British Airways announced pre-tax profits last week that were up 45%. This after the fiasco at Terminal 5, and the fiasco with passengers bags and the fiasco with the unions...anyway after a number of rotten things that happened with the airline in the past year. The profits of nearly £900 million means that there is £35 million to be shared amongst the staff. Everyone of the 42,000 or so employees will get some money...except Mr Walsh. Infact even shareholders who have had no returns from BA in 7 years will receive dividends.
Mr Walsh decided to forgo his £700,000 in bonus because of the T5 fiasco. What a shame! If anyone deserves that money it is Willie Walsh. Why? Because that man and his team are so focused on their strategy that nothing not even something as big as what happened in T5 or the quarrel with different unions or any thing for that matter has stopped him from making BA profitable. I am, however, disappointed that he would let the media dictate whether or not he accepts his bonus. I feel that he chose not to accept the bonus because of what he perceived to be a media fallout if he did.
Mr Walsh, you are a leader but not a true leader if you let outsiders determine how you run your life or company.
Monday 19 May 2008
Thursday 8 May 2008
The Importance of Diversity
I am back to The Apprentice today. After seeing the show a couple of weeks ago, I thought I could catch up with BBC iPlayer. Wonderful invention by the way and it's free! Last night's episode was a good example of why companies need diversity, why people should be forced to learn other languages in school and also why people should be taught about cultural diversity.
The candidates were taken to Marrakesh in Morocco, a mostly Arabic and French-speaking Muslim country. Firstly, most of them had no knowledge of Morocco, not an iota of French or Arabic and there were a number of them swearing their way around the city. What I was amazed by was that some didn't even know the difference between kosher and halal. And one of them claims to be Jewish! (When pressed by Sir Alan who is Jewish, Michael suddenly became half-Jewish). It is crazy that these are supposed to be a few of the best people in corporate Britain.
Lee had the best team for this task because he had the most culturally diverse team. Raef and Sara knew how to deal with traders in the souks because of their backgrounds. Consider how many companies would do better if they would only take advantage of the diversity of cultures and people in this country. Britain is in a better position than any other country to take advantage of the human resources it has but many companies fail to take advantage of that. There are companies who employ the bare minimum of ethnic minorities because the law says they should. Even when they employ ethnic minorities they prefer to treat them like the plague. Imagine a lance corporal in the British Army being allowed to call another soldier 'a black bastard' or 'nigger' without any consequences. How desperate, how sad.
Until Britain starts to make full use of its culturally diverse workforce and companies stop employing people based on the colour of their skin or which school they went to or because they see certain people as cheap labour, Britain will continue to lose out in this global economy.
The candidates were taken to Marrakesh in Morocco, a mostly Arabic and French-speaking Muslim country. Firstly, most of them had no knowledge of Morocco, not an iota of French or Arabic and there were a number of them swearing their way around the city. What I was amazed by was that some didn't even know the difference between kosher and halal. And one of them claims to be Jewish! (When pressed by Sir Alan who is Jewish, Michael suddenly became half-Jewish). It is crazy that these are supposed to be a few of the best people in corporate Britain.
Lee had the best team for this task because he had the most culturally diverse team. Raef and Sara knew how to deal with traders in the souks because of their backgrounds. Consider how many companies would do better if they would only take advantage of the diversity of cultures and people in this country. Britain is in a better position than any other country to take advantage of the human resources it has but many companies fail to take advantage of that. There are companies who employ the bare minimum of ethnic minorities because the law says they should. Even when they employ ethnic minorities they prefer to treat them like the plague. Imagine a lance corporal in the British Army being allowed to call another soldier 'a black bastard' or 'nigger' without any consequences. How desperate, how sad.
Until Britain starts to make full use of its culturally diverse workforce and companies stop employing people based on the colour of their skin or which school they went to or because they see certain people as cheap labour, Britain will continue to lose out in this global economy.
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