Coaching – it’s all about progress and the future

Since its introduction, more than 50 employees have taken advantage of the airBaltic internal coaching programme. Last year, Ilze and another internal coach successfully obtained additional team coaching certificates, further enhancing their skills and expertise. They now extend their valuable services to all employees at airBaltic, providing high performance team coaching support within the organisation.

But first, how did you end up working at airBaltic?

While still at my previous job, I realised that I needed a change. I had been there for five years and felt the need to start something new. I had had a similar experience before, that I yearn for change in a job around the five-year mark. But I’ve now been at airBaltic for already 16 years. The work environment here is so dynamic that I almost feel like I’m in a different company every day (laughs)!

I’m currently responsible for crew planning. My department, now 15 people strong, is the one that plans the pilots’ and flight attendants’ schedules for the coming month. We’re also responsible for ensuring that all flights are fully crewed because sometimes a crew member falls ill and a replacement has to be found, or a flight is delayed or something happens to a plane and it doesn’t return to Riga right away. We keep track of this and make sure that all flights are fully crewed with qualified, well-rested pilots and cabin crew.

Do you use special software in the crew planning process?

Yes, airBaltic uses one of the world’s most renowned programmes, which is essentially a powerful optimisation engine. Among the input it receives is information on what the working and rest time restrictions are at the European level as well as in Latvia and at the level of the airBaltic collective agreement, and all of these must be respected. The software also calculates what is the potential fatigue level for each flight and makes sure that it does not fall below a certain mark.

Crew members can also register their preferences for the coming month. For example, a crew member may request that they want to fly from Tallinn, or have a specific day off, and we take this into account as far as possible.

The system is advanced and is able to provide similarly distributed workloads as well as days off and fulfilment of flight bids. By putting all these inputs together, it calculates the best possible work schedules for our approximately 1100 pilots and flight attendants.

My responsibility as a manager is to make sure that this process runs as smoothly as possible. I’m also responsible for the budget calculations. We’re already forming the crews for the coming year, so in essence, as the head of the department, I’m already living in 2024! The recruitment and selection process is not very fast. It can take up to half a year (and even longer in the case of pilots) to select candidates and hire new employees.

What do you find most exciting about your job?

I think the complexity of the whole process, because I’ve always liked to see the big picture. Since we work with two big systems, IT is important in my job, but people are just as important. And there are a lot of people involved! But most importantly – and this touches on the subject of coaching – I like seeing that my employees love what they do and enjoy coming to work. That’s the most satisfying thing for me.

What was your motivation for joining the coaching programme?

Just as I accidentally ended up in this position at airBaltic, I also accidentally ended up in the coaching programme. I was among 14 colleagues from a variety of departments who started to train as internal coaches, and I was hooked from the very first session.

I’ve always been a logical, analytical person; I like to calculate and I like numbers. But this programme – which requires delving into the essence of a person, their strengths and weaknesses, and discovering their resources and potential – intrigued me immensely. I realised that even the best IT system in the world can’t do much if you don’t have committed and engaged people working with that system.

I felt very comfortable with the coaching process. So, after about six months of training here at airBaltic, I decided to continue my training. Last summer I enrolled in the programme The Art & Science of Coaching at the Riga Coaching School. At airBaltic we’re more focused on business coaching, but this opened up an even deeper interest in me. The school also offers a very interesting programme called Workplace Coaching, which is especially suited for entrepreneurs and people from business backgrounds.

This summer I’m working as an assistant trainer, and it’s a pleasure and an honour to do so. This is the next step in my development in this field. The programme is attended by people from a business background who want to implement a coaching approach in their own business environment. So I also have the opportunity to share my experience.

How does coaching differ from psychology?

First of all, psychology often analyses the past. Psychologists work with clients who want to understand and free themselves of certain negative aspects of their past and the consequences thereof. Coaching is about the future and about progress. It asks what the client wants from the future, what they see as their goal and the way to achieve it.

What are the main topics that colleagues work on with internal coaches?

I’ll start by emphasising that we all work under the International Coaching Federation’s standard of confidentiality and ethics and do not disclose what we discuss with our clients. With this, I’d also encourage those colleagues for whom confidentiality is an important issue to not hesitate about meeting with a coach.

In my experience, people see a coach not only about work but also to sort out some aspect of their personal lives. For example, questions about work–life balance, or how to manage a relationship with a particular colleague or group in another department. How to be successful in a particular project, how to learn to work together.

When you decide to see a coach, you’re already engaged in an internal evaluation process; you’ve already realised that there’s something you want to improve in your life. And that’s a big step – maybe even the most important step – because coaching is about self-awareness.

I think most of my clients leave our coaching sessions satisfied. And satisfied not in the sense that they’re happy and joyful, but that they have something to think about, a feeling that there’s been a turning point, that they can look at their problem or situation in a different way. Changing something about ourselves isn’t always easy. But the coach is a partner to the client, supporting the client in finding ways they can achieve that change in a way that’s acceptable to them.

Do you also do team coaching?

Yes, there are two of us at airBaltic who are also team coaches. These sessions are longer because there are more people involved. We focus a lot on clarifying a team’s goals and mission. It may turn out that every member of the team has a completely different understanding of what the team’s overall goals are. So we work to get everyone on the same page, and the team becomes more productive because now they’re all looking at the same goals. We also work with values, helping each team member understand their individual value to the team.

What has changed for you personally since you became a coach?

A lot! I now listen to people in a completely different way – I’ve learned to really hear what is said and even more: what is not said. I’ve also realised that if I don’t work with myself, I can’t be a good coach. I have to be aware of my own resources and how I prioritise my life, because how can I promote this in others if I don’t practise it myself every day?

That said, coaches need to recognise and manage their own emotions during a session – we must not ask questions through the prism of our own prejudices, upbringing, or experience. This isn’t about my own life experience or my own knowledge. A coaching session is only about the client’s resources and the client’s potential.

People often think that I will tell them what to do. But I don’t do that, because otherwise it wouldn’t be the client’s decision. What happens in a client’s life – what they choose to do after the coaching session, whether to act on the insights they’ve gained or not – is their own responsibility. The coach’s responsibility is the process; the client’s responsibility is the progress.

How does this internal coaching system benefit the company?

I’d say that the biggest benefit is that coaching helps you learn to be aware of yourself; you start to understand that everything that happens in your life is your own responsibility. What you do today will determine your life tomorrow. When people realise this, they also start to understand what it is that they want to do and what their motivation for doing so really is.

Maybe someone decides to quit their job, realising that it’s not the right kind of work for them. But then someone else will come in their place who really wants to work here and whose values align better with those of airBaltic. Or perhaps, in a moment of crisis, an employee considers leaving, but after a coaching session and having analysed what’s going on in his or her personal life, realises that this is the right job after all.

It’s about the self-awareness one gains. And this also benefits the company, because its employees become more intentional towards themselves and their work and responsibilities.