{"id":5171,"date":"2017-07-21T09:41:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T07:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2017-07-21T09:49:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T07:49:14","slug":"a-warning-from-air-france-klm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/5171\/","title":{"rendered":"A warning from Air France-KLM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes blog posts just write themselves<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A clash of national cultures and an inability to understand each other\u2019s languages threatens to make the merged Air France-KLM group of airlines unmanageable, according to a leaked internal company report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Surely not!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe French have the impression that the Dutch think only of money and are always ready to fight for profit. They are not afraid of anything,\u201d the researchers reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dutch think that the French are attached to a hierarchy and political interests which are not necessarily the same as the interests of the company \u2026 The extent to which employees are disillusioned is shocking. People are pessimistic, frustrated and burnt out because they feel that this is not listened to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this is consistent with crude national stereotypes! How can it be true?<\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, a little more serious now:<\/p>\n

Air France managers are also said to feel that they look more at what is best for the whole company, while KLM managers only worry about what is good for KLM.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmmm.<\/p>\n

KLM managers, on the other hand, think that their French colleagues only worry about keeping jobs at Air France.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So each party thinks the other is looking out for themselves? It being a near-certainty that this is the case, my only questions are how many top managers are surprised by this and when are they being fired?<\/p>\n

Among the petty grievances, there is irritation that a KLM employee working in Paris is charged \u20ac10 for lunch in the canteen, while an Air\u00a0France\u00a0colleague pays only \u20ac4.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reason for this is French companies are obliged to provide their employees with a subsidised canteen (or lunch vouchers), but secondees and visitors don’t get the subsidy and have to pay full price. We have the same issue in my office when people are seconded from outside, and it’s actually more serious than it sounds.<\/p>\n

Some years ago I had an Australian boss who was a very smart chap, particularly so considering he was a Queenslander (I think he might read this blog occasionally). He was also a very good boss, partly because having come up through the ranks himself, he knew that small niggles can have a detrimental effect on an employee’s happiness way out of proportion to the actual problem. If left unchecked, seemingly minor issues cause all sorts of discontent in a department which results in a bad atmosphere and reduced productivity. If your staff are spending half the day bitching about free coffee being stopped, you’re better off just reinstating it.<\/p>\n

A decent manager like this Aussie would have spotted immediately that the unequal canteen charges would create a rift in the organisation which would cost the company a lot more than \u20ac30 per person per week. He would have been on the phone sharpish to get approval to reimburse the Dutch, and if that were refused he’d run a little wheeze to do so anyway. Managers like this are like hen’s teeth in a modern corporation, and seemingly absent altogether from Air France-KLM.<\/p>\n

The Dutch managers don\u2019t trust the French economy, and see Air France as a \u201ctime bomb\u201d.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

\u201cOne questions whether the alliance can survive given the long-standing mutual incomprehension between the Dutch and French camps within the group,\u201d one researcher was quoted as writing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If two airlines cannot merge without divisions opening up along national lines amid a clash of cultures and widespread mistrust, one wonders how much truth there is in the EU’s claim<\/a> that all 27 members unanimously agreed on the Brexit negotiation strategy in under 15 minutes. I think the whole Brexit negotiation process will put the unity between the member states under considerable strain, and I’m expecting to see plenty of leaked memos full of similar sentiments to those in the Air France-KLM report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes blog posts just write themselves: A clash of national cultures and an inability to understand each other\u2019s languages threatens to make the merged Air France-KLM group of airlines unmanageable, according to a leaked internal company report. Surely not! \u201cThe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,67,96],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5175,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions\/5175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}