Why the BA strike will have lasting repercussions

By Kelly Dyer, Editor of Strategic Communication Management, Melcrum

I’ve been following the British Airways strike with interest. For years, the company has proudly been Britain’s leading airline, but recently cracks have appeared. Earlier this year Virgin Atlantic posted profits, whereas BA had to report losses; there were rumbles of strike action throughout the summer, but this Christmas, unless last-minute talks can prevent it, there will be 12 days of strikes. Scheduled to start on the 22nd December – just when thousands of people fly off to celebrate Christmas with loved ones – this couldn’t really come at a worse time.

Read the reports from cabin crew and you can empathize with their reasons behind voting for strike action. But listen to ground crew or other employees of BA who aren’t cabin crew and therefore not part of the strike and a different story emerges and it’s one that could leave lasting fault lines across the organization.

Non-cabin crew are saying that they find their colleagues’ actions selfish and shameful. They’ll still have to work over the strike period and they're the ones who'll have to deal with the vitriol from members of the public who arrive at an airport and are told there’s no flight for them to board. The public won’t make any distinction between ground staff and cabin crew – they’ll see the uniform and come to their own conclusions. Traveling can be stressful at the best of times, so with the situation as it is, I can easily see why non-cabin crew are anxious and animosity is growing between the various departments.

It means that even once the strike has ended and the media attention has died down, things will be far from resolved. Morale will be at an all-time low and tensions will be running high. The internal communication team will have a very tough job uniting a fragmented workforce.

How can this be remedied? Are there steps that can be taken now, or should the internal comms team keep their focus on their crisis communication plan and just get through the next tough few weeks? After all, knitting the company back together is going to require a communication strategy of its own.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation. How did you repair a battle-scarred organization? What would your advice be to the internal comms team at BA right now? Please do share your comments below.

Comments

[Antoine Borg]

I can't say I've been in this situation before but I have been on the wrong side of similar ones:

1 - I worked for a company which merged with 3 others. Ours was by far the largest but since the whole merger was done at once and without informing any of the employees we were a little taken aback. When our teams were cannibalised to join the existing teams in other companies we felt that our work was not being appreciated but no one told us why this was meant to be a good idea. Having a clear consistent message before, during and after the event would have helped greatly.

2 - I worked at a NGO which was forced to take over a government department. The poor people from the civil service were not sure how they would be affected and were a little apprehensive. Management spoke to them at the beginning promising lots of things but when nothing materialised, they lost hope. Except for 1 person, they all transferred to other roles in the civil service meaning that we lost vital internal knowledge. Again, a consistent message repeated before, during and after the merge would have helped. In this case, the message needs to be tweaked and explanations about delays or missed deadlines need to be forthcoming.

In either case, I can't compare this to BA. If the company explains it's internal reasoning to all involved and keeps at it, it could go a long way to making sure that non-cabin crew understand why things are the way they are. This is not a case of wanting to direct anger at cabin crew or management or anyone but a case of needing to identify what BA, as a single entity, needs to do and say to, hopefully, move forward. BA should not try to push resentment towards the cabin crew as this can backfire in the long term but it also should not try to defend them as it should be up to the strikers and unions to put their message across. It just needs to be consistent about _its_ own message.

Fingers crossed - maybe we'll fly BA another day.

A