Key Learnings from Xiamen Airlines Case

Raghav Gupta
PC20200052
Following are my learning from this case:
1. It is very important for the HR or management of a firm to understand its
organizations resources which are critical to its success and could give them
competitive advantage , in this case it was the airlines pilots, and how to maximise
efficiency and productivity while keeping them satisfied and happy in long duration.
The companies management identified that the need of the hour was to develop a
new compensation structure which would address the shortage of pilots, expansion
requirements, training costs, strikes by the pilots and poaching of the pilots by
competitors. To solve these problems the management with HR built a new
compensation plan from ground up with an objective to tackle each of the above
complex problems

2. Another important learning that I draw from this case is that the management,
general manager in this case, to drive the change in the structure of the company
was working on this plan hands on. He made sure he made all the efforts in terms of
taking his team out for dinners, making him approachable to others, attending and
conveying the compensation review and iteration process, backing his team with the
support and most importantly making sure the new plan had the objective in focus
during all the reviews and iterations. Also, he managed to communicate that the
intensions of the management are right and are for the benefit of the pilots. This
makes the other party also reciprocate the gesture and helps you to achieve your
cause faster.

3. The Firm restructured the compensation to include variable pay to incentivise the
pilots to fly longer hours which were closer to the upper limit. They added the
incentives to promote in flight training by senior pilots, this helped them to train the
new recruits much faster thus generating capable pilots of their own. They also
measured and analysed the safety standards and SOP following capabilities of each
pilots and linked those to the compensation. This made sure that efficiencies are
improved, and the pilot are conscious of the SOP and safeties. They added additional
ranks of the pilots, this helped for people to identify longer careers with the
company and increased loyalty of senior’s pilots with the company. The new
compensation plan also included various benefits for the family of the pilots so that
not just them there family’s are also well taken care off.