A Team For a Team

airBaltic already employs more than 2500 people, which makes internal communication all the more important. Laura Johanna Gruninga and Signe Lamstere are airBaltic’s internal communication specialists, and together they make sure that the airline’s employees are up to date with what’s happening in the company. They also see to it that the level of employee engagement is as high as possible, in other words, that employees are expressing their ideas and participating in various initiatives and events organised by airBaltic for its employees.

That’s what I want to start our conversation with. If someone asks you what do you do at airBaltic, how do you answer?

Laura: Our mission is to ensure that all our employees – in all our departments, including management – are united in the vision we’re working towards and in our short- and long-term business goals. Also, we strive to ensure engagement and make our internal communication effective and up to date.

All the ideas, suggestions, and feedback we get from our fellow employees at the company’s various events, activities, and workshops are very useful in helping us to achieve that mission. They’re pure gold for us as we strive to make communication as effective as possible and also in planning various activities, including working towards the well-being of employees, so that they’re happy to work here.

Signe: We also plan how to improve various internal processes. But one of our main tasks is to ensure communication in different directions, both between employees and between the board and the company’s management. At many companies, internal communication is the responsibility of the HR department. But here at airBaltic, we’re part of the PR department because we’re also very closely connected with our colleagues responsible for external PR and social media.

As I understand, one of the most important platforms is the company’s intranet.

Laura: Yes, we manage our intranet, but we also send out a lot of information via email. In addition, each department has its own communication network related to internal operations and procedures.

Signe: I’d like to believe that our intranet is at a high level. Statistically, it’s very popular and actively used by employees. Those working on the front line – flight crews as well as the technical and ground handling departments – can also find everything related to their direct duties there; all of the manuals and resources they need to do their jobs are on the intranet. All other necessary information is there as well.

Another part of your job is organising various company events and ensuring that the airBaltic team is represented beyond the airport, including at the World Running Championships that were held in Riga in October.

Laura: We also try very hard to inspire the younger generation, because not everyone knows what aviation is all about. Many still have the impression that the aviation industry is hidden behind closed doors, so we give them the opportunity to look behind the curtain. For this reason, we’ve participated for several years now in the Shadow Day initiative, which is very popular in Latvia and gives students the opportunity to ‘shadow’ a member of a profession they’re interested in. Students come to airBaltic from near and far, from all over Latvia, and it’s a day that brings us an incredible amount of positivity. The gratitude and joy in the youths’ eyes at the end of this day are indescribable! They inspire us to do more and work even harder.

We also organise Family Days, when parents working for airBaltic can bring their children to work and show them what it’s really like at airBaltic. We take the children on a tour of an airplane, too. It’s actually quite challenging, because we need to communicate simultaneously with almost 100 colleagues involved in the initiative in order to arrange for passes, who will meet the children at which point and take them further, who will tell them what, and so on. But we’re nevertheless very pleased to have such a united team supporting us and interested in helping to organise Family Days, because it’s extra work beyond their immediate responsibilities.

Signe: I took part in a Shadow Day at airBaltic several years ago, and now I work here myself and organise the event together with Laura. The biggest events we have are, of course, the company’s corporate events – our summer and winter parties. The preparation for those is long and involves a lot of hard work as well as a lot of emotions. We also organise surveys on what to do differently than before. Another project we’re proud of is our own Internal Shadow Days.

Laura: Internal Shadow Days are not always about exploring a change in your position within the company; they’re often just about being present and observing the work of your colleagues in other departments. For example, someone works in Revenue Management but wants to see what their colleagues in Ground Handling do, or what really goes on in the hangars and what the technicians do. Or vice versa. Internal Shadow Days are very popular among our employees.

The airBaltic team was visible at the recent World Running Championships in Riga.

Signe: The idea to participate in this event came from our external PR department. It was the first time airBaltic participated in a running event as a team, and we were the second-largest team in the championships. The whole process was exciting, from registering the participants to cheering on our teammates taking part in different distances. We tried to run together as a group as much as possible – to make the green colour as visible as possible [laughs]!

This is one of the ways we try to create a united team at work, because in the aviation industry there are front-line workers, office workers, and technical workers, who all work quite separately from each other on a daily basis – when people meet, they may not even know that they work for the same company. So we work very hard on internal networking between the different departments.

And how did the two of you end up on the airBaltic team?

Laura: My journey at airBaltic started back in 2011, I worked as a flight attendant and later also as a line trainer and cabin crew team leader. My next step led to the PR department and, more specifically, internal communications. It all happened by chance – I knew I was ready for a new challenge, life presented me one, and I’ve now been in this position for more than three years. Already in my very first days, I saw the strength of our PR team and the capacity with which it works. Is there anything we cannot do?! It has been inspiring to develop and improve myself.

Signe: I joined the company relatively recently, just a year and a half ago. My previous job was stable and good, but it was a typical office job. Then I saw an advertisement for an internal communications position at airBaltic. Like Laura, I wanted a new challenge and applied.

When I got the call after my last interview and was invited to join the airBaltic team, I still didn’t know what I had got myself into, as I had previously only been exposed to aviation as a passenger [laughs]. But when I began working at airBaltic, the sense here of everybody being on a single, unified team really appealed to me – you have to do your job very responsibly, but no matter what position you’re in, you feel important and needed. I see myself working at airBaltic for a long time. I love working here and enjoy every day – maybe that’s why, on a weekend spent at home, I actually find myself looking forward to Monday, when I can return to work.

What do you think is the most challenging part of your job? The number of employees is growing and now represents already 30 different nationalities.

Laura: Our challenge is more about getting everyone involved, so that everyone is interested in reading all the news. But as we know, that won’t always be the case. In every company there are employees who prefer to do their job and then go home; they’re happy with it that way, the rest is of little interest to them. There will always be some people like that, and we have to accept that. We recently attended an internal communications conference in Copenhagen where this was one of the topics. But people are interested in various things, and not everyone will be interested in everything.

Signe: Yes, we think a lot about engagement. We talk a lot with our fellow employees. For example, we see a pilot, and we stop for a chat: ‘Hey, how are you today, what’s new? What worries you? Is there anything you’d like to tell others in the company?’ We collect all of this information and process it, but yes, the challenge is definitely to reach as many people as possible.

What topics, articles, and so on are most popular on the intranet?

Laura: The live staff briefings by CEO Martin Gauss are still the number-one thing to see every week. During the pandemic we transitioned from on-site briefings to an online broadcast version ensuring communication with the company’s employees, and they’re still held every Tuesday, informing employees about the latest developments in the airline and also answering questions, which employees can submit anonymously. Employees can log on to these briefings on the intranet from Latvia and abroad, from wherever they are at the moment.

If it so happens that Gauss is on a business trip and cannot hold the briefing, we immediately get questions from employees: ‘What’s up? What’s happened? Is there a change taking place?’

Signe: But of course, there are also topics on the intranet that have a direct impact on the day-to-day work of employees.

Laura: And passenger feedback is also definitely one of the most-read topics! The positive praise that arrives at airBaltic through social media and passenger surveys is collected and compiled to bring joy to our colleagues, whose work is often quite demanding.

Signe: We northerners tend to be shy and may not say straight away, ‘You were great!’ But good words are always motivating.