Cabin Crew Induction Program

Cabin Crew Induction Program
Background
Business Air is an n Irish Airline that provides five star travel experiences for commercial flights. Business Air offers a unique experience unlike the conventional flights that follows the transactional approach in terms of duration and service. In terms of service standards, the Business Air competes with Emirates in the market segment of business and corporate customers. The pricing mechanism follows the business leader such as British Airways, City Jet, and Air Lungus. The recruitment process has been successful ended up acquiring about 250 cabin crew. It will be necessary to ensure that the cabin crews members are well trained to ensure that cabin crew are conversant with the desired quality standards of the service. This is very important as the quality of service is the unique feature offering the competitive advantage for the company.
Learning strategy
To understand the process of learning to be used for the induction program it will be crucial to understand the information to be involved. The induction program will involve general information with regarding work routines and also a review of Business Air history and mission and the expected behavior. The induction program will cover health and safety standards and procedures, familiarization of the working environments. The induction program will also include an enlightenment of the crew of the benefits that the company offers to them such as assistance program, health options, and other discount programs.
The induction program for the cabin crew will take place in two major forms; using web-delivered program and simulation program. The 250 cabin crews who have been hired to serve the customers come from different geographic places. After the recruitment process, the crew will issued with credential to access the e-learning portal of the company through the broadband and dial up connections. The eLearning program will offer an opportunity to the prospective crew to learn more about the organization before the in-house training. The induction program will be aligned with the mission of Business Air. The e-learning program will include interactive segments with the Business Air CEO and an opportunity to give views. The e-learning program will include a detailed and informative content explaining the uniqueness of the company’s service. The reward and motivation scheme will be elaborated within the course of the system. The program requires the cabin crew under training to successfully complete the online modules before the commencement of the in-house training. The e-learning program allows the crew to engage in a group discussion, collaboration and real-time application.
The in-house training program will be carried out within the headquarter facilities of Business Air. The program will be a three-week interactive course seeking to address the role of serving a flight attendant. It will be comprised of theoretical and practical components. The practical portion of the training will take place in a simulated Airbus A320. This will be essential in creating realistic learning environment under which the crew will learn and gather the confidence of serving under the first class service. The topics to be covered during the study: general duties of the cabin crew members, the industry subjects including codes, regulators and terminology in the aviation sector; safety and emergency gadgets and standard practice, security measures, passenger handling techniques, first aid, resource management for the cabin crew, on-Board service, hygiene measure, interview skills, presentation techniques and the presentation of industry accepted certificates.

Learning Needs Analysis
The training needs analysis (TNA) is carried to help recognize the gap that is present between the desired level of service performance and the current skills for the job. This offers a yard stick for measuring the shortfall that existing between the current knowledge, skills and attitudes and the desired level of performance. It is essential to carry out the training needs analysis to ensure that the company will be on track for the desire of Business Air in offering five star travel experiences in the commercial flights.
The training needs analysis will seek to point out: the relevant skills required to offer the desired performance level to attain the organization, the required level of performance, the desired performance level, priority of enhancing the performance level to bridge the gap. The process of training needs assessment needs to clearly understand the strategy goals of Business Air. The training needs analysis should seek to match the specific objectives and performance (IATA, 2003).
Learning objectives
Business Air learning and development department aims to offer an induction to the new cabin crew members. The induction program is one of the tools that are meant to ensure that the personnel will be experienced and committed to offer the quality service that the organization desires. It is therefore important for the organization management to understand the importance and objectives of the induction process. The induction program developed for Business Air will aim to achieve the following objectives.
Performance and productivity
It is recognized that the core purpose of the induction program is to help the new members integrate into the organization and turn them into effective workers as soon as possible. This inductive program will aim to ensure that new cabin crew will perform effectively in offering professional five star experiences to the passengers. The program will aim to make the crew understand that the nature of service is what set apart Business Air from its competitors. This will prompt the crew to be enlightened on methods of relating to the business and corporate customers. The program will be structured in a way that helps the crew understand the behavioral patterns of the co-workers which will be crucial to formation of a cohesive team. The induction program will be geared towards helping the organization hit the productivity mark quicker.
Job description and labor relations issue
The induction program will be geared towards helping the cabin crew members under the nature of expected relationships at work. These include the need for creating relationship with co-workers such as supervisors and subordinates. The program will seek to ensure that the new cabin crew gets integrated within the organization thereby create a sense of belonging. This see the employees understand how their roles fits within the structures of Business Air. It sets out how the goals can be achieved and thereby makes the employees get rolling on the achievement of these goals. Through the induction process, the cabin crew members will be brought on light concerning the procedures, policies, goals, and intrinsic value of the organization. The induction will ensure that the crew members understand the formal and informal management practices. This will include making the employees understand the procedures of handling grievances and acquiring a solution.
Culture of the organization
The induction program offers a perfect opportunity to set pace of the culture of the organization. During the period of induction, the employees will understand how operations are carried out within the organization and how issues are approached. The induction program will offer an opportunity for the management to make the cabin crew understand that it’s intended to operate an environment that does not tolerate any forms of discrimination and harassment as well as steps to deal with such case. Business Air aims to set up an exemplary culture that will make it a unique airline.
Employee health and safety
The process of induction will be crucial in helping reassuring the crew members thereby help them reduce fear and capacity. It is a normal experience that new employees fear the first experience of a job. The major fear related to whether they will succeed in the new job. Induction will therefore play an important role in creating a positive attitude. This implies that induction will be essential in helping reduce the rate of labor turnover. The major turnover of employees occurs in the first stages of the engagement period. During this period, the lesson instilled during induction will come in handy as a means of reassurance to the new cabin crew members.
Source of motivation
The induction program will be geared toward helping create job satisfaction and positive attitude to the organization. The program will engage various learning techniques to offer a window of opportunity for the participants to share their experience with themselves. It will be a perfect chance to create networks. The induction program present a chance for the management to offer a formal welcome to the new employees and teach more on the company’s mission and expected performance goals (Mlindazwa, 2010, p. 19).
Learning design
The Business Air e-learning induction Program
The first part of the induction program will be carries out through an online portal one week before the commencement of the in-house residential training for the cabin crew. The induction modules for the e-learning platform will simplified to orient the cabin crew on the performance of their roles. The program is developed with an aim of helping the cabin crew understand some diverse concepts with regard to the airline. The eLearning program is built in a way that brings the personality of Business Air and gives more information about the brand identity and the specific niche that the company aims to fill. The content is delivered by use of video that will visually represent the brand that Business Air will be. The content and method taken by this fits the use of new cabin crew. The module has stories from prospective customer and the management of the organization. In this program, the cabin crew undergoing the training will don it on their own pace as the process allows for an open and non-linear design. The learning portal will allow an interactive session the crew can engage with another or with the management on matter of importance.
The in-house residential induction program
This will be a three-week in-house training program that will be take place before the commencement of operations. The management of Business Air is very insensitive on the need for this program as the airline wishes to have a competitive advantage based on the quality of service. The program will be carried in two session involving the theory and practical sessions. The practical lessons will take place is a simulated Airbus. It will follow a recommendation for induction programs that suggest that the training be carried out with groups heterogeneous in job function but homogenous in job level. This is very crucial as bringing together participants of high and low job authority make create uncomfortable feelings. The tone to be depicted on the induction process will be celebratory as opposed to the propagandistic (Hendricks & Potgieter, 2012. p. 3).
The program will cover topic such;
Serving as a crew; this will deal will elaborating the responsibilities, roles and chain of command of the cabin crew.
airline health, safety, and security; this will help the crew members come to terms with International Air Transport Association (IATA) code, understand the vital industry terms, and description of the types of duty which the crew may be scheduled to.
Handling emergency events in the airplane; the program here will address the onboard emergency procedures and basic principles for survival after an airline emergency.
Relating with client on board the plane; this will tackle exemplary service offer, serving people with special requirements, conflict handling, and relationship with passengers.
Cabin service techniques; this will be based on the improvement of selling techniques requiring knowledge on techniques for creating rapport with passengers, understand products that are onboard, and manage the currency calculations.
Techniques for making passenger announcement;
Employment terms, rights and responsibilities.
The training program will be structured in a way that ensure adherence to policies by regulatory bodies such as IATF. On top of this, it will add in the specific qualities that Business Air desire in order for its services to be exemplary (City & Guild, 2012, p 17).
Learning evaluation
There will be two surveys that will be carried out to assess the effectiveness of the induction program. The first program will be conducted before the commencement of the online program to gather the baseline data that will be used to verify the impact of the program. After the completion of the study, another survey will be carried to measure the changes in acquisition of knowledge and attitude with the intended level of service.
The evaluation will include a mock-up cabin crew safety behavior evaluation form. The form will seek to identify the level of progress and understanding of the cabin crew on major topics such as situation awareness, information feedback, self-awareness and analysis, operational understanding, Pax & crew management, negotiation skills and workplace safety. For all these major thematic topics, there will be four skills upon which the cabin crew will be evaluated on. These measures will be ineffective, marginal, effective, and highly effective. The skill marked as ineffective indicated that it may lead to an uncorrected error and it one sector that is in dire need of improvement. The marginal skills represent the behavior that may impair the crew form attaining their goal but cannot cause an uncorrected error. More training on this area will be essential. The behavior considered as important indicated are the ones that help the crew effectively accomplish their task with no significant error. The skill indicated as highly effective indicates that the cabin crew successfully accomplished their tasks with efficiency that surpassed the set levels. (Edkins, Simpson, & Owens, 2002).

References

References
City and Guilds. (2012). Level 2 Certificate in Introduction to Cabin Crew.
Daskalaki, M. (2000). Induction Programs. Business and Professional Ethics Journal.
Edkins, G., Simpson, P., & Owens, C. (2002). Development and Evalaution of Cabin Crew Expected Safety Behaviours. Human Error Safety System Development Workshop. Newcastle.
Hendrincks, K., & Potgieter, J. (2012). A Theory Evaluation of an Induction Programme. Journal of Human Resource Management.
Mlindazwe, T. (2010). Guidelines for the Developemnt of an Induction Program for the Education Management Development Centre. Stellenbosch University.