Low cost airline Flybe has unveiled a number of new HR initiatives in an attempt to further boost its profile.
In an interview with Personnel Today, HR director Simon Charles said he was planning a new recruitment drive to attract pilots and engineers out to regional airports. Flybe is based in Exeter and flies from cities such as Southampton, Leeds, Liverpool and Bristol.
“This process isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Charles said. “Attracting talented individuals into the regions is not as simple as being based in Heathrow.”
An online recruitment site will be launched this summer. “We want to attract a number of key people into a growing company, and signal a shift away from the current paper-based recruitment model,” Charles said.
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Last month, the budget carrier also launched a leadership development programme for its line managers which aims to boost staff engagement levels across the growing firm. Employee numbers have already doubled to 3,000 since its launch in 2002.
In January, Flybe joined McDonald’s and Network Rail in the first wave of firms to be allowed to award nationally-recognised qualifications through their internal training programmes. “It’s important that people have portable skills across industry,” Charles said. “It should not be seen as ‘dumbing dow’n, as some critics have suggested, because the skills on offer are vocational qualifications.”
