airline’s captains being trained in house. Thus, pilots, cabin crew, ground handlers, and engineers alike join the airline knowing that there will be opportunities for further development. ‘That preference for growing your own from within is hugely attractive on the recruitment side as well,’ he noted. ‘So it not only is very powerful in terms of retention – it’s very powerful in terms of attracting people into the business in the first place. We’re able to do that largely driven by our growth.’
It is not merely a question of providing routes to promotion that keeps Ryanair’s retention rate high, however. Their competitive pay and fixed rosters give pilots and cabin crew stability and a work-life balance that Darrell described as being ‘pretty unique in aviation.’ It appears to be working for the airline, with their policies around timetabling and promotion being the biggest drivers for recruitment and retention alike.
Different sides of the industry
Pernille had a unique perspective among the speakers for being relatively new: not just in her role, but also to the industry at large, having joined SAS in January 2024. The airline has had a tricky few years, emerging from COVID into a Chapter 11 process that only ended recently. Still, recruitment has started picking up for them again, and Pernille has been ‘super impressed about that basic sense of passion and loyalty to the brand’ among new recruits – many of whom have been rehires. ‘I think what really keeps people is that high sense of passion and brand loyalty, so we have to tap into that,’ she added.
Where to work, and how?
Opinions differ across sectors about flexible and remote working versus back-to-office mandates. While aviation has many positions that cannot be performed remotely – try flying a jet plane from your living room! – the post-COVID boom in remote working is a topic that frequently comes up for back-office roles.
Avianca, for instance, have seven different nationalities in the C-suite, and thus emphasise the value of mixing with others and having face-to-face contact. While the airline has a hybrid policy for office attendance, Renato noted that they are nonetheless encouraging staff to return. ‘Talking to people is different than Zooming people. So that’s what we prefer, to have people on the ground, but with flexibility.’ He described bringing younger generations back in to work in person as a ‘challenge’ – something that Pernille did not necessarily agree with. She has seen C-suite leaders eager to have staff return to the office, though she doesn’t believe this should be mandatory.
Rather, Pernille said that ‘the job we then have is to make it attractive for people to come to the office. So, what we’re doing now at headquarters is refurbishing.’ Giving talent dedicated spaces to work in renovated environments will go some way towards boosting in-person attendance, Pernille believes, though whether that eventually means a return to the office full-time for all staff remains to be seen.
Salaries, financial and emotional
Pay has been a big talking point in the industry recently – and while we’ve likely seen the most significant bumps in salary to come for at least a few years, that doesn’t mean the topic is off-limits for HR professionals. At Avianca, for instance, the board devised a new compensation system post-COVID, leveraging KPIs and offering different packages for different groups. The airline took care to communicate this effectively, so that employees throughout the company ‘understand what’s going to happen’, Renato noted. ‘They know what they need to do to receive.’
Having already spoken about the challenges of retaining staff who could be tempted by more favourable pay and tax arrangements in the US, Renato understands the need to offer something different to candidates who might be willing to embrace a change of scenery and lifestyle in Latin America. As part of Avianca’s offering, he described what he termed the ‘emotional salary’. Commensurate pay is of course very important for attracting and retaining top talent, but lately Avianca have focused more on offerings such as extra vacation days and reduced working hours ‘to compensate and be attractive to individuals that want to have experience in the aviation industry.’
For Juliet, fair wages are key to retention, as are ‘partnerships with our airline customers and trying to make sure that we’re able to offer similar benefits that they’re able to offer to their staff.’ Examples like deals on flights make a significant difference towards retaining frontline workers, ‘which in turn delivers safer, more effective operations for the customers, and then at more senior managerial level,’ she explained. Menzies’ significant growth means that talent is incentivised to keep this up, with personal ambition and company trajectory aligned to deliver strong financial and operational results.
Diversity key to aviation’s future
Historically, aviation has not been the most diverse of industries, and while there are still disparities in representation across various strands and roles, more and more companies in the sector are addressing how best to incorporate meaningful and impactful DEI policies for their talent.
‘I think even a few years ago, it wasn’t really a conversation for the sector,’ Juliet admitted. ‘So that’s definitely progressed for us. We’re really focusing a lot now on how we invest in underrepresented groups.’ One example is the refugee population, with Menzies taking steps to hire displaced people and help them to establish themselves in their new communities. The company are also looking to recruit more women as well as veterans to ensure that marginalised groups can have a voice and influence on the future of the industry.
For Darrell, the dearth of women in technical roles – particularly pilots and engineers – is ‘a fundamental problem’ for aviation. As such, Ryanair have set up a diversity committee, as well as a programme called Role Models Roadshow in which groups from girls’ schools are taken on women-only tours of the airline’s simulator centre. ‘The philosophy being, if you can’t see it, you can’t be it,’ Darrell explained. Nonetheless, he admitted that progress is still ‘very, very slow’, and that the industry has some home truths to answer when it comes to addressing the lack of gender diversity.
Thank you to Jenny’s guests
Whether we see more full-time Accessibility Officer roles, such as that which Avianca have introduced, remains to be seen; we are keen to follow how this conversation continues to build and grow from the topics discussed at this year’s HR panel. In the meantime, our warmest thanks once again to all our guests for an enlightening conversation!