Manager – Flight Crew Crawley, West Sussex, South East England, England
Virgin Holidays
Full Time
Crawley, West Sussex, South East England, England
21369 - 25200 GBP ANNUAL Today
Job description
Job Details
Salary: Competitive
Hours: Full Time
Location: The VHQ, Crawley, West Sussex
Contract: Permanent
Closing Date: Sunday 5th March
Many of our staff at Virgin work flexibly and in many different ways, different core hours or remote working. Please talk to us at your application or interview stage about the flexibility you need. We can't promise to give you exactly what you want, but we are happy to explore what's possible for the role.
In a nutshell
At Virgin Atlantic Airways, we believe that everyone can take on the world, and it's our vision to become the most loved travel company. As we embark on this next exciting stage of our journey, we’re harnessing our spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation to challenge the status quo.
We love to disrupt the market and lead the way with fresh ideas. Bringing new approaches to the industry and remaining a loud and proud voice for positive change - be it on issues of sustainability, people, or our communities. So, if you’re ready to take your career to new heights, read on.
Reporting to the Head of Flight crew, you'll provide strong management and leadership to a team of pilots, establishing high expectations with regards to performance, behaviours, and attendance whilst also maintaining a relentless force on employee engagement. The role will also support the wider Flight Operations team (Fleet & Training) to ensure a consistent approach to people management. This role will entail having a solid understanding of the challenges of working with a remote, operational workforce. Dealing with information often of a sensitive, confidential nature will form part of this role, therefore, the ability to demonstrate tact and diplomacy is essential, as well as an excellent understanding of data privacy.
The postholder will be expected to travel to LHR regularly and subject to demand.
Day to day
People Management and Development
- Build strong and robust relationships with all Pilots ensuring trust and respect
- Address any concerns in a timely basis, ensuring robust feedback is provided.
- Identify key issues early on and deliver solutions for resolution and implementation
- Ensure all investigations, disciplinary, probation reviews, grievance and appeal hearings are carried out within a timely manner
- Effective management alongside the Executive - Flight Crew, of pilot absence, both short term and long term, considering effect on overall productivity
- Establish high expectations for the team regarding performance and behaviours whilst setting clear performance expectations, accountabilities and providing robust development feedback
- Recruitment of Pilots.
- Ensure people development that delivers a skilled, engaged, and motivated team.
- Work with the Fleet and Training teams to manage pilot performance taking into account technical, training and people concerns. Ensuring that individuals receive mentoring, feedback and support to develop and meet their career aspirations.
Pilot engagement
- Focus on employee engagement by building and maintaining a strong relationship with all our pilots
- Take part in Pilot Ops Days, delivering key updates to a large pilot audience and answer a wide range of questions that affect both the business and the pilot workforce
- Attend and host recognition events such as Command, Retiree, Red Hot 100 etc
- Seek out face to face communication with the pilots in a variety of situations (Ops Days, Airport, down route, grab and go’s) to identify pilot issues, find solutions and ensure follow up.
- Engage with other parts of the business to communicate and represent issues
- Attend VACC meetings when required
Pilot Wellbeing
- Provide a high level of welfare support to pilots, both in and outside of office hours
- Manage and support individuals in complex cases with potentially serious outcomes. Regular liaison with the Health team, insurance suppliers and Safety teams to support individuals
- Alongside the Safety team, ensure any pilot experiencing fatigue is supported with a customized plan to address any immediate and short-term concerns.
Day to day operation
- Identify business efficiencies and engagement initiatives which require project management and lead processes to ensure completion and ownership
- Attend Daily ops meetings and working groups when necessary to represent Flight Crew Management and pilots
- Take ownership for key elements including Establishment planning, fleet transfers, Command and Basing.
- Deliver an excellent customer service through development of a strategy to manage our people to actively engage and lead customer expectations during disruptions, diversions, etc.
- Attend working groups ensuring that the pilot workforce and Flight Crew Management’s perspectives are represented.
- In conjunction with the Head of Flight Crew, work alongside pilots and the VACC to provide practicable, economical and legal solutions to a broad spectrum of issues.
About you
Are you a self-motivated individual who wants to make a difference by leading and supporting our Pilots? Are you comfortable dealing with challenging and sensitive conversations?
In addition to the above, we’re looking for our successful candidate to demonstrate the following:
- Flexibility with proven communication, interpersonal and influencing skills, as well as be comfortable working within a complex and changing business environment
- The ability to build excellent relationships at all levels and to work closely with a variety of partners, including senior management.
- You will be required to change others outlooks and behaviours and therefore a high level of influencing and interpersonal skills are needed – motivating, developing, changing ‘hearts and minds’
- You'll need strong commercial awareness with a forward-thinking approach as well as the confidence to communicate within an unionised environment
- Practical knowledge of the VAA Operations Manuals and agreements/manuals relating to pilots is important, but this can be developed whilst in the role.
- Interpret business information whilst making it relevant and engaging to present to a wider audience
- You will need to balance the needs of the individual, operational and commercial requirements and therefore you must have excellent judgment and decision-making skills
- As this role is managing a large group of pilots, it would be helpful to have previous experience in managing teams.
If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you!
Be yourself – Our differences make us stronger
Our customers come from all walks of life and so do our colleagues. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and actively encourage applications from all backgrounds. At Virgin Atlantic we believe everyone can take on the world - no matter your age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We celebrate difference, and everything that makes our colleagues unique, by upholding an inclusive environment in which we can all thrive. So that everyone at Virgin Atlantic can be themselves and know they belong.
To make your journey with us accessible, and individual to you, we encourage you to let us know if you’d like a little extra help with your application, or if you have any individual requirements at any stage along your recruitment journey. We are here to support you, so please reach out to our team, ([email protected]) feeling confident that we’ve got your individual considerations covered.
Virgin Holidays
careersuk.virgin-atlantic.com
Crawley, United Kingdom
Shai Weiss
$2 to $5 billion (USD)
5001 to 10000 Employees
Company - Private
Airlines, Airports & Air Transportation
1984
