Introduction: Project Leadership, Teams and Behaviours
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Project leadership and efficient project teams in an aviation company influence the GDP growth of the United Kingdom enhance the business value and profitability and strengthen the customer base. The potential leaders also provide other team members with motivation, support, and direction during business operations. The study will highlight the impacts of leadership and project teams in EasyJet aviation in the UK during the outbreak Coronavirus pandemic. The study will also explain how an effective communication channel within the project team has helped all team members to achieve all their missions for the improvement of the business. The process of how the leaders help to resolve conflicts with the aviation team will also be discussed in this study.
Task 1
Impact of project leadership and project teams in EasyJet
EasyJet launched its first flight between “London Gatwick and Barcelona” on 1st February in the year 2002 and provided services to nearly 200 million customers to date. The variation company has grown up as “Gatwick’s largest airline” with its 79 aircraft helping people to reach their destinations on time. According to the report of February 2022, it can be stated that EasyJet had a growth rate of 1.1 m extra seats for passengers travelling in the route of “Rijeka on the Island of Krk in Croatia” (easyjet.com, 2022). EasyJet has 20 years of experience in the aviation industry and is successfully operating its business across the world with efficient team leaders and project team members.
Figure 1: Impacts of training and motivation of staff in EasyJet
The company started its business with some “locally employed” crew and a “Gatwick-based aircraft” and was joined by some new routes to places like “Edinburgh, Palma, Zurich, and Malaga” (easyjet.com, 2022). The base of the aircraft is generally bounded to Nice, Geneva, and Amsterdam and the customer services of EasyJet are highly beneficial as it provides all its customers with premium quality travelling services at “low fared flights”. According to Ali Gayward, the present manager of EasyJet in the UK, the company has the objective of providing all its customers with friendly services that value its fare greatly.
Figure 2: Project team members of an aviation company
The project's leadership and efficient crew members contributed highly to EasyJet’s business and this is the major reason the company successfully carried nearly 96 million passengers in the year 2019 (easyjet.com, 2022). The airline has more than 300 aircraft that provide its services over 1000 routes to about “150 airports over 35 countries” and carry about 16 million individuals who are travelling for their business.
The major roles and responsibilities of the project's leaders in the aviation company are to develop the schedules of the team and assist the members in successful onboarding. It is the utter responsibility of the team manager or leaders to provide their team members with proper training and resolve conflict within the aviation team (Do and Vu, 2020). Several members are included in a projects team of the aviation company and their effective roles and responsibilities are discussed below.
Project leaders and managers: The project leaders’ responsibilities include the development of a project plan, recruiting new talents, managing all deliverables based on the project plan, and managing and leading the team to the successful completion of the projects. The tasks are assigned to all project team members by the project leader after communicating with the “upper-level management” (Rios et al. 2020). The methodology and the project schedule are generally determined by the project leaders of the aviation company.
Project team members: The key responsibilities of “projects team members” of the aviation company are to complete all deliverables provided to them by the projects manager, and contribute to the entire project’s success. The team members are also responsible for proving expertise and working with customers to meet business requirements and customers’ demands during airline services (Stevenson et al. 2019). After the services are over it is the major responsibility of the team members to go for surveys record feedback from the customers and document the entire process of the projects.
The project leaders must acquire some important leadership skills to lead a project team of an aviation company. The major leadership skills that a leader must have include “influencing and motivating” other members of a term (Ebo, 2019). Aviation leaders should listen to other issues and inspire others with their work to build up an effective team with efficient crew members. In an aviation company like EasyJet, Pilots and other senior crew members are determined as effective leaders who influence other members of the company by providing them with proper guidance during customer service.
Figure 3: COVID-19 lockdown impacts on aviation business
According to the report of IATA, “passenger air transport” which was measured as “revenue per passenger kilometre” was reduced by 90% in April in the year 2020. The aviation industry of the UK is still suffering from business loss during the global pandemic and this affected profitability by 75% in August 2022. EasyJet also suffered from a higher rate of customer attrition and staff retention during the pandemic as customers were cancelling airline tickets (Fakhira et al. 2020). The collapse in aviation economic activity and trade also influenced the company’s business operation across the globe. The company has suffered from low economic growth which is about 30% lower than pre-Covid. EasyJet has still run its business in a 12% loss as per reports of August 2022. The aviation company was also affected because of the government guidelines of sudden flight cancellations which have reduced the GDP growth rate of the UK for a long period.
Task 2
Communication Channel effectiveness within project teams in EasyJet
Communication channel within an aviation organization generally shows the way the data or information flows between all internal and external stakeholders. The effectiveness of communication and collaboration channels within the aviation sector highly depends on the efficiency level of all staff and crew members. The communication channel effectiveness of EasyJet generally depends on reliability and communication speed among the crew members and management during their business operations and flight services (Al-Kinani et al. 2018). The company has effective communication within the management and this helps all members of a project team to communicate freely with their team leaders or projects manager and also with the “upper-level management”.
Effective communication and collaboration channels help all staff and brew members communicate about their needs and issues during any business operation. Easy communication with the upper management also helps the employees to remain motivated at work. This also allows the management of the company to understand all the weaknesses and strengths of their crew members and provide training according to that (Abdelhady et al. 2019). Proper training and guidance also keep the staff motivated at work reduce the staff retention rate and increase the employee engagement rate. The performance of the employee also increases as they become more productive and creative at tier work and provide the customers with high-quality service (theguardian.com, 2022). Other than this the employees can also be motivated by rewarding them for best performance and high incentives. During the global pandemic, the company suffered from huge business losses as the rate of employee retention was high (Xue et al. 2018). The company failed to provide its staff with good incentives and frequently cut remuneration to save its business from drastic economic and sales losses.
Proper communication channel helps to build trust relationships among all employees and customers, which helped EasyJet recover from its business loss post-pandemic. Trust and loyalty within the organization can enhance the business value, reduce conflicts in the workplace, and improve the mental and emotional health of all employees. Trust is not covered under the training of newly recruited staff and this comes from within and personnel maintenance (independent.co.uk, 2022). The major role of the project manager or leader is to nurture good collaboration and communication between all team members so that all feel valued and respected at work and deliver high-quality services from their own side. Effective communication channels also allow all staff and crew members to state their ideas and opinions during any ongoing project freely and confidently in front of all members without any fear of neglect.
Task 3
Conflict management within project teams in EasyJet
Several situations can raise conflicts in an aviation company during business operations across the world. Conflict in the aviation sector is determined by a situation where the risk is high due to collision among several airline companies in the target market segments. Conflicts also raise several threats in the business of EasyJet airlines including variation cybersecurity, risks in conflict zones, and security on the ground station (Domino et al. 2021). Conflict may occur within the organisation among the internal stakeholders if an effective communication and collaboration channel is unavailable among the employees or crew members and management.
The level of frustration that EasyJet has after facing huge business losses during the global pandemic of COVID-19 and post-pandemic include challenges faced in economic growth also affected the GDP growth of the country it has its business. Other areas where the company has faced challenges due to COVID-19 include the cost control area, and customer services as the rate of customer attrition is very high during COVID-19 and post-covid (Rouyre et al. 2019). Conflicts also arise within the aviation company due to cybersecurity risks where the company has lost some amount of big data. Conflicts arose among the employees and management as the employees suffered from frequent remuneration cuts and this increased staff retention rate and unemployment in the UK during covid and post-COVID.
Aviation companies including Easyjet have faced several threats in their business operations post-COVID due to the ongoing disruption of the global pandemic of COVID-19. The company is also suffering from business losses in global markets due to the constant impacts of Brexit and unstable and rising fuel prices (cityam.com, 2022). The war between Russia and Ukraine has also affected the services and business operational plan of EasyJet since the year 2021. Most of the domestic and international flights got cancelled and this raised unemployment as a large group of staff lost their jobs.
EasyJet is a 20-year experience aviation company successfully operating its business across the world with efficient team leaders and project team members. The project managers or organization leaders can play a major role in conflict management by establishing an effective communication and collaboration channel within the organization among all staff or crew members and upper-level management. The company must value, respect and motivate all staff regardless of their castes, creed, religion, sex, gender, culture, race, and socio-economic background to resolve conflicts at the workplace (simplilearn.com, 2022). Equal treatment for all staff members can reduce workplace conflict and enhance positivity and loyalty among all employees. Proper conflict-free workplace culture can improve the mental health of the employees and increase business value, staff engagement and business profitability rates (villanovau.com, 2022). Conflicts-free workplace culture also helps to resolve all issues of discrimination and inequality and promote equality and diversity at work.
Recommendations
Aviation companies can enhance their business value, profitability rates and brand popularity both in international and national markets through recruiting, motivating, and providing proper training to all crew members and airline staff. The recommendations that are provided to EasyJet Airlines to improve its customer services and business operational plan are stated below.
Implementation of advanced and modern technologies in staff recruitment: New and advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence and video Interviews during the selection of new talents can be used by the company. The technologies generally speed up the recruiting process as it is associated with audio-visual technology (Vrontis et al. 2022). The recruiters can effectively evaluate the candidate profile by their behaviour and body language. Video technology can help the company to select suitable and eligible candidates for the respective job profiles.
Omnichannel experience to enhance brand loyalty: EasyJet Airlines can utilise omnichannel to raise its brand loyalty and build a trusted relationship with customers across the globe. This channel includes a dependable and specialized “airline contact centre” through which customers can reach customer support via web chat, SMS, phone calls, or feedback forms from the company’s official websites (Chen et al. 2022). The company’s marketers can understand the customers’ needs and market trends by incorporating this channel as it provides them with an active presence on all social media platforms including “Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook”. According to about 62% of aviation company managers if the marketers of aviation brands interact with their customers on social media platforms they will have strong and loyal customer bases.
Conclusion
The study highlights that in aviation projects team leaders and efficient team members or crew members have major responsibilities as their sincere work and creativity can make a project successful. The study highlights how EasyJet Airlines trying to recover from its huge business loss due to a higher rate of unemployment across the world during the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment still affected the company’s business development post-covid as it remained steady by 3.8% in June 2022. The company is facing high challenges to fill its vacancies and searching for talented domestic staff and cabin crew to enhance its business value and profitability and strengthen its customer base. The study also highlights how EasyJet has enhanced its business growth by maintaining its workplace culture that is free from any conflict and has an effective communication channel among all employees and management.
References
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