Paper Example on Recruiting Challenges in Aviation Industry: Investigating Applicant Motives

Abstract

The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the challenges that are faced in the recruitment of new employees in the aviation industry. The aviation industry has faced a lot of problems due to the high turnover rates of employees that are realized, leading to many losses. The Human Resource managers should investigate the motives of the applicants of a certain position in the airline industry because if the employee plans on leaving the company after some time, they create losses due to the training time and resources that were used on them. The paper consists of an introduction that explains the challenges that face most aviation industries in the world. It also consists of a literature review which creates a base for the discussion of the topic. A thesis statement and a summary are also included, and they serve the responsibility of showing the main theme to be discussed in the paper and a summary of it.

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Keywords: Aviation, Human Resource Manager, Applicant, and Employees.

Introduction

Most airports rely on the government to provide funds for easy management and flow of activities. However, most of them are focusing on operating airports as a business to reduce the way that they rely on the government for funding. With the motives that politics adopt in the funding of the airports and their services, timely hiring of reliable staff becomes difficult. The hardships faced in employing new employees are mainly realized in airports that must rely on positions of standard civil services and different structures of wages. The government also creates new regulatory requirements within short periods that require airport employees to be quick in complying, adapting to them, and becoming more efficient.

This move, however, leads to high employee turnover as many of them are unable to easily adapt to the regular changes of the regulations that govern the airport. Impending retirements in the airport industry also require to be followed by proper planning for new and younger employees to succeed in those retiring and prevent noticeable losses of skills and knowledge of the airport. With the increasing gender and ethnic diversity in the world, women and people from all races are beginning to get equal chances for employment. Minimum qualifications for employees in the aviation industry are extremely high, which creates a barrier for most potential individuals willing to join the industry. Qualified applicants for various job positions in the aviation industry are hard to get. Hence airports are required to invest more resources and time into the efforts of recruitment or the development programs for new entries where they are trained and get the necessary skills and knowledge.

Research Questions

What are the steps for hiring new employees in the aviation industry?

How can Human Resource managers reduce employee turnover in the aviation industry?

What skills should applicants possess to become employees of the aviation industry?

Literature Review

Hill (2017) argues that the aviation industry, just like other industries, is facing a charge that is making it hard for the management and employees to face different hardships in the workplace. There are many emerging job opportunities in the aviation industry, with an expected six percent growth of opportunities in the next ten years (Hill, 2017). However, the Human Resource Management of various aviation industries in the United States will face increased challenges filling the empty positions with employees that will develop a strong culture and team. The employees must possess all characteristics that will help promote dependability and core skills such as teamwork, communication, and positive interactions.

Several challenges are emerging in the new generation of employees, making the Human Resource managers of the aviation industries face a hard time choosing the applicants that possess the required skills. One major change that has been realized in the current generation of aviation employees compared to those that existed ten years ago is a lack of technical skills that are so much required by the aviation industry (Hill, 2017). The Human Resource Managers are getting it harder to get a team of professionals with the same technical abilities as those already in the workforce. The aviation industry is assigned a wide range of responsibilities expected to be accomplished with the fewer resources available in their typical environments.

Human Resource managers should possess a unique style of hiring, motivating, and retaining employees in the industry to avoid high employee turnover and the losses that come with it. Open communication and team members that are empowered to achieve company goals motivate each other to easily be able to hire new professionals in the aviation industry (Hill, 2017). The airports have to invest a lot of time and resources to ensure that they are able to develop different programs which aid in the training and acquisition of skills in all employees.

According to GAO (2014), there is an existing shortage of professionals in aviation with aerospace engineers and aircraft mechanics facing low employment rates. The numbers of people who are trained in these fields have decreased with the Human Resource managers being faced with the need to invent new ways to employ them. The main reasons why there has been a decline in the number of individuals studying aviation include the high costs of studying the course, the length of time required, accessibility, and affordability (GAO, 2014). The managers, however, are faced with the challenge of adjusting wages and changing the practices of training and recruiting new employees. These challenges emerge from the fact that potential employees are retained when they enter the aviation workforce hence a drain in resources, especially for the employers and managers responsible for hiring new employees.

The recruitment program attracts a large number of applicants that are qualified for various positions in the aviation industry. The applicants that survive the screening process are accepted in various positions. Still, the Human Resource managers are faced with different challenges, such as the industry failing to attract adequate applicants or inadequate screening of the applicants before they proceed to the process of selection (GAO, 2014). The managers work with recruiters in the industry or use recruiting partners to select good pilots. The managers must select the best workers for the industry, and they are expected to behave logically with great portions of good etiquette in their daily activities.

Thousands of employees are assessed by key members of the team assigned the duties to recruit new members. The aptitude system of testing is developed professionally where safety and fairness are key to ensure both organizational employees and passengers are safe when traveling using an airplane (GAO, 2014). The decision to hire is made by a designated team that bases its recruitment process on the testing results.

Pilot Selection ProcessThe process of selecting pilots is divided into different sections that are important in the decision-making process of the human resource managers and the team in the organization. Screening and shortlisting is the first process where experienced recruiters add applicants in their lists and evaluate them based on their qualifications that they post in their CVs (Pasha & Hickman, 2017). The shortlisted applicants are then called for an interview where most of the individuals are type-rated pilots. The other process is the follow-up process where the recruiters and the Human Resource managers communicate with the pilots that do not meet the necessary requirements. This move is made to make sure that such pilots remain dedicated to trying again in the future. Pilots that have any query, as well as unsuccessful pilots in the past, get help in the follow-up stage. They are offered help to re-apply for future posts after a certain time when a new recruitment process is conducted.

Document check is the other process of recruitment in the aviation industry where all the required documents are collected and tested for authenticity. The document check goes hand in hand with the simulator test where a flight simulator is conducted, and it helps to check the adaptability of the candidates (Pasha & Hickman, 2017). Handling, management, mitigation of errors, and other needed skills such as problem solving and communication skills are tested in this stage.

General aptitude testing includes psychometric and aviation tests where the applicants are tested on various issues such as mental maths skills, spatial orientation, and multi-tasking abilities. Assessment centers are created where the recruiters check the competencies of the candidates in different group settings (Phillips, Ruiz & Mehta, 2018). The tests are designed in such a way that they evaluate how the preferred candidates utilize the resources available to them, whether they can work in teams, build on other workers' inputs, plan for future unavoidable circumstances, and how they communicate when they are solving different problems. Personality tests are also included in the process where a profile is generated and used to compare the behaviors of all candidates.

An interview is the last step that determines whether the candidates are fully competent for the role and are willing to fulfill the duties provided to them. The interview produces different results where the Human Resource managers and the recruiters avoid wrong decisions for hiring and generate a training schedule that increases the airlines' rate of success (Phillips, Ruiz & Mehta, 2018). The factor that shows that the selection process was a success is the benefits that the aviation industry enjoys after the end of the process.

Summary

Aviation is comprised of millions of professionals and countless equipment with different highways in the sky. Air transportation is important, and with it, a need to hire reliable employees arises, giving the Human Resource managers a task to ensure that competent individuals work in the organizations. With the profit margins being low, hiring the right people is important to avoid high employee turnover rates, which cause large financial losses to the industry. The process of selecting aviation employees includes several steps that create efficiency and ensure that the industry realizes maximum profits.

• Screening and shortlisting
• Invitation
• Follow-up
• Document check
• Simulator test
• Reasoning tests
• General aptitude testing
• Assessment centers
• Personality tests
• Interview

Results

Thesis StatementThe aviation industry has faced a lot of problems due to the high turnover rates of employees that are realized, leading to many losses. However, the Human Resource management of the aviation industries needs to follow several steps to ensure that they create a solution to the lack of employees in the industry as well as the high rates of employees leaving the industry.

The Human Resource managers and the recruiters also need to set standards such as regulatory requirements that are desired by the customers and the organizations. The standards are evaluated and set for use in the selection of applicants to work in the aviation industries. The applicants that qualify to be employees of the industry are motivated using training that return profits, esp...