New year’s resolution: staff meetings
As we move into a new year it is common to make resolutions to attend to something that will make us better—things such as diet, physical fitness, and doing more reading and studying for mental dexterity. Resolutions are about self-improvement. What about a new year’s resolution for flight training business improvement?
This is how you create your culture of never-ending improvement for your staff, students, and renter pilots. This is what will make your business a winning team in the competition for flight students in your geographic region. Some flight school businesses schedule random meetings only when there is a crisis or business change to be announced. To be your best, you need to do more.
Staff meetings are an investment that represent a cost and a potential benefit. The cost is removal of staff from billable services, and you should probably provide lunch or a snack. The benefits include:
- a demonstration of leadership
- mentoring and group resolution of student training issues
- continuing education for a better-prepared staff
- reiteration of the business culture to serve the students who are seeking your help for the goals they want to achieve
- a solicitation of staff thoughts on improving your business of flight training.
The staff meeting is team building and keeps the staff focused on what is important. It also leaves no question as to what the company values are and the chain of command within the flight school. Your culture of flight training excellence and customer service must be understood and promoted by the entire staff. That is why regular staff meetings are important.
Whether you have one flight instructor or 20 instructors, if you are not holding regular staff meetings reinforcing your company’s instruction methods, procedures, and policies, your staff will begin to operate as individual instructors. You become a business with eight flight schools or how many flight instructors you have working within your organization. Without constantly reinforcing the company focus and culture, you do not have standardization, mutual learning, and staff development for customer satisfaction and success. It takes work to coach a winning team, and your business goal is to be the winning team for flight instruction in your region. Your flight school needs to stand out among all others for building the reputation as the best place to go for flight training. You can brag to current and future customers that your staff meets regularly to improve the quality of flight training your school delivers. A student at your school takes advantage of the total experience of the staff resources.
Many years ago, a business partner by the name of Terry Gibbs quoted a comment that his father told him, “Take care of your business and it will take care of you.” Regular staff meetings are required to take care of your business. It is analogous to regular exercise and good diet practices taking care of your health. So, it seems timely in January to make a resolution to take care of your business with regular staff meetings in the year ahead.
Ed Helmick has been a flight instructor since 1988. He formerly managed a flight school in Spanish Fork, Utah, as well as schools in Scottsdale, Arizona.
