Emotional labour in SIA and Air Canada

1.0 Introduction

Emotional labor is an essential component in almost any job today. It refers to the requirement of expressing particular emotions at work to maximize organizational productivity (Nancy Langton, Emotional Labour, 2007). For example, even if an employee is having a bad day at home, he or she should still display professionalism at work instead of letting his or her emotions take over. This is especially crucial for jobs in the service industry because these jobs have direct contact with their main stakeholder, the customers. In fact, customers have become more demanding over the years due to the ease of finding alternatives. Customers are having high expectations when they are paying for a service. As such, companies must attempt to provide outstanding service so that their customers will remain loyal to them. With that in mind, we will be looking at how the employees in two companies, i.e. Singapore International Airlines and Air Canada within the same competitive airline industry can be so different in delivering emotional labor. We would also be touching on various theories that explain why some employees can display more emotional labor than others.

a. Background: Singapore International Airlines

Singapore International Airline (SIA) has a history of more than 60 years. It began independent operation after splitting from Malayan Airways in 1963 and is consistently rated as Asia’s “most admired company” (Asian Business , 1997) It is renowned for the high-quality flight services from the always smiling attendants, who are marketed as Singapore Girl. Coupled with the fact that SIA has the world’s youngest fleet in the air, SIA ensures constant maintenance to this fleet, thus ensuring the aviation safety.

Comparing with other airlines from other countries, SIA has no domestic competitors and has only international lines, as Singapore is an island city country. Thus, it has to choose fairly innovative ways to compete with strong international opponents for the market share—through quality and service-enhancement strategy. To achieve great performance in customer service, SIA set up a Service Development Department and came up with differentiated ideas, such as making traditional Singaporean uniforms for the air stewardesses, providing detailed training to every single attendant before they are qualified to serve the customers, and becoming the first airline to introduce free food and alcoholic drinks on its flights.

However, SIA did not emerge at the top without a price; the SIA cabin crew needs to get through the exhaustion from flying frequently through different time zones while still keeping warm smiles and being considerate in all circumstances. Nonetheless, the cabin crew of SIA still managed to deliver stupendous service standards. This is why SIA has been ranked as the number one airline in the world for several years by Skytrax, a company which specializes in advising the world airline and airport industries on qualitative issues and giving out certification for outstanding performance. (Airline reviews, airport reviews, flight reviews, seat reviews SKYTRAX airport and airline star ranking)

b. Background: Air Canada

Air Canada was founded in 1936. Being a founding member of Star Alliance, Air Canada is the biggest full-service airline and the largest provider of scheduled passenger services in the Canadian market. In 2001, Air Canada acquired its greatest rival, Canadian Airlines. But meanwhile, it suffered a drop-off in business since 2001 due to the terror attacks that year. Air Canada differs from SIA because it has a regional partner Jazz which helps serve over 32 million customers annually. In order to upgrade its fleet and to buy the regional airlines that feed into the national network, Air Canada has increased its debt ratio dramatically since 1980s. The accumulated large debt and downside trend in the whole industry led to the filing of bankruptcy protection in 2003.

Coupled with that, Air Canada has a strong domestic competitor—WestJet Airlines, which thrived even in the economic recession due to its low operating costs strategy. In fact, it is speculated that WestJet Airlines has the potential to achieve market dominance in Canada by 2013. In terms of market share, Air Canada is losing its share to WestJet, which has increased from 7% to 38% during 2000-2009, while that of Air Canada dropped from 77% to 55% during the same period (Jang, 2010).

2.0 Recruitment

As the aviation industry is of a service nature, human assets are of high value to aviation companies. Service quality is a core part of the “product” that these companies sell while front-line staff is the visible elements for customer to evaluate their service quality. This is why SIA places great emphasis on its hiring process.

SIA’s cabin crew goes through a very stringent selection and recruitment process. Cabin crew applicants are required to meet a multitude of criteria starting with an initial screening based on factors such as age, academic qualifications and physical attributes. After these baseline requirements are met, applicants ought to go through three rounds of interviews, a water confidence test, a psychometric test and even a tea party. From the 16,000 applications received annually, only some 500 to 600 new cabin crew members are hired to cover yearly turnover rates of 10%. This includes both voluntary and directed attrition (Wirtz J. , 2008). This meticulous selection process ensures with reasonable certainty that SIA hires applicants with the desired attributes to perform their roles. Upon going through such a process, SIA is assured that their cabin crew can perform emotional labour.

On the other hand, it is not in Air Canada’s culture to undergo such a stringent selection process due to the hiring regulations and laws in Canada which strongly protect employees from discrimination and uphold employee right. This increases the probability of hiring applicants who are not passionate and would not be happily carry out emotional labour.

3.0 Training

Expectancy Theory

Motivations for employees in workplace are proposed by Expectancy Theory. This theory looks to explain how individuals act depending on their evaluation of whether their effort will lead to good performance, (expectancy) whether such performance will be followed by a good outcome (instrumentality) and whether that outcome is appealing to them (valence). (Nancy Langton, Expectancy Theory, 2007).

As we look at the expectancy component of the Expectancy Theory, we would be interested to determine how the cabin crews’ perception of whether their effort might lead to successful performance will eventually result in them performing emotional labour. In order to establish this link, companies must usually engage in extensive and appropriate training for their employees so that they are confident in their duties.

SIA excels in this area because all employees of SIA are required to undertake intensive 4 months training which “includes not only safety and functional issues but also beauty care, gourmet food and wine appreciation, as well as the art of conversation” (Gladys Chia & al, 2006). This initial functional and general management-type training provided by SIA is the longest and most comprehensive in the aviation industry. In addition, SIA offers wide range of retraining programs to update its existing employees with new information and technology which eventually allows them to perform with up-to-date knowledge and skills. As such, SIA’s cabin crew would be more motivated to perform emotional labour at work since they are sure that the effort they put in will be fruitful.

On the other hand, Air Canada provides 7 weeks of training that only covers rules and regulations, emergency procedures, security regulations with less emphasize on customer service (Air Canada, 2010).

4.0 Pay & Welfare benefits

Also, remuneration and welfare benefits both explain why SIA’s cabin crew displays much more emotional labor than Air Canada’s cabin crew. In this particular context, we will explore the instrumentality link of the theory. Simply put, employees will most probably perform well only if they know that they are duly rewarded. Emotional labor is often associated with satisfaction with pay, rewards and welfare benefits because they are invariably one of the motivations for employees in daily performance.

SIA pays better than Air Canada. If we look at the role of a junior officer in both companies during his or her first year, the average annual salary of a SIA officer would be $70,300 as compared to $35,300 for Air Canada (Internet Brands, Inc, 2005). He also gets about $2500 – $3700 of total allowance on top of his basic salary (Lim, 2007) which is absent from Air Canada’s pay scheme. According to the theory, the Air Canada cabin crew would be less motivated at work and thus less likely to engage in emotional labor.

Furthermore, Air Canada is lacking of a good paying system for its employees. Air Canada’s employees are paid on an hourly basis instead of a monthly basis. This might be disadvantageous because some of the employees might have the mentality that the quantity (how many hours) of work they do is more important than the quality (performance) of work they deliver. If they want a higher remuneration, they will be working for longer hours instead of performing better during their usual working hours. This again illustrates why there is little drive for Air Canada’s cabin crew to perform emotional labour.

5.0 Recognition

Recognition of employees can also be the determining factor that governs the performance of emotional labour. This could be explained by the last component of the Expectancy Theory which is the valence link. Simply put, a company should provide rewards that are cherished by the employees; otherwise they will not be motivated. SIA of remarkable recognition program appeals to employees more than Air Canada. Thus, better performance of emotional labour of SIA than Air Canada. [L1]

SIA has an employee recognition program whereby employees are incentivized through various reward systems such as “interesting and varied job content, symbolic actions, performance-based share options, and significant percentage of variable pay components which link to individual staff contributions and company’s financial performance (Gladys Chia & al, 2006)”. It has also created the belief that outcome of their good performance will be of their desire (Jon M. Werner, 2008) which is accomplished by effective communication within the organization of SIA in understanding everyone’s needs. They take great care in the designing way of nurturing, monitoring and rewarding each individual employee. Not only that, SIA also held annual ceremony, photographs and write-ups in newsletter for service excellence, this ensures that employees’ are recognized for their commitment and dedication which eventually strengthen the instrumentality portion (Gladys Chia & al, 2006).

On the other hand, Air Canada has done poorly in this context. Employees in Air Canada are only told to be recognized through Award of Excellence and Service Anniversary programs without any further details (Air Canada, 2010). Without enhancing this performance link, Air Canada eventually fails to motivate employee in performing. Hence, we can see SIA’s success in gaining greater emotional labour as compared to Air Canada.

6.0 Organizational culture

A company’s organizational culture is essential in molding the employee’s attitude and ability to display emotional labour, too. This is an intangible factor which may give the company a competitive edge over the rest. SIA’s organizational culture of “flying high with Singaporean Girls” (Chan, 2000) emphasizes the excellent service standards of their cabin hostesses. SIA’s air stewardesses are usually inculcated with the mentality of providing the best flight experience for their customers. As a result, it became apparent to them that it is essential to be warm, cheerful and friendly at work. In fact, this culture has become so strong that some cabin crews have even felt that they have put on a different personality at work. This culture has also increased the persistence of the cabin crew to perform beyond their roles to please the passengers. Furthermore, SIA’s culture empowers every single cabin crew members to make decisions that satisfy their passengers. In the long run, passengers will have a strong impression of service excellence for SIA. This has been lacking in Air Canada’s culture because all of their cabin crew members need to follow certain protocols when making decisions. Therefore, it reduces the overall flight experience for the passenger.

7.0 Employee Empowerment

Employee Empowerment Theory

Employees need to feel empowered in order to expend discretionary effort. It is pertinent that employees are able to make decisions independently as front-line staff frequently have to handle customers on their own since it is not feasible or even desirable for managers to constantly monitor employees’ actions (Yagi, 2002).

Employee empowerment is imperative in most businesses strategies. As mentioned, SIA empowers its cabin crew to make decisions at work; this not only results in better customer satisfaction, it creates more motivation for the cabin crew to work. Here, we will look at how empowering the cabin crew might in turn result in more emotional labour displayed.

At SIA, senior management emphasize that staff must have a clear concept of the boundaries of their authority. The management only steps in to communicate and explain their empowerment limits. For example, although the usual baggage allowance for passengers is 20 kg, front-line staff at SIA is empowered to raise it to 25 or 50 kg if they feel that it is right and justifiable[L2] . Empowerment of the front line is especially important during service recovery processes. Front-line staff at SIA is encouraged to make appropriate decisions on customer service delivery and take corrective actions as needed for service recovery. Empowerment has definitely increased work satisfaction for SIA’s cabin crew, thus resulting in emotional labour.

In Air Canada, however, the employees have much less power to make a decision. For example, when Air Canada needs to find a hotel for the customers delayed by flights, the staff of Air Canada can only recommend hotels on the authorized hotel list. Once those hotels are full, the staff actually tells its customers that they cannot find a hotel to accommodate them, even though they know that there are still rooms in the budget hotel right opposite the airport (Psyops). The failure for the Air Canada staff to make an on-the-spot decision and do the right thing gives the customers an impression that Air Canada is acting like an autocratic, inflexible government entity, instead of an organization that is full of “just do it” passion. When we multiply that lack of passion by Air Canada's 23,000 employees, the impact can be very huge. This lack of passion naturally explains why it is difficult for the cabin crew to display emotional labour during work in order to provide top-class service for the passengers.

Even though Air Canada’s goal is to foster a “Just do it” culture, the financial challenge facing the company prevents it from achieving this goal. In fact, Air Canada lost $1 billion in revenue in 2008 (Kirby, 2009). Now the company is on the edge of a second bankruptcy protection. Because of bankruptcy and restructuring, employees have to work more, while getting paid the same. This exacerbates the situation because the employees would have even less motivation to show emotional labour and the passengers suffer as a result. With Air Canada’s financial situation, empowerment might have a negative effect. For instance, pilots are more likely to lower the landing gear and apply flaps early in their runway approach because it's easier to do so, even though it burns more fuel and drives up costs by roughly two per cent. (Kirby, 2009)

8.0 National Culture

In Singapore, members of SIA’s cabin crew are often held in high prestige. Many educated young people around the region are attracted to join SIA due to the perceived social status and glamour associated with it. In fact, most young adults view SIA as a desirable company to work for and as an opportunity to move to more lucrative jobs in other companies after having worked for a couple of years (Wirtz J. , 2008). The cultural status of SIA’s cabin crew not only attracts many people, it also motivates the cabin crew to perform emotional labor during their duty simply because they are proud of what they are doing. Meanwhile, Canada’s culture fails to instill high prestige and satisfaction to people working as cabin crew with Air Canada; this results in low motivation and pride for the cabin crew. As a result, they fail to perform emotional labor during their duty.

9.0 Conclusion

Emotional labour is a vital component that is required in most jobs. Through the comparison of SIA and Air Canada, one would be able to tell how emotional labour can be advantageous to a company and how it can have detrimental effects if not used appropriately. By exploring various aspects of each company, one could tell that it is not an easy task to display emotional labour. For instance, SIA has to excel in its remuneration and welfare system as well as provide professional training before their employees are motivated to display emotional labour. In addition, both SIA’s culture and the national culture also contribute to this. Although Air Canada is lacking in these areas, it can still work on them if they acknowledge that that they are lacking behind. If Air Canada chooses to be complacent, it will not be too long before it is over taken by its competitors.

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