2020
Our people
Our People Strategy, built on three key pillars – Attract, Build, Grow is progressive and inclusive, to support our 200 people across the world and deliver on our business strategy for the future.
Attract
We place a big focus on hiring the best and most diverse talent. We attract people who are passionate and enthusiastic about progressing a career in this industry but who also wish to work in a sector that, while having its roots in Ireland, has a global focus.
A key part of our ambition is to cultivate the next generation of talent through our Graduate Programme which was introduced in 2013 and was the first of its kind in the industry. Having had 150 applications in the first year, this rose to just under 600 in 2019. We decided at an early stage to run a broad programme and we now have 35 employees, recruited through our Graduate Programme, placed from colleges in Ireland and overseas.
We also support education at many levels. We sponsor the MSc in Aviation Finance at the UCD Smurfit School of Business and take in two interns from the programme every year. In addition, we are pleased to support the IASA (Irish Aviation Students Association) and the SMF (Student Managed Fund) in Trinity College.
We are constantly investing in our processes to ensure we are inclusive of a global workforce.
Build
We aim to create an efficient and engaging work environment that enables people to be at their best. We have invested heavily in technology to build systems that enhance our processes and enable our people to develop their short and long-term career plans.
A key focus of our work during the past year has been on employee wellbeing. Our Elevate Wellbeing Programme is based on the key three pillars of Mind, Body and Life. We ran eight events under these three pillars during the year, addressing varied areas such as personal finance, positive wellbeing in the workplace, nutrition and parenting. We also provide a variety of health, fitness and mindfulness classes so that our employees can avail of these.
We have a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme should employees require support from independent professionals.
Grow
We employ the 70:20:10 learning and development model whereby 70% is on the job learning, 20% is learning from others, and 10% is formal learning. We believe that by creating an environment of continuous learning we can enable people to be at their best.
During 2019, over 20% of our people took developed their career with us by taking on a new role in our business or additional responsibilities within their existing role. This includes secondments to other locations around the world.
We ran a total of 32 training courses during the year and on average, each employee attended five sessions. We are also continuing to invest in e-learning options which has been accelerated due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will make learning easily accessible to our people, no matter where they are located around the world. A dedicated Grow week has focused on career development through dedicated webinars and group coaching for all of our employees.
Our mentoring programme is another key element of our Grow pillar enabling both professional and personal development for the mentor and the mentee. Additionally, we support agile working and are developing new standards in this area to support our active EDI programme.
We will continue to invest in our people, giving them every opportunity to enhance and develop so that, together, we will continue to thrive.
Communications
Employee communications is very important to us. Our entire workforce, which operates across several different time zones, join our CEO-led meeting on a weekly basis, no matter where they are in the world. These meetings are augmented by CEO quarterly business updates to update our team on company performance and industry developments.
We are constantly investing in our processes to ensure we are inclusive of a global workforce. This has been crucially important during recent times. Our enhanced technology platforms, have ensured that our employees have transferred seamlessly from working in the office to working remotely, within a very short timeframe and with no adverse impact on productivity levels.
In a normal year we bring all global employees together in person twice to facilitate knowledge sharing, foster creative thinking and strengthen relationships and although this will not happen this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, we look forward to a time when we can re-start this tradition and unite all of our staff together again.
Covid-19
Covid-19 has brought challenges to our employees and we have adopted an unwavering focus on the health and wellbeing of our colleagues. Communication has been critical to ensuring that we have facilitated our people to prioritise their needs outside of the workplace.
The Human Resources team reached out to everyone in the business individually to understand the issues they face in order to make sure they were supported by the business. Feedback from our people helped guide the programmes and supports that we have put in place during the crisis including webinars and advice on e-working.
The Future
Our people are our greatest asset and the majority have worked with us for many years. We recognise that each person is crucially important to our future and we acknowledge their commitment in developing this business into the successful entity that it is today. We will continue to invest in our people, giving them every opportunity to enhance and develop so that, together, we will continue to thrive and deliver our business strategy.
Mary Carty
Head of Human Resources