Pros
1. The variety of the role is enormous. CSMs can be involved in many aspects of the company. From recruitment to training. Leading flights onboard and executing change. 2 . You get a great deal exposure to people management, having to be involved with poor performance, reward and recognition, conduct, absence, attendance. From instigating meetings to writing outcome letters. You really are responsible for the end to end process. 3. Good progression. 4. Lots of opportunity to work cross functionally/apply for secondments. 5. Good benefits such as staff travel. 6. Meeting different people everyday on your flights. 7. The role is generally dynamic with no 2 days the same. 8. Will get experience dealing with trade unions and managing a unionised workforce. 9. Hours are semi flexible, you may have to work on days off due to the nature of the business of a 24 hour operation but you can ‘claim’ these back on your office days.
Cons
1. can be difficult to hold 121s reviews etc with your cabin crew due to scheduling constraints. 2. The job can be stressful being the only manager onboard and having to make decisions remotely, that has impact on the customer experience. 3. Senior Management can be too results driven looking at raw data and not always considering information along side it. 4. Generally lack of support for conducting meetings etc. I.e ensuring you are following HR framework for conduct etc. 5. BA are not interested in the human element to a degree and more focused on the processes and procedures of the job. However, this largely down to your own line manager and approaches vary to large degree. 6. VERY political organisation, where management, in general, is not a measured approach. One serious breach of process could result in a talking too, or a minor infringement could result in performance plan. Usually depends on what’s going behind the scenes and not a steady course of action. Leads to a wide variety of inconsistency. 7. Communication is all over the place, frequent and constant. Often suffer from ‘sign blindness’ because their is too much.