Case Study: Can An Airline Cut “Turn Times” Without Adding Staff?

RSA Ground is a subsidiary of Rising Sun Airlines, a Japanese company that conducts domestic and international air transport businesses. The main responsibility of RSA Ground is servicing Rising Sun Airlines’ planes at airports across Japan. Due to higher demand for air travel, Rising Sun has witnessed an increase in percentage of seats filled as well as number of flights, which means there is more work needed to be done by RSA Ground’s crews. In spite of the rise in workload, the number of employees in RSA Ground remains the same. As a result, “turn times” had almost doubled in the past year, turning from an average of 12 minutes to 20 minutes.

However, as hiring more staffs is not considered a favorable solution by executive committee, the only way to solve this problem is improving the efficiency of crews. After several unsuccessful meetings and consultations with managers and industry experts, Kentaro Hayashi, president of RSA Ground, decided to investigate this matter on his own by getting first – hand experience of the job and listen to his employees. Identifying the problemAt first glance, this case study demonstrates a problem of discrepancy between actual production level, which is “turn times” in the case of RSA Ground, and desired production level. Performance of employees is depended on a number of elements, including employees’ motivation and ability (Jackson, 2018). Goal – Setting theory states that more challenging goals help direct employees’ attention toward achieving target and encourage them work with higher intensity and persistence (Jackson, 2018). According to what Toshi, one of the new recruit, shared with Ken, manager has been successful in motivating crew members by constantly reminding them of target turn times and the amount of time they have left to achieve that target, which earns her the title of Lady Stopwatch. The constant pressure from manager indeed increases crew’s efficiency, as it is mentioned that in the afternoon when manager is present, the average turn time is cut down by two minutes. However, Goal – setting can only be effective when the goals assigned are S. M. A. R. T (Jackson, 2018).

While target turn times are specific, measurable, and time – bound goal, they are not achievable nor reasonable since they are determined with little consideration to other antecedents of turn times, which are number of seats filled, plane size, and crew size. Lady Stopwatch requires teams to complete all tasks within the same amount of time, in spite of the fact that some flights have much more seats and work to attend to than others. Even though the more difficult goals are, the better task performance is, an impossible goal has adverse effects on performance and demotivates employees to achieve targets (Jackson, 2018), which explains Toshi’s discontent toward the manager’s practice. Another method that Lady Stopwatch has been using to motivate her teams is creating a small competition among members of the crew, and rewarding winners by quickly announcing their names after each turn. By doing so, she provided employees with informational extrinsic motivation, confirming their competency and the value of their work. Extrinsic motivators can contribute to task performance, however, the extent of its effect largely depends on how employees perceive the work intrinsic values (Jackson, 2018). For staffs who take pride in their job like Nobuo, the woman who won the competition, and Ken, they appreciate the recognition given by Lady Stopwatch and strive to receive that encouragement. However, for Toshi, who considers this job a shameful and menial position, this practice of providing extrinsic motivator has limited effect on him. In the past year RSA Ground has also encountered the problem of rising attrition rate. Voluntary turnover comes from experienced, long term workers, the Nobous, and temporary or part time staffs, the Toshis. For employees like Nobous, their commitment to the company falls into the category of continuance commitment. They cannot afford to leave this job due to lack of skills and unavailability of work alternatives.

Hence, if another opportunity arises, there is little chance they will stay with the organization. Furthermore, since every job has a learning curve, the more experienced staffs tend to work more efficiently (Jackson, 2018). As in this specific case, Nobou, despite his old age, exceeds the set target by completing his work in less than 8 minutes. It is evident that his method is more effective than the manual; however, it is not formally or widely transferred to other employees. Thus, if he leaves the company, he will bring with him the expertise and knowledge that are valuable to the improvement of company operation. On the other hand, the Toshis tend to resign since they are unsatisfied with the job. Job satisfaction is an important element to job performance and directly affects turnover rate as those who are satisfied with their job are less likely to leave the company (Jackson, 2018). As Ken points out, employees who find the servicing job too physical demanding and lowly paid prone to quit as soon as they can find better – paying and more prestigious jobs. In this case, another environmental factor that has a negative influence on employees’ job satisfaction is relationship with colleagues. Ken noticed that RSA Ground crew is not appreciated and recognized by the flight crew even though their work can only be done with the help of his team.

According to Hertzberg’s Two Factor theory, lacking support and interpersonal relations with colleagues is a hygiene factor that may undermine one’s job satisfaction (Jackson, 2018). The combination of these factors leads to low job satisfaction, which affects task performance and ultimately results in employees leaving the organization. Implementation plan HR department of RSA Ground has been coping with rising turnover rate by employing temporary staffs and part time workers. This solution may quickly fill the vacant positions, but it does not address to the root of the problem, which is employees’ desirability of leaving. Since the level of contractual commitment of temporary and part time staffs is significantly lower than that of full time workers, it is easier for them to quit if their standard of job satisfaction is not fulfilled.

As a result, RSA Ground have been continuously hiring 20 to 30 employees each month, which not only increases monthly recruiting and training expenses but also reduces work efficiency since new recruits are inexperienced with the job. Though Mari, HR chief, is fully aware of the root cause, her approach concentrates on short term fix, which disregards the dynamic interactions between subsystems of organization, and consequently, this solution has worsened the problem of turnover rate and poor performance.