The air cargo industry admits that it doesn’t always attract young talent.
“We don’t have enough people with the skills and the knowledge and the ability to innovate, to drive and make the changes required in our industry,” said Lilian Tan, executive director learning and development at Strategic Aviation Solutions International, at WCS’ People & Training track.
A student studying transportation won’t often think of air cargo, even though it’s an exciting business, Lise-Marie Turpin, vice president cargo at Air Canada, said.
“It’s become very urgent in that as an industry, we’re really pressed to retain the relevancy of air cargo transportation,” Turpin said. “We really need to think twice about how we’re going to forge ahead and for that, we need a different skill set.”
Besides a need for young talent, companies must also fill the gap left by experienced people retiring, she said.
“This is a service and relationship business with a very expensive delivery system,” Tim Strauss, managing director of Hawaiian Air Cargo, said.
Strauss said the industry tends to focus more on the delivery system part, but the relationship and service aspect is where the future lies.
“The purpose of training is to drive profits for the corporation, to increase the value of your human capital,” he explained.
Strauss said an attractive feature to bring people from the outside is that only in cargo do people run their own organization, a sentiment that Turpin echoed. Cargo arms of airlines usually operate much like their own company.
So working in cargo is preparation for management anywhere, Strauss said.
The average millennial will stay in a company for 28 months, and 41 percent will leave if there is not an “excellent” training and development program, he said.
“Why do we lose that talent?” Strauss asked. “Because we don’t work to keep it from the start.”
He advised to remain selective during the hiring process and invest in employees.
Michael Bell, practice leader aviation, aerospace, defense at executive search firm Spencer Stuart, spoke with present and former air cargo leaders. He found that airfreight leaders used to come from the operating side of airlines, but now, non-air-cargo executives are being appointed as heads of air cargo.
“Suddenly, you’re seeing that as a development platform,” Bell said.
Sometimes, air cargo executives have no aviation experience, just a broader supply chain background.
Bell also said there are fewer independent companies, leading to fewer CEO jobs.
Air cargo is trending toward more gender diversity, though Bell noted that every leader he spoke with was male. He said freight forwarders tend to have more women employed than airlines do.
“What’s a little scary there is there seems to be more diversity in the customer base,” Bell said.
Some best practices for companies to hire and retain talent include having a focused recruitment strategy, defined professional advancement paths and a regularly reviewed succession plan.
“There’s really no career path, so a vision would be to develop a career path,” said Jim Edgar, regional marketing director for Boeing and The International Air Cargo Association’s (TIACA) chairman of the education and research committee.
Bell said the best companies are always recruiting and build effective retention mechanisms for employees.
“They like the culture. They like who they’re working with. They feel part of the team,” he said.
Bell advised aspiring leaders to be a business executive first and an air cargo professional second and to seek out tough assignments that no one else wants.
Edgar said TIACA conducted a study of the educational needs for air cargo. The study found that companies that incorporate training into their human resource development will continue to have a pool of educated employees and that the majority of industry programs labeled as training focus on on-the-job training.
“Our industry is very good at on-the-job training,” Edgar said. “Not so much at the other part.”
TIACA came to the conclusion that the industry needs a certificate program to develop and educate budding leaders, he said.
Julie Weber, Southwest Airlines vice president people, said engaged employees will stay at an organization.
“Employees come first [at Southwest]. Customers come second. Shareholders come third,” Weber said. “And that’s pretty bold.”
She said Southwest has a clearly defined mission statement and values that is familiar to all employees.
The airline will turn down highly-skilled people if they don’t have a good attitude and show that they care about the job and company, Weber said.
“It is a requirement at Southwest Airlines to enjoy your work,” she said.
Every two years, Southwest does employee surveys. That’s how the airline recently learned that employees want to know how business development affects them, Weber said.
She emphasized that hiring people is not solely the job of human resources; it needs to be espoused top-down.
Universities and middle and high schools also have a role in air cargo’s future, said Aman Gupta, program chair for logistics and supply chain management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“There’s a greater need for industry-academia partnership,” Gupta said.
Gupta talked about the flexibility of online classes for people around the world.
“[With] the need of education and the rising cost of education, distance learning is the future,” he said.
He said the air cargo industry is “cool” and financially rewarding. Gupta showed a table of salaries for management positions, though women’s salaries were far behind men’s in the higher positions.
“I get disappointed when I see that gap,” Gupta said later during the panel.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University tends to hire more female instructors for courses, he said. He emphasized that more women should be encouraged to enter the airfreight industry.
“There are no limits for women in any field, any industry,” Gupta said.
Strauss said to simply pay women more because there is often a US$50,000 gap for the same job.
“We’re making it a bigger problem than it is,” Strauss said.
When Bell asked the audience to name a female CEO in the industry, it came up short.
“It’s ridiculous,” Bell said. “I think we have maybe two.”
He said airlines sometimes put women in specific fields, such as human resources and finance.
An audience member who is part of Women in Aviation in Germany said women are traditionally the secondary income in a family, so they take jobs at a lower salary. Meanwhile, men think of themselves as the primary earner, so they negotiate for higher salaries.
Weber said stereotypes exist. When she tells people that she works for Southwest, they ask if she is a flight attendant.
The airline focuses on getting women interested in the industry, starting at the high school level, Weber said.
Paul Tsui, chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, participated in the panel. He said a few years ago, the association set up an education center for women, which has proven successful.