Organization’s Point of View
A firm’s dimension is never complete without Crew Resource Management, which sharpens the strategic abilities. The CRM can adapt to changing market capabilities and customer expectations that lead to the growth of quality in the services supplied, cost sensitivity, and all of these things. This aids them in the development of an innovative differentiation strategy while also providing them with service and cost-effectiveness (Wirtz et al., 2016). In order to properly manage staff and provide excellent service quality, the SIA’s crew resource management system becomes critical. They place a higher value on the employees’ contribution to the organization’s ongoing commitment to service excellence.
There are five essential concepts to successful human resource management practices discussed in this article, each of which adds to a company’s service excellence strategy. The success of SIA depends on putting the most significant focus on training, even if it is generally considered a crucial component of success in the service business (Wirtz et al., 2016). Newly recruited cabin crew personnel must immediately undergo the most rigorous and in-depth four-month training sessions available.
General management and functional training are the two divisions of the company’s training conferences. Besides functional and safety considerations, general management training includes additional service characteristics like food and wine, aesthetic care, and, above all else, the art of conversation. However, functional training focuses on the art of conversation, whereas traditional training concentrates on mechanics.
These criteria also ensure that they hire the appropriate person for the correct position every time, giving them peace of mind in their service area by removing unqualified individuals. Because of SIA’s numerous accolades in the service industry, Human resource management strategies adhere to the five dimensions, as demonstrated by their excellence. It is critical to train all of your workers, no matter what position they hold. Consequently, the business can lead the industry in terms of service excellence and cost-effectiveness in all regions where they operate. All of these factors contribute to the company’s success in service excellence and cost-efficiency.
SIA’s training programs place greater emphasis on cutting costs than providing top-notch service to clients. Every decision made by SIA is affected by economic factors. Reducing waste while ensuring high customer satisfaction is the goal in everyday operations. The following are the five training factors that let SIA quickly achieve these attributes via SIA’s well-groomed employees: SIA’s team is significantly more robust and effective than their competition because of each of these components.
Hiring the Right Persons
Recruitment is the initial phase in the selection process for SIA’s human resources. In order to be considered for the desired position, an extremely stringent and rigorous selection procedure must be followed. It comprises fulfilling requirements and participating in an interview (Heracleous et al., 2017). Consequently, they can better exclude the unqualified individuals who are not a good fit for the post.
Training Service Victors
The previously described selection technique was created for crew members to give excellent service while staying humble and confident. Students will learn about food and wine, conversational skills, and cosmetics in addition to the job’s practical and safety requirements. The feature will aid in the development of teamwork among staff in key operational areas like engineering, sales support, cabin crew, and flight operation (Heracleous et al., 2017). Other benefits include reminding staff how important they are and how everyone has a part in providing top-notch customer service.
Generating a Fruitful Delivery Team
Employees who want to work on planes need to work well with others in a variety of environments before they fly. This part aims to build a sense of camaraderie among employees by doing events like all-day engagement sessions on the ground and having them participate in team games.
Quality Service Empowerment
Empowering workers is a problem that many service companies are grappling with, and it is also a challenge to put into practice. As a result, every business employee is equipped to handle any challenging task they come across in their daily work situations. This part of the human resource strategy explains to workers their obligations and rights (Heracleous et al., 2017). Empowering front-line staff, especially, requires clear demonstrations of limits within the service delivery process.
Rewarding Excellence
SIA ensures that its staff is equipped to provide outstanding services by assembling the right personnel and providing them with the appropriate training. It uses a variety of incentive programs, including performance-based incentives, metaphorical forms of appreciation, and programs that relate variable pay components to both employee contributions and the organization’s overall financial performance (Wirtz, 2019). However, despite all of the above benefits, it is prudent to guarantee that employees are fully committed to their jobs constantly.
Customer’s Point of View
Only a tiny percentage of companies carry out their grand development goals. When it comes to offering high-quality service and productivity, customer-facing employees are the most critical contributors. On the other hand, the so-called front-line professions in service organizations, where personnel is expected to be fast and effective in accomplishing operational duties while also being kind and helpful to the people they serve, are vital.
The service worker must be effectively taught to provide excellent service and productivity, which is a critical component of competitiveness and benefits the service worker. Since the most demanding occupations in this business are on the front lines, the pace of work is efficient and rapid in executing responsibilities in a pleasant atmosphere with the client (Wirtz, 2019). All of these factors contribute to firms implementing these methods in order to achieve superior corporate performance.
Numerous businesses are never concerned with retraining their employees when they introduce new services to their operations. This causes employees to underperform while providing certain services. However, corporations have achieved more significant and long-lasting changes (Wirtz, 2019). Organizations that have consistently adhered to their strategy have often established a new office company level to monitor performance related to critical events.
The majority of these corporations overlook that service excellence can only be attained via extensive employee training. They focus on service enhancement, oblivious to the people who guarantee it occurs. As a result, this is the primary distinction between other organizations and SIA’s retraining strategy. SIA has been the only airline that places a higher premium on this feature. Businesses should recognize that to execute their strategies effectively, and they must guarantee that their corporate perspective is communicated to multiple departments or sectors. Thus, they can provide superior services by their targeted grand strategy. Additionally, senior leaders must devote additional time to strategy evaluation. When all of these factors are appropriately controlled, a business may achieve the desired increased performance.
Airlines have been in a pricing war since the deregulation of the aviation sector in the United States. They are primarily focused on reducing operating costs and realizing economies of scale as much as possible. A lack of quality distinction in the sector is a result of price competition. Airlines, in comparison, are becoming increasingly commoditized, and customers’ expectations of service equity have been lowered to the barest necessities (Yang, 2020).
Full-service airlines are obliged to take drastic cost-cutting measures to remain competitive as low-cost carriers acquire part of the market. Airlines in the United States spend significantly less on the training and development of their service workers than airlines in Asia. Asian airlines may be better at providing exceptional customer service since they operate in countries with cultural norms and a collective mentality. Individualism is more prevalent in the US. Hence these cultural traits are not present there. Americans’ self-reliance and independence mean that they are less concerned with service quality than with other variables such as comfort, privacy, and transactional convenience.
Frontline Employees’ Point of View
A big part of the regulatory environment’s arbitration was determined by SIA’s human resource policy and the quantity of government help they received from Singapore. Even though SIA’s pilots and crew were routinely underpaid compared to international standards, the government took no efforts to bring pay in line with international standards. Because Singapore Airlines was the country’s largest airline, it had to make substantial revenue from taxes. If it increased employee remuneration, it would have to raise its pricing (Dharamdass et al., 2018) as a result, and it will no longer be able to offer a good client experience at a low cost. To put it another way, this created a situation where firms competed on price rather than quality. As a result, employees’ rights were sacrificed, and the ripple effect spread across Singapore’s aviation industry.
In order to reduce waste without compromising customer service, SIA’s cost-cutting method affects every decision made in a company’s day-to-day operations. Throughout their training, they are taught in a way that is in keeping with the company’s culture, which places a high value on meeting the demands of its customers. Low pricing and outstanding service are the two most essential SIA recurring model features. Their service levels are maintained throughout the recruitment process, resulting in established company culture. SIA uses the five parts of its successful human resource policies to weed out workers who do not fit into its culture of providing excellent customer service (Imam, 2020).
While maintaining low costs is critical, providing excellent customer service is critical, and both are stressed throughout the SIA’s training programs. Yearly, the senior members of the crew discuss the competitive nature of their different fields with their subordinates to help them maintain their zeal and vigor.
In addition, SIA introduced a bonus system that rewards all workers equally. The method motivates employees by relieving them of financial concerns. The SIA’s bonus plan gives employees the chance to earn incentives of roughly 50% of their base income, depending on how much profit the company makes. Employees may also get bonuses of up to 50% of their base salary, based on their turnover. They also want university graduates who are committed, ambitious, and energized by the possibility of working for a reputable airline. SIA establishes a company culture that prioritizes the demands of its customers while simultaneously reducing expenses to the bone throughout the organization.
Workers who are devoted to the service company rather than just working for money are created as a result. We might infer from this example that about 75% of people who finish their probationary period continue to work at SIA, and a break in service renews the probationary agreement. Workplace contentment depends on how well companies teach their employees and what kind of social status they give them while they are employed.
In order to reduce waste without compromising customer service, SIA’s cost-cutting method affects every decision made in a company’s day-to-day operations (Wirtz et al., 2016). Throughout their training, they are taught in a way that is in keeping with the company’s culture, which places a high value on meeting the demands of its customers. Low pricing and outstanding service are the two most essential SIA recurring model features. Their service levels are maintained throughout the recruitment process, resulting in established company culture.
SIA uses the five parts of its successful human resource policies to weed out workers who do not fit into its culture of providing excellent customer service. While maintaining low costs is critical, providing excellent customer service is critical, and both are stressed throughout the SIA’s training programs. Every year, the senior members of the crew discuss the competitive nature of their different fields with their subordinates to help them maintain their zeal and vigor.
In addition, SIA introduced a bonus system that rewards all workers equally. The method motivates employees by relieving them of financial concerns. The SIA’s bonus plan gives employees the chance to earn incentives of roughly 50% of their base income, depending on how much profit the company makes. Employees may also get bonuses of up to 50% of their base salary, based on their turnover. They also want university graduates who are committed, ambitious, and energized by the possibility of working for a reputable airline. SIA establishes a company culture that prioritizes the demands of its customers while simultaneously reducing expenses to the bone throughout the organization (Seo, 2020).
Workers who are devoted to the service company rather than just working for money are created as a result. We might infer from this example that about 75% of people who finish their probationary period continue to work at SIA, and a break in service renews the probationary agreement. Workplace contentment depends on how well companies teach their employees and what kind of social status they give them while they are employed.
References
Wirtz, J., & Heracleous, L. (2016). Singapore Airlines: Managing Human Resources for Cost-effective Service Excellence. In SERVICES MARKETING: People Technology Strategy (pp. 695-703). Web.
Heracleous, L., & Joehen, W. (2017). Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines. In Strategic Management in Aviation (pp. 301-306). Routledge. Web.
Wirtz, J. (2019). Organizational ambidexterity: cost-effective service excellence, service robots, and artificial intelligence. Organizational Dynamics, 100719. Web.
Yang, J. A. N. Y. (2020). The Pricing Puzzle. Springer International Publishing. Web.
Dharamdass, S., & Fernando, Y. (2018). Contact center service excellence: a proposed conceptual framework. International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 29(1), 18-41. Web.
Imam, H. (2020). New normal: An HRM perspective of post-COVID-19 in the airline industry. Web.
Seo, G. H. (2020). Competitive advantages of international airline alliances: a critical review. HOLISTIC–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 11(1), 139-145.
Across the World with the Singapore Girl, (2012). Singapore Airlines. Web.