This October Jet Airways fired 1900 of its Junior level staff to cut losses. I am strictly opposed to the idea of treating human capital as an inventory which you will stock for future use and throw out if you think they a burden. People are not a commodity dear! They have lives, needs and dreams of their own, which requires money. And jobs are the way to money. When you hold the jobs in your hand, how can you just jettison them so irresponsibly? If you want to cut jobs, do it by all means. You could have served notices, announced a transition package, shown alternate employment or could have scaled down salaries to help both your employees and the company weather the storm. But Jet Airways has done nothing like it and threw these 6 -10 month old employees out without a thought. Masseurs Naresh Goel and Vijay Malaya, please learn to respect your employees.
If you think I am being too much of a communist, let me switch sides and do some "Capitalist" thinking. How can the junior level staff, recruited some 6 months ago contribute to losses? How can firing them help? Lets discuss how the company made losses in the first place. Naresh Goel says the price of the aviation fuel has gone up, thus escalating the operating costs and in turn the air fares. Consequent to this, people started taking to the alternate modes of travel. Air crafts started flying half filled, so they grounded a lot of flights. The staff recruited for flying these planes had no work, but had to be paid their regular wages. This is what I believe he meant when he said "the airlines are bleeding money". Good, but lets first go back 6 months in time.
Earlier this year, the airlines saw unprecedented growth. New airports were coming up, small towns too came up with makeshift airports, people were willing to fly more than ever and the picture on the whole was rosy. Jet's CEO and his team decided to expanded their business. No body bothered to take the fuel bill into consideration. They hired fresh graduates, fresh pilots, ground staff and every one to run new flights. But they failed to make provision for the raise in crude oil prices in their expansion plans. Now why couldn't the airlines see this imminent raise in oil prices? Why couldn't they understand that their operating cost could go up? Why didn't the CEO plan for such exigency then? When others have done the cost benefit analysis for their expansion plans, why didn't Jet Airways do it? Other companies heavily dependent on crude oil for instance, Reliance industries indeed did that and temporarily stalled their expansion plans. Why didn't Jet do that?
Now in October when oil prices peaked Jet made losses. Whose fault is this? The newly hired ones or the CEO and his team's? Who should be fired first? Prudence says, the CEO and his team ought to go. By firing the later group you are refusing to look at the main problem, the flawed strategy and the people who advised it.
I feel sorry for Jet Airways on two accounts. One, they took back or had to take back the people who were fired. People who are insecured and distrust the management had to be employed. Implies, they will not work to their potential. Still Jet has to put up with them. Two, since the managment lost trust in the community, in future if they need to hire again, they need to pay more compared to others. They are essentially in a loose-loose situation. Looks like they have messed up the whole affair. Again, who did it?
If you think I am being too much of a communist, let me switch sides and do some "Capitalist" thinking. How can the junior level staff, recruited some 6 months ago contribute to losses? How can firing them help? Lets discuss how the company made losses in the first place. Naresh Goel says the price of the aviation fuel has gone up, thus escalating the operating costs and in turn the air fares. Consequent to this, people started taking to the alternate modes of travel. Air crafts started flying half filled, so they grounded a lot of flights. The staff recruited for flying these planes had no work, but had to be paid their regular wages. This is what I believe he meant when he said "the airlines are bleeding money". Good, but lets first go back 6 months in time.
Earlier this year, the airlines saw unprecedented growth. New airports were coming up, small towns too came up with makeshift airports, people were willing to fly more than ever and the picture on the whole was rosy. Jet's CEO and his team decided to expanded their business. No body bothered to take the fuel bill into consideration. They hired fresh graduates, fresh pilots, ground staff and every one to run new flights. But they failed to make provision for the raise in crude oil prices in their expansion plans. Now why couldn't the airlines see this imminent raise in oil prices? Why couldn't they understand that their operating cost could go up? Why didn't the CEO plan for such exigency then? When others have done the cost benefit analysis for their expansion plans, why didn't Jet Airways do it? Other companies heavily dependent on crude oil for instance, Reliance industries indeed did that and temporarily stalled their expansion plans. Why didn't Jet do that?
Now in October when oil prices peaked Jet made losses. Whose fault is this? The newly hired ones or the CEO and his team's? Who should be fired first? Prudence says, the CEO and his team ought to go. By firing the later group you are refusing to look at the main problem, the flawed strategy and the people who advised it.
I feel sorry for Jet Airways on two accounts. One, they took back or had to take back the people who were fired. People who are insecured and distrust the management had to be employed. Implies, they will not work to their potential. Still Jet has to put up with them. Two, since the managment lost trust in the community, in future if they need to hire again, they need to pay more compared to others. They are essentially in a loose-loose situation. Looks like they have messed up the whole affair. Again, who did it?
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