In January, syndicom launched a survey among sykguide employees together with skyguide's air navigation services industry board to identify specific questions about the work situation.
Summary of the results
Almost all participants, i.e. 98%, agree with the extension of the CLA without modifications. The 2% who opposed it are concerned that the CLA should include provisions on home office work for the post-coronavirus period. In addition, paternity leave should also be discussed again. Another proposal is to extend the CLA by only one year at a time.
25% of the dissatisfaction with the current implementation of YEA is based on the fact that the assessment is very often arbitrary and not objective. Often, the assessment is not based on facts but on third-party information, and thus becomes very non-transparent.
Furthermore, 25% mention the problem that the AA rating is hardly ever given. This is due to the fact that arguments and justifications must be provided for an AA rating. In addition, employees are not motivated to achieve AA because it does not generate more compensation. AAA evaluations are also rejected by management (even though team leaders and heads of department advocate for them).
Another 23% see the YEA process as an alibi exercise and consider it unnecessary.
Other reasons for dissatisfaction (15%) are that the process is too time-consuming and complicated, causing unnecessary costs, and 11% also find that no discussion of the evaluation is possible and that employees' opinions do not count. It is suggested that employees should also be able to evaluate their supervisors without fear of backlash.
More than a quarter think that the purpose of the YEA is to determine where they stand with their superiors, followed by 25% who feel that the main purpose is to control the wage bill. Almost one fifth see no benefit in the YEA but rather consider it a waste of money. Only 17% see employee development as the purpose of the YEA. More than one tenth see it as a way of sanctioning employees.
One third of all respondents are particularly concerned about skyguide's financial situation and its announced cost-cutting measures, as this may involve pay cuts and redundancies. 17% are mostly concerned about the coronavirus: the industry has suffered due to the pandemic and many fear for their jobs. A major concern of 14% of the respondents is the leadership lack of superiors of the superiors: there is a lack of competence and knowledge, no clear strategy is being pursued and the cost-cutting measures are being taken in the wrong place.
A further 9% worry about the future of air navigation services and skyguide. 8% address the poor treatment of staff: employees are treated unkindly and are no longer seen as people but as resources. 6% are concerned that they are often working under high pressure, as fewer employees result in a lot of extra work.
One thing is obvious: Nobody wants to do more on-call duty. However, more than half of the respondents who are on standby duty are satisfied with the general situation of their duty. Almost a fifth, however, are at breaking point and can hardly recover from it. Other concerns are that the on-call duty is performed on a day off and that it is therefore not really a day off, or that the on-call duty is covered by too few people.
More than one fifth of the respondents who are on standby duty have a need for more courses and more training. This is followed by the two concerns of "better tools" (18%) and "more compensation" (17%). 11% in each case would like more rest, less on-call duty and more exchange among colleagues. 4% would like to do no more on-call duty at all.
More than half of the on-call staff appreciate the good cooperation in the team and the team spirit. 6% think that the employees show good commitment. Another 6% mentioned that the on-call duty is well regulated. In addition, for another 6%, working from home is functioning well.
What works poorly?
In this question, issues such as internal communication, planning, too small stand-by teams, pigeonholing, tools and high expenses were rated as areas for improvement.
The majority (43%) suspect that the work will be more demanding in five years' time, as new systems and technologies require constant training. Almost one fifth assume that he or she will have to deal with more systems in the future. 14% see an increased exchange with new (external) partners. Only 9% suspect that the on-call service will be outsourced and a very small percentage (6%) do not see any changes in the future.
