What entrepreneurs think of Willie Walsh
By Kate Pritchard, published 1 year ago in Employment.
It’s not just Charlie Mullins who is disgusted with British Airways for asking its staff to work for free. From calling Walsh “idiotic” to claiming the move “reeked of panic”, read the brutal comments from entrepreneurs about the airline's latest move.
Comments
Add a commentRelated Content
- Free business grant for British entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurs embrace free technology
- Top 40 free business apps
More from this section
“It's a single throw of the dice – and it may be very hard to follow up on,” comments Stephen Archer, partner at business consultancy, Spring Partnerships. “What happens when the losses are even worse in six months’ time? How many employees will thank the airline for trying to save their jobs by not paying them when there is no declared longer-term plan to change the business? The debt the airline will have to employees will, in the longer run, be far greater than the value of the month's salary cut. This move reeks of panic.”
Stephen Bentley, chief executive of Granby Marketing Services, reckons Walsh has made an idiotic move with the gesture of sacrificing his £743,000 salary. “This won’t engage the staff. If anything, it will infuriate them,” he says. “Walsh can’t even promise that this will rectify BA’s situation. Even after cutting pay for a month, the likelihood is that BA will still have to make redundancies off the back of it."
When his own company hit difficult times, Bentley gave his staff the opportunity to take unpaid leave. “The people that needed the regular income stayed, and those that wanted some extra time off took the leave,” he explains. “I can’t understand the logic of asking staff that have been loyal to your business to work for nothing.” “Before BA takes these drastic steps, it may be easier for the company to look at efficiency improvements first – and that’s not a euphemism for job cuts,” comments Brett Raynes, managing director of Backup Direct. “A collective tightening of belts, rather than drastic wage cuts, may give BA much less of a headache than dealing with a disgruntled and disillusioned workforce.” According to personnel professional David Readman, this has “all been done from the hip and will cause enormous loss of trust in Willie Walsh and his position as head of one of Britain’s biggest enterprises.”
Keep the comments coming. Click on the "Add a comment" button below.
Related articles:Mullins blasts British Airways
4 comments.
Simon Smith, Founder and Creative Director of marketing agency Baber Smith 1 year ago.
BA are obviously in a very tough position to consider such radical action, so I think it would be unfair to criticise their approach without fully understanding the background. Proposing voluntary unpaid leave and unpaid work sounds like a measure you would take as a last resort. There are many other options to consider before that stage, which BA may well have done. In my opinion, downsizing the workforce would be the preferable route to go first, so the people left are on their full salary and feel more secure once the changes are made. Following that, there are job share/part time options. Then I would think about reducing salaries as it’s unrealistic for most people to have no pay for a month!
Matthew Rock 1 year ago.
Asking for such sacrifices from your people may sound rough, but there's plenty of evidence from around the world that, over the long run, thousands of jobs have been saved by workforces taking unpaid leave; cutting working hours etc. Listen to last night's Business Daily at this link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c6d0 - to hear how Ford saved 30,000 jobs this way. It's tough out there, and these steps may be necessary.
Flip 1 year ago.
At almost every airport in the world, BA "customer service" staff are agency people. There's no skill in "people herding" so the best thing Walsh can do is to fire the troublesome lot at Heathrow.
Second is to use the savings to buy some sales people (a real skill and not easily learned or organised) to replace the teams fired by his predecessor.
Olga 1 year ago.
Willie Walsh is disappointing. Had a complaint with BA recently, most unhelpful Customer Relations staff, they never identified their positions within the company when answering your e-mails if answering at all. Wrote directly to Willie Walsh, never got reply. Our local MP got in touch with him with the same result, got some idiotic letter from his Customer Relations. This person is ruining BA, with this sort of management it will go bust in the nearest future.