Zarmakuizz

Back when I did an internship at AF IT a few years ago, they were scared of being replaced by KL IT (whose developers were mostly in India).

Due to KLM generating more revenue, they had more power in taking decisions, and claimed that the AF website should be replaced by a copy of the KLM website with a AF skin and a few extra developments - so to reduce the costs of maintenance.
That would have meant 3 AF IT centers would be greatly endangered. What happened? The AF Business validated the idea. A AF copy of the KLM website was in development in India so that they get the current AF-only features done. At the same time, the AF Business kept asking for more new features on the AF-only website, so the AF copy would need more time to get the same developments as well...
I am unsure about what happened next. I should try and see if AF Business is still fighting the change or not.

The French and the Dutch are the most arrogant people in the world, still there are a lot of room for improvment on the management side.

nldogbert

This is for sure... as reading a bit more of the report, there is a snippet on what happened from culture/language point during the farewell event of Juniac. (only ~5% of the invitees from the 100 were Dutch/KLM)

It seems in his speech, he was mentioning that culture should change within the group, more open minded, embracing the changes, etc...however it seems he said this all in French instead of English (from what I understand is the official language of the group). Therefore, their comment was "How is it possible to change the culture of thinking if even the CEO does not embrace this change" - translated to why the hell did he give his speech in French instead of English when it's clear they had their foreign counterparts....which I do agree, change starts from the top down and not bottom up especially these ingrained life mannerism.

This is really turning into a nice read.. the report is really airing the dirty laundry within this fusion/group.

Cheers...

HalconBCN

As a global company, I would say the common language should be English, especially at senior level.

HalconBCN

First of all, this study should never have been allowed to happen: whoever commissioned it and whoever leaked it should be swiftly terminated.

A lot of the stuff I am reading is not surprising. Employees at the smaller company feel like they are being dictated to by the larger company. Employees at the larger company feel like they have lost of the control they previously had. This is natural.

At the end of the day, the merger has not been a failure: AF-KLM does a good job of presenting itself to customers in a united way, and petty teritorial disputes should not be allowed to ruin what has by most measures been a pretty successful and mutually beneficial merger.

San Gottardo

Why not?

nldogbert

This topic is really pulling in lots of attention from the (travel)media. Just saw it now reported too by Business Traveller magazine
https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...ir-france-klm/

Unwanted (bad) publicity for the group...

irishguy28

I find that quite shocking!!

As Michael O'Leary once said, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even United managed to increase it sales despite the David Dao incident.

BOSTravels

Good luck with that. Whistleblowers are protected by law from adverse action. The only thing that would happen is that the person who fired the whistleblower would be in deep legal trouble.

HalconBCN

I don't think leaking a company confidential document falls under the category of whistleblowing. The document does not uncover any unlawful practices, therefore whoever made it public would be guilty of gross misconduct.

HalconBCN

Because of just what has happened.

BOSTravels

Discrimination of Dutch by French based on origin is illegal.

irishguy28

It's not a company confidential document. It's a report commissioned by the unions and, most likely, given to the press by those same unions.

San Gottardo

Huh? Note that I did not react to whether this should be published, but to why this should not be done, which is something you argued should not have happened in the first place.

It is perfectly normal for organizations to survey their employees, either in more holistic engagement surveys or on specific questions. That is a good thing, it helps management to get a sense for what matters to employees, how they feel, where cultural and people obstacles exist to achieve certain objectives (such as creating an integrated airline).

The person who commissioned this should not be fired but congratulated for a very sensible initiative.

Zarmakuizz

Indeed, the issue here is that the study is now public.
Although we enjoy the transparency, this is an information we don't need, and could be detrimental to AFKLM.

AlicorporateUK

I second San Gottardo adding that cultural differences in large businesses are pretty much common thing even within the same country, I remember when the company I work for acquired another business in a different part of the UK and the usual petty comments such as "We bought them but they think they own us" or "They do things differently up North" started, indeed a report like the one mentioned on this very thread was created thanks to the feedbacks from all of us and I can assure it was so negative that the CEO personally launched a number of initiatives targeting better cooperation across all sites worldwide and he still bothers to write a monthly newsletter to keep us updated on how things are developing in that respect.

G