MGTO231 L5, Group 2
“A Brief Overview and Recommendations of the
HRM Practices for Recruiting, Motivating and
Retaining Employees at Cathay Pacific Airways
(HK) Ltd. with Analysis of a Special HR Related
Problem- The Pilot’s strike of 2001”
By- William, Stella, Novia, Celia and Esther
3rd December 2002
Presentation Objectives
At the End of the Presentation, We Hope That You Will:
•Know more about Cathay Pacific, In Particular:
•Know more about the general HRM practices
employed at Cathay Pacific to Retain, Motivate and
Attract Employees, and how the company dealt with
the Pilot’s Strike of 2001
•Hope that the presentation will be so informative and
entertaining that it will entice you to apply for work
at the airline!
Introduction to the Airline
•Established in 1946, in Shanghai, China as a cargo
operator running between Shanghai and Sydney,
Australia.
•Moved to Hong Kong in 1949 after rejecting two buyout offers, and established itself as a passenger carrier
after the population in Hong Kong increased threefold.
•Today, Cathay Pacific serves 58 destinations worldwide,
and is one of the most reputed airlines in the world, with
interim profits this year at HK$1,412m
•Employs over 14,000 staff- approximately 5,000
ground-staff, 5,000 flight attendants, 1,000 pilots and
3,000 employees at overseas branches.
Corporate Values
Corporate Culture and Values:
Mission :
•“To Provide Service Straight from
the Heart”
•“To be the Most Admired
Airline in the World”
•To Ensure that Safety Comes First
•To Encourage Product Leadership
•To Provide Rewarding Career
Opportunities
•To Deliver Superior Financial
Returns
Methodology:
Sources That we Gathered Information From:
•Personal Interview with Mrs. Suzanne Bedoucha, Former Secretary
to the Former Engineering Director, Mr. R. Fairfield.
•Personal Interview with Mrs. Wendy Kwan, Personnel Manager
currently at Cathay Pacific.
•Past Interview with Mr. Tony Tyler, current Director of Corporate
Development at Cathay Pacific.
•Cathay Pacific Management Trainee Career Talk held at HKUST.
•Cathay Pacific’s website: http://www.cathaypacific.com.hk
Recruiting: The Hiring Process
Company Values for Recruiting:
All Recruits Should Possess:
• Excellent Communication Skills
• Good track/employment record
• Broad Range of Interests/Skills
• Ability to Communicate in more than one language- Most
Importantly English and Chinese
• Good Problem Solving Ability
• Geographical Mobility
Recruiting: The Hiring Process
Job Analysis
•Both personnel department and line managers will coordinate
with other employees whom will be associated with the new
employee to form the job description
•Advantage: bring more ideas on the qualities and skills of an
employee demanded
•Problem: line-managers with less experience would tend to
make errors costs for company can be extremely high as the
error in the description process of hiring will make the
thereafter stages of hiring meaningless
• Suggestion: Personnel Department at Cathay Pacific should
take greater responsibility and set some benchmarks for each job
description process, then ask for employee and management
feedback in creating a job description
Recruiting: The Hiring Process
Recruiting
•Mostly internal recruitment
•Vacancy information will be
posted on departmental
public notice boards, and on
the intranet where the
company news is stored and
communicated
•Suggestion: Try to
externally recruit more.
Selection
•Shortlist  telephone interview 
group and individual interview
•Selection procedures vary for
different post and requirement of
different managers
•line managers involved in the final
decision-making
•Problem: Bias, mistake & our
Recommendation:
•More senior post, selection process
will have more stages and be more
complicated (CSO vs Management
trainee)
Recruiting: The Hiring Process
Socialization
• Past: Induction Course
•Nowadays: different socialization approaches are taken by
departments and working groups according to their needs (e.g. CDRom, one-day orientation course)
• Advantage: less cost & fit need of different departments.
• Problem: seems not much is being done on socialization
Motivation:
Evaluation of performance and giving feedback
•Managing Performance System: subordinates will discuss their
own performance and development plan, setout plans and criteria
for the year-end evaluation with supervisors,
•Self-review + supervisor-review : employees more understanding
about their job and performance, and feel they have greater
responsibility
•Recommend to include peer assessment and subordinates
assessment
Motivation:
Rewarding Performance:
• Corporate-Wide and Individual-Based Plans
• Corporate-wide plan: profit sharing that dependent on market
conditions and company profits.
• Individual-Based Plans: rewards may vary, e.g. Honor card for
good service given to employees by managers
•Monetary rewards are usually distributed to reward good
performance when the economic climate is good, and nonmonetary rewards are used when the climate is moderate/poor
•Recommend to include team-based plan.
Motivation:
Continuous Training
•culture of continuous learning, and believes that the investments
they make in people are the best investments that they will ever
make
•normal training courses provided internally, (with some provided
by external consultants)
•e-learning (Learner's World system and Learning Zone): enables a
process of self-owned learning where employees can set their own
pace with the help of advanced learning technology
•community learning (Learning Seminars and Staff Forums):
increase the communication among workforces.
•allows staff to do external degree courses, in which are paid fully
by the company.
•enables the workforce keep pace with the changing environment,
but also acts as way to retain and motivate the workforce
Retaining Employees:
Meeting employees’ need for self
enhancement
•Training and planned programs eg.
self-assessment, career planning
workshops, career coaching and online learning
•External degree course that is fully
paid by company
Diverse Work Opportunities
•Apply internally for another
type of job
•Find out the most suitable job
for them
•Reduces possibilities for job
dissatisfaction
Retaining Employees
Attractive and flexible benefit package
•One unique benefit is the discounted staff travel
•(employees can enjoy after just six months of service. After 12 months of service,
travel discounts extend to other partner airlines as well.)
•discounts on hotels, car hire, transportation services, dining, tours, luxury cruises,
and assorted retail offers.
•truly flexible benefits package. For instance, they offer a range of medical and dental
coverage schemes, and staff can choose their insurance coverage amount with an
option to include their spouse and children. There is even an option to buy or sell
annual leave.
Profit Sharing Plan
•Given to good performers and senior posts
•based on the annual profits and distributed during Chinese New Year
•increase employees’ royalty and determination to work
Promising Career Path
•chance to be promoted from lower level to higher level
•e.g. From assistant level to management level/ from flight attendant to senior purser
•employees are encouraged to stay and work for the company.
Retaining Employees
Evaluation of Retaining Employees
•paying below market for some of the jobs
•but compensated by an excellent flexible benefits scheme
•benefits coverage from self to family“Service Straight from the
Heart”
•should communicate their benefits schemes more to employees
•(ensure that all employees know the link between company benefits
and the organizational culture.)
Special Event-The Pilot’s Strike 2001
Causes
• Dissatisfied with the pay rise
• Over-rostering
• Allowances maybe reduced
Actions of Pilots
•Two-week sick-out
•Work-to –rule campaign
•Not work on the days off
Failure of Positive Employee
Relations
Recommendations
•Employee attitude survey
•Upward communication
channels (open door and speak
up)
•Employees should consider the
situation at Cathay Pacific.
Strike Called Off after September 11th Tragedy
Overall Conclusion:
• The colossal strength’s of the company’s HRM Strategy is in the
benefits they provide to retain workers and their motivation through
continuous training and enhancement.
• Cathay Pacific also places particular emphasis on “creating
responsibility” such as through having all associated employees
contribute to developing job descriptions as well as “creating drive
and recognition” by having much of the recruiting done internally
• Valuable intellectual knowledge is probably forfeited as a result of
employing from internal sources compared to recruiting from sources
externally.
• With it’s focus on empowerment to directors for the process of hiring
workers, it is possible that “bias” and “erroneous hires” are resulted.
• Communication is a concern as although continuous feedback is
promoted, it was not applied to flight pilots thus the company fell into
dire straits.
• Overall though, it can easily be said that Cathay Pacific has an
excellent HR scheme in recruiting, motivating and retaining workers.
Overall Recommendations:
• Let Personnel Department staff have more responsibility over the final
decision when recruiting staff in any department and not leave final
decisions to only managers.
• Ensure that more validity testing takes place by Personnel Department
staff to ensure that the processes would take that recruits are best fit to
the goals of the organization.
• Ensure that peer-evaluations and supervisor-evaluations are both used
to get a better picture of the employees and supervisors performance
within the organization and see where bias does exist.
• Ensure that more external recruitment is done to greatly improve
intellectual capital within the airline.
• Ensure that more locals are being recruited for Cadet Pilot training
programmes as local bred talent is likely to have more organizational
citizenship in a place like Hong Kong than foreign pilots.
• Ensure that all sectors, whether subsidiaries or employees are
communicated well to, to ensure that nobody is left out in the process.
• Lastly, ensure that people in the airline understand the mission, and
the benefits and how they associate with the corporate culture.
Thank You Very Much for Listening
to our Project Presentation!
Q & A Session