Strategic Hiring - A Case of Emirates Airlines’ Cabin Crew Recruitment*

Strategic Hiring - A Case of Emirate Airlines’ Cabin Crew Recruitment

Merlina was just scrolling down the list of friends who liked her recent post on professionalism on her Facebook mobile app. Suddenly, a pop-up link appeared. She was about to close it thinking it was some junk ad when it caught her attention as she read the magical words, EMIRATES HIRING.

The strategic hiring advertisement said, “Where could you be tomorrow?” (Exhibit I).

“Wow! That was the moment I had been waiting for”, she thought aloud.

The ad took her to an Emirates portal, she checked the website of the company and understood the core values for which the company stood for. To her amusement, she found that she endorsed a similar value system as a person (Exhibit II).

The Emirates Group had been successful over the years because it selected, rightly engaged and retained talented employees from across the world who matched the people proficiencies the corporation stood for.

All staffing needs were managed absolutely by the Emirates Group’s Recruitment Department. The Cabin Crew recruitment team travelled regularly to more than 60 countries to select the best people. The Emirates Cabin Crew Recruitment Team held international assessments in different countries each month to choose the best of the talent wherever it was.................

Emirates Recruitment Drive

As a person, Merlina was people focused, compassionate, safety conscious and strived for innovation and service excellence in her personal life. She found that she would be a suitable fit for what the brand stood for as she upheld the same values. Merlina was checking for more details of the recruitment drive and checking whether the HR team would drop in to her city, Bucharest, in Romania. She found it seemingly impossible to go all the way to Dubai, the headquarters of Emirates, looking for a job with her dream company...........

Human Capital Advantage

Once Krishna reached the hotel, the local representative from Emirates informed him that 1,650 people turned up for Air Hostess positions while only 200 got the invitation for the interview. Without blinking an eyelid, he told his team, “We will meet them all, it’s a fair game”.

Krishna knew that it meant his 15 member hiring team had to work four times more, round the clock and late into the night, for next 3 days. It also meant he needed to ask for an extension from the hotel for holding the banquet hall for 2 more days instead of the planned one day..........

Strategic Hiring

After an eventful three-day drive, Krishna issued offer letters to 40 candidates and Merlina was one among them. She took a car drop to her place, Lipscani, a district near Bucharest. As she was going back home, the scenes of the interview were vivid in her mind. The interviewer who picked her CV had giving her a tough time. She had written hobbies as jogging down the historic city of Lipscani, making cocktails with traditional Tuica, distilled plums and making ‘Clãtite’, a Romanian dessert...........

Assignment Questions

I. Krishna gave the chance to all the walk-in candidates even though his team informed that attending the interview was restricted by ‘Invitation only’? What does it speak about the recruitment philosophy of Emirates?
II. .........

Exhibits

Exhibit I: Emirates’ Strategic Hiring Advertisement

Exhibit II: Why Join the Emirates Group?

Exhibit III: Interview Schedule

Strategic Hiring - A Case of Emirate Airlines’ Cabin Crew Recruitment

Synopsis

The case is about the recruitment philosophy of Emirate Airlines (Emirates). The HR team was supposed to assess 200 incumbent candidates for Air Hostesses on a given selection process. The HR team was flooded with 1650 candidates. However, the company did not want to disappoint any one and at the same time the HR team believed that it was an opportunity for better talent hunt. They did not mind stretching beyond working hours since they imbibed the core philosophy of the company, i.e., ownership of the organization. In the same vein, the HR did not want to dilute the recruitment policy and it wanted to scrupulously follow the hiring interviews for employee-organization fit candidates. The value inventory of the company included professionalism, emotional quotient, cosmopolitan outlook, cultural assimilation, appreciation of diversity, execution skills in stressful work situations and a good amount of conflict resolution skills. The case presents a situation where the recruitment team selected Merlina, an organization-fit candidate. The case is useful for recruitment managers to study, analyze and emulate Emirates’ hiring philosophy.

Prerequisite Conceptual Understanding (PCU)/Before the Classroom Discussion

The MBA students or participants should be encouraged to read and understand the assigned study material, analyze the case issues and participate vigorously in class discussions. Case analysis should reveal the attendees’ aptitude to comprehend strategic hiring principles. The price of flawed recruitment can be enormous both in terms of lawsuits arising from neglectful hiring and impact on organizational efficiency.

• • Phillips J M and Gully S M, “Strategic Staffing”, 3^rd Edition (2015), Pearson Prentice Hall – To examine HR Strategies to succeed in a geographically diverse HR landscape where talent is the most critical resource.

Case Positioning and Setting

The case can be used in MBA, Executive MBA and Management Development Programs for HR Specialization students and HR Managers. The case falls under the area of Strategic Hiring in Human Resource Domain and it is aimed at sensitizing HR managers to go out of the established frameworks of hiring to find out the right candidate who has value fitment with the organization. This case is relevant to all categories of service industry especially hospitality.

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