AIN’s 2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit (CALS) West brought together business aviation thought leaders to examine and discuss some of our industry’s pressing issues. The session’s topics included compensation, training challenges, legal aspects of business aviation, generational differences, employee retention, maintenance, hiring/DEI, and sustainability.
If there’s one element of managing a flight department that is universally disliked, it’s dealing with compensation packages. And today, with tightening budgets, increasing turnover, and the varying needs of multigenerational crewmembers, it’s higher on your task-avoidance list than ever before.
The attendees identified four areas of compensation mitigation that significantly impact our industry: frustration with the status quo; research and planning; attracting new hires; and creating a retention-friendly ongoing compensation plan.
Something Must Change
To ensure that your team stays together, you need a competitive compensation, staffing, recruitment, and retention plan.
Unfortunately, especially in larger companies, the human resources department continually tries to put pilots, mechanics, and support personnel—whose jobs HR doesn’t understand—into categories it does understand. And that’s a common source of frustration among flight department managers.
“We have a big disconnect between HR and our flight department,” a chief pilot said. “They don’t understand aviation salaries, recruiting, and processes. It’s frustrating and very time-consuming for me.”
Of course, one way to take the load off a flight department manager would be to bring in outside recruiters. But that doesn’t always work. As one flight department manager said, “We thought that having outside services assist with data and market analytics would be valuable, but our leadership didn’t believe the information they presented.”
That puts the burden of justification back on the flight department managers to gather and present the data in a way that management and HR can understand. Unfortunately, compensation and retention in today’s business aviation world can’t be a “one-and-done” process.
As a senior manager said, “There is no baseline in business aviation for compensation packages today. It changes so quickly now that compensation must be re-evaluated every six months.”
Harnessing the Power of PowerPoint
Asked how they mitigated some of their frustrations with HR and management regarding flight department compensation, the CALS attendees said their best tool was a cohesive plan built on supportable research.
Several flight departments shared that they had gone outside to gather information and analytics. Of course, as mentioned earlier, because of the HR department’s lack of understanding of what the flight department is all about, some data might not be accepted at face value.
Attendees said that, especially in large corporations, HR personnel don’t understand that flight crews and maintainers don’t work a typical 40-hour week, so scheduling flexibility is critical to recruitment and retention. It’s an alien world to them.
One senior aviation department manager said he achieved greater success by creating a detailed presentation about the flight department, its operations, and the responsibilities associated with each job title.
“Giving the presentation with solid input and graphics provided the senior management in human resources with a much better understanding of what we do,” he explained. “It has made it easier to get approvals.”
Show Me the Money
In today’s world, a flight department’s compensation package can offer a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting top-tier talent. That’s when having HR’s support and understanding of exactly what your flight department is all about can be invaluable.
Whether your company has an in-house recruiting team or relies on headhunters, getting the right people starts with the flight department’s leader creating a full description of the job and the skills you need to fill it.
“Make sure you have a detailed description about what is expected in this role,” a senior flight department leader explained. “How do you want HR to present your flight department, its culture, and its personality, and how do you want them to identify a person who will fit in your team?”
“You also have to communicate to the candidates the trust, respect, and work/life balance that is happening in your flight department,” a chief pilot added. “Presenting an honest and thorough picture of what’s happening in the department will encourage the best candidates to want to join your team.”
Fair Compensation Is a Key to Long-term Retention
While a lot of what we’ve covered has been centered on recruiting talent, you can’t for a minute let your tenured team members feel overlooked. Fostering dissatisfaction and disillusionment are quick ways to turn a valued employee into an ex-employee.
Besides monitoring the health of your aircraft, it’s your responsibility as the department’s leader to keep a keen eye on how things are running on the personnel side. Here are some tips to ensure that everyone in your flight department feels they are a valued part of your team:
Know what your peers are paying. Conduct market research or talk to other operators of similar size in your region to understand compensation trends for similar roles.
Evaluate individual performance. Assess the performance of both tenured employees and new hires to ensure that compensation reflects their contributions and achievements.
Implement regular reviews. Establish a schedule for regular compensation reviews to ensure that salaries remain competitive.
Communicate transparently. Explain the rationale behind compensation distribution decisions to everyone.
Make adjustments on the fly. Make changes to team members’ salaries to bring them in line with market rates while considering factors like each person’s loyalty, experience, and length of tenure.
Provide growth opportunities. Find training opportunities for professional development, advancement, and recognition for tenured employees and new hires.
Monitor and adapt. Continuously monitor market trends and employee performance, and adjust compensation strategies accordingly. As mentioned earlier, in today’s business aviation environment, reviewing your compensation levels twice a year is probably best.
Above all, play fair. Compare the tenured employees' responsibilities, experience, and contributions with those of new hires to maintain internal fairness.