Originally Posted by
Sopwith
The people running the ops centre behind the scenes should be required to spend one week a year as customer-facing gate agents during a major weather event.
I'm sure many do, even as an IT Director, I would spend time working with frontline staff several times a year before I retired from the company in 2018. Before the Pandemic, of the 120 or so senior people in the company (Director and above), each one had assignments to frontline staff environments such as one or more airports, flight attendants, pilots, TAC, Air Supply, Maintenance, etc, to ensure all staff away from the YYC head office building had a senior go-to person to contact directly if they wanted to, within the restrictions imposed by union agreements.
In the past I spent several days at YQU when the rollout of bag charges was implemented, dealing with guest complaints directly, held quarterly "ask me anything" sessions during team meetings with the shift teams at YUL and helped look at internal career moves for YYC Air Supply staff when the service was out-sourced. I also presented at the new hire classes twice a year, among many direct interactions with staff outside of my management area. From what I know from friends and colleagues still at WS, besides issues due to the Pandemic, senior management interaction with frontline staff is still a priority under Onex ownership.
All office staff were encouraged to volunteer each year over Christmas to keep things running smoothly in the YYC airport, as office staff we would take a team down for 4 hour stints at peak times, when other work was quiet in the office.