Case study

Aligning capability to opportunity at Delta

At a glance

Awarded the 2021 J.D. Power #1 Airline Ranking, Delta Air Lines is the leading U.S. global airline, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It operates over 5000 flights daily and serves c. 350 destinations in 52 countries on six continents.

Delta Air Lines, an AMS RPO client since 2019, recently promoted a cohort of TA managers. They wanted to elevate their capabilities in order to become the next generation of TA leaders, positioning them to respond to the pressures TA is facing with rapidly changing and challenging market conditions in travel and hospitality.

The end goal is for this group to deliver impactful and relevant programs to the business, as well as elevating the overall TA service with a focused strategic and commercial outlook.

Delta was also eager to invest in their TA managers population to support the air lines focused personal career growth and establish themselves as an employer of choice for people development and career opportunities.

The challenge

One opportunity was Delta Air Lines planned relaunch of DEI-centered inclusive hiring training for Hiring Leaders across the organization. Highly visible across the organization, this program will raise the profile of TA as a strategic voice, partnering to deliver against the air lines' prioritized DEI objectives.

TA leaders were committed to this development and sought to arm the team with the relevant tools to best align their capabilities with this and other strategically critical opportunities for TA so they could influence change and evolve the practice across the entire business.

The solution

AMS designed and delivered an interactive, expert-led Masterclass program based on industry-project management best practice and methodologies, fully tailored to enable success within a TA environment.

The multi-module Masterclass program consisted of scenario-based classroom learning and practical implementation of both hard and soft-skills, via interactive engagement. This helped participants understand how best to apply these concepts to their TA work. Sessions built skills and knowledge cumulatively over a three-month period, allowing participants to develop and hone their project management skills in a TA landscape, implement their learnings into their day-to-day operations and develop the core skills needed to adapt and thrive no matter the objective.

In addition, the program was also designed to weave in practical ways to work with reference to the inclusive hiring project. This allowed TA managers to leverage their new project management skills to build and accelerate delivery. The modules offered were based on 5 key competencies:

Leadership competency - Growing confidence to take on a leadership role, be accountable for project delivery and influence others to successful outcomes
Project management - Consolidating project delivery with meeting key business objectives, and driving ROI to support achievement of business case
Stakeholder management – Understanding stakeholder concerns, and developing tools to communicate with them effectively for maximum engagement and impact
Strategic mindset – Learning what tools to use, plan for risk before it impacts the project and learning how to start seeing around corners
Influencing without authority – Leveraging all the tools and communication styles to meet stakeholders, develop strong professional relationships in order to become a strategic partner.

The impact

AMS delivered a library of Delta-branded resources including more than 20+ project management templates, ranging from initial GAANT project plans, risk registers, communication planners and escalation plans
From the first session, Delta TA managers were able to immediately adopt and implement key learnings, templates and methodologies into their day-to-day activities, significantly enhancing TA delivery with key stakeholders within the organization
The inclusive hiring program at Delta will be delivered at an accelerated pace due to the impact of project management skills delivered by AMS, more than 2 months earlier than expected
The inclusive hiring program will be relaunched and delivered to all of Delta’s North America Hiring Leaders, totalling thousands of hiring decisions being more inclusive and objective
All training materials and assets transferred to Delta, to be used to deliver future Masterclass training cohorts across Delta TA, with 2 further cohorts planned for late 2022 and early 2023
Program participants rated Masterclass content and facilitators 9+ out of 10
Learning cohort structure provided an opportunity for the dispersed TA Manager team to develop camaraderie and re/connect in-person

Catalyst

An Eye on Tomorrow