PERSONNEL AND LABOR RELATIONS WORKERS
Personnel workers and labor relations workers are the link between employees and management at all levels. They help keep employees satisfied with their jobs, pay, and working conditions, and at the same time enable management to make the most effective use of the employees' skills. In carrying out their duties, the personnel workers interview, select, and recommend applicants for job openings, handle wage and salary administration, employee benefits, and training and career development. The labor relations workers, on the other hand, specialize in carrying out union-management relations who means they help airline officials prepare for collective bargaining sessions, usually represent the management in negotiating contracts with the unions, and handle a multitude of labor relations matters, which come up daily.
In some companies this is known as the human resources, human services, or human relations department.
You will find a sizable personnel department in a large airline. It may include on its staff the following categories of specialists: recruiters, interviewers, counselors, job analysts, wage and salary analysts, education and training specialists, labor relations specialists, computer operators, clerks, secretaries, and receptionists.
Because personnel work deals with people, their welfare, and their problems, if you plan to enter this field you should like people, enjoy helping them and working with them, and have a congenial and persuasive personality. You also need to be able to empathize, which means to understand the feelings and ideas of the other person. You should have a great reservoir of patience too, because many of the people with whom you deal will be unsure of themselves, suspicious of you, and have difficulty reaching a decision, while a few will be stubborn or deceitful. At the same time you must be able to keep confidences and avoid becoming emotionally involved in others' problems. As a representative of management, you always keep the company's position and policies foremost in mind when you deal with situations in which you are trying to be fair in your treatment of the employee.
To make the personnel functions more meaningful, let's consider the principal specialists you will find in a large airline. Bear in mind that the smaller the airline, the smaller the department and the more responsibilities fewer staff members must assume.
PERSONNEL RECRUITER OR EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWER
When airlines experience periods of business expansion they soon need additional pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, reservations and ticket agents, and any number of other specialists. At such times they may send personnel recruiters out to schools and colleges to interview prospective applicants. You might first meet one of these interviewers if you were in a junior college and an airline was looking for flight attendants, or if you were studying at an aviation maintenance training school and an interviewer was scheduled to come talk with students who were about to graduate. On the other hand you might pick up your local news-paper and see an advertisement announcing that interviews will be given to applicants seeking positions as flight attendants and mechanics on a certain day at a hotel, civic center, or other building in the business section of your city.
When you go for your interview (whether away from or at the airline employment office) you will first be asked to fill out an application form that requests details about your background, education, special skills, interests, and work experience. The interviewer will then talk with you and perhaps give you a test or two, which he or she will interpret and grade. It will then be up to the interviewer to decide whether you will be recommended for consideration by the head of the department that is seeking additional employees.
You will observe that the interviewer is familiar with the work of the department as well as the company's personnel policies, wage scales, employee benefits, and prospects for promotion. What you might not be aware of is the mental assessment that will be made of you as he or she talks with you, or the fact that the interviewer must be exceedingly careful to comply with the various laws governing employment and the provisions of the equal opportunities laws. In fact some companies have men and women on their personnel staff who is specialists in interpreting these laws.
JOB ANALYST: WAGE AND SALARY ADMINISTRATOR
Whenever the head of a department wishes to create a new job or change an existing one, the personnel department is notified and a job analyst is assigned to study the request. The analyst sits down with the department head or representative and obtains detailed information about the job such as the qualifications specified, the duties of the job, the training and skills that may be required, and any unusual working conditions. The job analyst then studies these data and prepares a job description.
The wage and salary administrator, another specialist, then studies the job description, and by applying salary standards and pay scales that have been set up, decides which pay scale fits the newly created position. In addition he or she may also study the overall salary scales and schedules of pay increases to make certain that the rates are fair and obey government laws and regulations. Every employee covered by a union contract must be paid in accordance with the provisions of the latest agreement. Wage and salary administrators also study national cost-of-living trends and recommend general wage adjustments to management when it seems advisable. Another duty is to conduct surveys to see how the company's pay scales compare with those of other airlines. Most companies readily exchange this information on a confidential basis.
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS SECTION
Responsibilities in this section gradually increase as an airline extends more and more benefits to its employees. The most important include vacations, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and pension plans. Although these group insurance programs may be administered by the finance or personnel department, the personnel department is responsible for seeing that every employee is told about the programs and given opportunity to enroll if membership is optional. In the case of the airlines, one of the most important benefits is the free and/or reduced transportation fares that every employee is entitled to receive after being on the payroll for a certain period of time. The number of trips one may take increases with seniority; hence detailed records must be kept for every employee! Retired personnel also have free transportation privileges, and this entails issuing annual passes and processing special requests for retirees.
The benefits section usually coordinates a number of employee services including newsletters, employee cafeterias and snack bars, recreation programs, and credit unions. It is also responsible for counseling employees on work-related problems as well as giving pre-retirement counseling to those employees expecting to retire soon.
MEDICAL SECTION
Most airlines have a medical section because of the requirement to give flight personnel periodical examinations. Various members of management may also be eligible for free physical examinations, which are given by company physicians or in some cases at private health clinics. A company doctor and nursing staff may be on duty at a large facility to give examinations and treat emergencies. However, there is only a limited need for physicians and registered nurses since most airline offices are located close to hospitals or other medical offices.
