Dnata Travel is calling on the industry to focus on quality over quantity as it seeks to address the skills loss in the sector following the pandemic.
Incoming UK and Europe chief executive Ailsa Pollard revealed her organisation was starting to recruit again having downsized from 1,200 to 800 people during Covid.
Asked how many jobs she was recruiting for, she said recruitment should focus on attracting the right people into the industry rather than on numbers.
Speaking exclusively to Travel Weekly, Pollard said: “Across the industry there is a skills loss to other industries” and said travel needed to showcase three key pillars as it builds back.
“We need to show authentic human empathy,” said Pollard. “People have been through hell and back. We can’t lose sight of that.
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“We also shouldn’t lose ambition. The industry has had Covid, but before that Thomas Cook failing. Now there are recruitment challenges, so we have to show humility. But we also have to be ambitious and we shouldn’t apologise for where we want to be.”
Finally, Pollard said: “People aren’t in the travel industry just for the money so we have to bring the fun back – the benefits, the fam trips and the customer events. We shouldn’t be ashamed to do so.
“We have to move on. Yes, we have to be sensitive, but we can’t keep looking back.”
Pollard is keen that dnata emerges from the pandemic as a better organisation to work for.
“We are always asking ourselves how we become a better organisation,” she said. “That’s why we have implemented our ‘Belong’ initiative focusing on diversity and how we develop people. It’s really core for us.
“How do we make sure that everyone feels comfortable being their true selves at work – and how do we create the right environment for that?”
Pollard continued: “As an industry, we need to look especially at ethnicity. It’s a journey; we can’t suddenly shift but we can make it a part of the discussion. The same with disability.”
But she stressed that making the industry more diverse and inclusive was not about ticking boxes.
“I’m not a believer in quotas or anything forced, but we can make sure we’re sourcing from difference pools; make sure that, when interviewing, we have diversity because there is unconscious bias.”
Pollard believes in a bottom-up approach – getting staff involved in developing charters and making everyone feel part of it.
“It’s important to our people, but it’s also proven to be important to your business results having diversity in an organisation in all areas, and at all levels. Having females on a board leads to differences of opinion and outlook – same with age. We are proudly a 50:50 gender split on our board.”
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*Ailsa Pollard is due to speak at Abta’s Travel Convention on Wednesday, October 13