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Nayak Aircraft Services – the BiTSing method at work in the labour market
• Optimal staff recruitment
• Improving employee performance

Bitsers are sometimes surprised by the power of their own ideas. This happened to Patrick Morcus of Nayak Aircraft Services. The Bitsing method, which Nayak use to recruit new clients, became a powerful personnel recruitment tool which also improved the organisation’s performance. It delivered results which seemed impossible to achieve using traditional staff recruitment tools. Nayak recruited 124 new employees, in a labour market in which such staff were difficult, if not seemingly impossible, to find. ’Without Nayak – things don’t take off’.

This was the (literally translated) slogan on the presentation boards shown to me by Patrick Morcus, managing director of Nayak Aircraft Services. To which he added, ”Look, I’m not really keen on this. To be quite honest, I don’t know if this is what we are going to run with. Can you also recruit staff – using the same method?” My answer was, ”If you can recruit clients using Bitsing, why not employees? personnel recruitment is surely just selling your company to potential employees?” A smile dawned on Patrick’s face, “Well then, we’d better start doing that straight away!”

Nayak Aircraft Services is an aircraft maintenance company. Located at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, its clients number more than 60 airlines and it has maintenance stations at 27 airports,
across Europe. Nayak is like an emergency help automobile association – of the air. If an aircraft has a problem, Nayak solves it immediately, so that it can proceed safely to its destination. The company has been a fervent Bitsing user since the time of the method’s introduction. It has used Bitsing to achieve its commercial goals for years. It is also the first business to have created a specialised, dedicated department for this purpose. It has no marketing department, it has a Bitsing department, which supervises correct application of all aspects of the method.

Nayak is also extremely successful, which is a function of the extraordinary drive and passion that its people bring to their jobs. As a result, it holds an increasingly important position in the international aviation services market. At Schiphol it is responsible for providing technical services to one third of all aircraft taking off and landing at this huge airport. And this achievement has not remained unnoticed. One evening an SMS message arrived from Patrick, ‘Standing on stage at FD (the leading, Dutch financial newspaper) Gala event. Have won FD Gazelle Award for 500% growth over recent years and consistent personnel quality. Also due to your efforts. Thanks v. much!’

Nayak’s growth remained unstoppable. By the end of 2007 Nayak had closed major contracts with KLM Cityhopper, to maintain all its aircraft. The contract would commence on 1 April 2008, for a limited number of aircraft, and from 31 October 2008 for the entire fleet. To meet these contractual requirements the company had to recruit a total of 104 aviation technicians, and have 48 already operational by 1 April 2008!

Not an easy task – to put it mildly – as these people were as rare as hen’s teeth. They belonged to the category of personnel in shortest supply – worldwide.

Meantime 1 April was four months away and Nayak was contractually bound to ‘deliver’ on this date. Everything possible was done to recruit the required staff. Recruitment and temporary staff agencies were briefed, as well as a well-known labour market communication agency. Despite these measures, nothing worked. Patrick had run out of options. In any event until he had his breakthrough idea and asked me, “Can you also recruit staff using the Bitsing method?” It was an opportunity for the Bitsing method to demonstrate, for the first time in its existence, that it was also effective in therecruitment of high level, specialised personnel.

All seven steps of the Bitsing method were implemented, in precisely the same way as when applied to commercial objectives:

Step 1. Employee recruitment was expressed as a continuity turnover goal.
Step 2. Goal achievement was guaranteed by means of a focus on the hard (financial) facts.
Step 3. Nayak was rendered unbeatable – now backed with the additional benefits of uncopyability. Step 4. A plan was developed to take each potential employee through six steps of the Bitser ladder.
Step 5. This plan was implemented using programs formulated according to Bitser techniques.
Step 6. The programmes were rolled out against predicted results.
Step 7. Profit was guaranteed, with an investment plan in which less money was spent on the programs than they were expected to produce.

Results: The required 48 staff members were recruited well before the deadline of 1 April. On 15 July I received an email from Patrick: ‘Stop the presses! Number of employees exceeded!’ Within a period of eight months Nayak had filled all the required vacancies and had also accumulated a ‘reserve’ of another 20 employees. In total 124 employees had been found, instead of the targeted 104. Nayak had its ‘ducks in a row’ more than three months before the start of its massive KLM assignment. Recruitment interviews were carried out with a total of 517 candidates, from which 124 were employed: a conversion rate of 24%. The final recruitment costs were extraordinarily low: as little as one third of the previously set budget turned out to be enough to achieve the goal. And this budget had been based on the average, expected costs of traditional personnel recruitment. The recruitment campaign had mainly focused on Nayak’s uncopyable proposition as an employer in the personnel market.

By focusing on the hard financial facts, Nayak discovered that its target group consisted of a mix of different job positions, which were jointly responsible for the generation of turnover. Nayak did not only earn its money from deploying technicians, but also by having professionals in operational, supports and administrative functions. These people also had to be recruited, in order to secure the increased turnover. The number required to support the technical service requirements could be calculated per target group and Nayak knew exactly how many people where necessary per group. The campaign objective found commercial expression in a 45% focus on the creation of brand preference, 30% on stimulating purchasing behaviour ( i.e. the decision to enter employment) and 25% on ensuring that the new employees remained at Nayak (i.e. loyalty). As stated, only 30% of the program activities were focused on purchasing behaviour, in other words on the job itself – which therefore did not play a dominant role in the recruitment activities. Nayak used emotional propositions to profile the brand, rational propositions to get people to decide to take the job and relationship propositions to optimise employee performance.

Nayak had to claim an uncopyable proposition for its positioning, one which other brands could not claim because they simply lacked the credentials to do so. Nayak sought its uncopyability within the organisation – where the work took place. It emerged that Nayak had an internal culture which revolved around solid, collegial support between its people. This was translated into the proposition, ‘We never let you down’. Who would not want to work for a company whose people were always there for each other? The campaign execution communicated this ethos by using actual employees instead of professional models. The results prediction quantified how many people would have to be recruited per Bitser programme and per target group. Communication with the target groups was based on the well-known six types of Bitser programmes, each tailored to one of the six Bitser steps.

The program to increase brand awareness consisted of billboards in the Schiphol area, buses for broader regional reach, Nayak’s own fleet vehicles within the airport area and free publicity in aviation industry magazines. The image building program consisted of interviews in industry magazines, a ‘making of’ film (about the Nayak employees who were models in the campaigns) which was posted on YouTube, a specialised personnel market website (which communicated the Nayak philosophy) and an award event (the Dutch Aircraft Maintenance & Repair award, which spotlighted not only Nayak but the entire aviation technology industry). Recruitment interviews were stimulated via a promotional website (called ‘workingatNayak’) which also carried vacancy ads and a personality test to determine applicants’ psychological ‘fit’, a promotion on the Schiphol platform as well as in various airport car parks (this was the Nayak ‘Snack Car’, which offered technicians sodas, snacks and vacancy brochures), a photographic competition (prize: an Airbus 380 scale model) and online banners (on websites frequently visited by the target group, such as a Dutch aviation news site and various blogs).

Entry into employment- the employment contract phase – was supported by small group events, in personal interviews, with a presentation (about Nayak), and via case studies (by and about employees who had just started working at Nayak and who also shared their experiences on the ‘workingatNayak’ website). A satisfaction program served, as implied by its name, to ensure employee satisfaction. This was supported by, among other things, the Nayakclub.nl website (a community where employees could read all about Nayak and about their colleagues – new arrivals, new babies, staff birthdays and other life events and news).

There was an on-site suggestions box and initiatives like ‘A feather in your cap’ (‘award one to a colleague and explain why’), formula 1 and football pools, savings points (for interesting gadgets) and so on. Finally, current employees were encouraged to also identify potential new recruits. For this they were rewarded with Nayakclub.nl savings points – for a skid course, a flip in a helicopter, a casino evening with friends, etc.

Patrick Morcus: “We’ve used the Bitsing method for many years. I found it exceptional that it’s also helped us recruit extremely hard-to-get personnel and that it delivered such quality – nearly everyone is still working for us. A quick success is not so difficult to achieve, but when it involves new employees with such a high degree of loyalty, that’s a real achievement. Bitsing provided an extremely solid foundation. It ensured that our messages were correct, our tasks were very clear and the people we recruited are still with us. Indeed, the picture we presented of the company fitted the reality – Bitsing doesn’t make things look better than they actually are. Which is one of the reasons for our new employees’ continued loyalty.

I first saw the investment in the programs as short term and evaluated it accordingly. However, I have now concluded that the loyalty created by applying the Bitsing is still benefiting us 5 five years down the line. The benefits have turned out to be long-term. I hadn’t previously seen it this way and it’s given me a new perspective. So this isn’t only about achieving short term objectives, I also now look at my investment in Bitsing programs as, indeed, longer term investments. You do keep benefiting from the investment, as long as you use the method correctly. Our uncopyable theme, ‘We never let you down’ has turned out, for instance, to be timeless. We can’t drop it. It remains relevant. And this is the result of Bitsing, of going in search of our own identity, our DNA. And that, also, is something that doesn’t change.

”Everything we did was built according to the Bitser model: the programmes, the ‘workingatNayak’ website – absolutely everything! This includes the employee loyalty program which, after all these years, is still running and is still a success. It’s fantastic. I think it’s the most complete programme ever, from top to tail. Employees even involve themselves in it at home and over weekends. It’s really great. The programme offers employees a sort of savings point, which they can use to buy Nayak goodies. And there’s always a run on these items. Imagine! That’s really brand preference in its purest form. It’s really a unique achievement for a technical business that’s not really ‘sexy’!

“Bitsing also makes salespeople increasingly less important. They no longer have to sell, as the sale is already made. This is what that the programmes do for you. My salespeople are becoming order takers. Sales appointments no longer revolve around whether the order is placed or not. Customers simply order. This makes Bitsing more of a goal achievement model than a selling model. The method itself is a ‘manager’ – it brings oversight to the otherwise intangible process of managing, guiding and evaluating employees. It also makes internal operational processes transparent and controllable. ”What have I learnt from Bitsing, in practice? It comes down to translating your dreams into objectives and realising that you can use the model to achieve these goals, provided you stick to the method. You have to trust the model and not diverge from it too quickly. Businesses will always throw up issues that could make you want to change strategy. Experience has taught me that the viability of the model far outlasts the whims of the market.”

SHELL INTERNATIONAL
Always forecast

I write many blogs. I do this, on the one hand, to share the benefits of my Bitsing method and on the other hand to inspire people who are on the way to achieving their goals. The blogs are widely read. And one of them drew an unusual response: “Bitsing remains impressive in its simplicity and accuracy”.

It came from Sven Kramer, Senior Strategy, Planning & Performance Management Lead at one of the world’s biggest companies, Shell.

The positions Sven has occupied during his long career at Shell could fill their own chapter in this book. Rarely have I seen such an impressive career. So I am not surprised that Sven is responsible, at general management level, for ‘global business performance management in support of capital investment decisions worth billions’.
And I expect this makes him a source of inspiration when it comes to the business of making difficult decisions.
So I am pleased and surprised when the subject of this impressive resume responds to my request for an interview with an immediate ‘yes’. More so when he continues, “I have great confidence in your method. In fact, a smart colleague recently applied the theory to show that a large-scale, international initiative was not all that profitable”. I was, of course, flattered – and keen to know more.
Join me, as I learn a few things from a conversation with Sven Kramer.

We’re in the room in which Sven once attended one of my Bitsing Master Classes. “I still remember attending that inspirational master class here”, said Sven. “Your method has had some great successes. You will continue to grow, of course, if you just continue to apply your own model”, he smiles.

Sven has been inspired by Bitsing, in a number of ways. But what has intrigued him most is the method’s ability to detect answers to complex problems using fact-based models. “It’s this factual aspect that I find so special. It’s what occupies Shell each day; making things … factual. We don’t just take action. Everything is tested, made fact-based, as it were. Because what we are doing represents investments of billions.”

“In my role as international Strategic Advisor”, says Sven, “I received a question requiring the full attention of my colleagues and myself – as unprecedentedly large investments are involved, with equally large risks if it all goes wrong. The question concerned a new energy source – one that is hidden deep in the earth. (I’ll just use the general term ‘new energy source’ here, to avoid a long technical explanation.)”

“This new energy source had seen a lot of growth in some parts of the world, and the question was where else we could grow this new energy source? So they engaged my department to find out.”

“At the outset you think of the big financial potential; the resource is everywhere. But this quickly narrows to: ‘But where, precisely?’ So yes, we search, worldwide, at the locations where we think we’ll find it. And we went for it. We invested. We searched. But it gradually became apparent that it wasn’t going all that well. A kind of awareness dawned: We think we’ll find it somewhere … but how factually correct is that thought, in itself?

“Then you arrived, with the Master class on your Bitsing method. Your approach to making choices, in the form of the pencil philosophy, was particularly relevant to this problem, and we applied the model to our situation with the new energy source.”

“The issue is that we work in many different countries, all over the world. And the size of the investments involved and, indeed, of the world as exploration area, are a cause of concern. The investing starts with the first geological analysis, which of course costs money. Then there are the next steps, each of which cost even more money. I’ll keep it simple for the reader, but think of drilling a well, or a number of them; the amount of money you invest without knowing what it’s going to yield, grows with each step. And if there are, ultimately, cautious, positive signals, you’re not there yet. You must then build a whole lot of facilities and pipelines, and invest an even larger amount.
In short, all the stages you pass through and all the investments must at least be repaid. However, you don’t know in advance whether those cost will be recovered.”

Sven remains quiet for a moment. “Do you know that only a minority of the pilot projects are ultimately successful? Yet the investments in the majority of the unsuccessful attempts, or where we should have stopped projects earlier, must also be recovered?
This corresponds to those experienced in product innovation in general. Only about one innovation in ten is successful – and that one success must cover the investment in the other nine innovation attempts.

“That means”, continues Sven, “That this, single, successful project, that will undergo full development, must pay for all the projects, worldwide, that are not successful. And that is a lot of expense.

If you do the sums you quickly conclude that you need to raise your strike rate. Partly on the basis of your pencils model and the philosophy behind it.

We started costing out all aspects of the new energy source; using numbers which, as your model says, must be based on hard financial facts. This showed that our focus model actually wasn’t so great,” said Sven, his tone reflecting the negative impact of this discovery.
“The focus on this new energy source was out of proportion – far too big in relation to its expected turnover, to its capacity to produce a positive yield. That yield appeared more marginal than what we can make on traditional oil and gas – in other words from our ‘sharp pencils’, to use your terminology”, said Sven.

“So the new energy source was a ‘blunt pencil’, but one that got an amount of attention comparable to that given to our sharpest pencils, namely oil and gas. And we had to use its much smaller margin to cover a very large investment, with a much lower chance of success.
So, yes, as often happens with the Bitsing model, we had to conclude that our initial approach didn’t look too good from a commercial point of view. The degree of focus, of course, had to change.
So we did that.
We first looked at making a more intensive version equivalent to your model; at how we could refine the model and adapt it to our complex processes. By applying a more factual focus, based on financial facts, we aimed to increase the success rate of our selections.

We started identifying criteria, which raise the chance of financial success. We called them the Big Rules. If a project didn’t sufficiently match the criteria, we immediately stopped it. We stopped earlier than before, in this way keeping the costs as low as possible.

We applied this. And it then appeared that the new energy source had more chance of succeeding if you prospect in areas in which you already produce, areas that represent sharp pencils – where we have a firm handle on the models.
In contrast, if you explore in a totally new area, you have to set up everything without knowing whether the project is going to be profitable. To keep within the pencil metaphor, you have to sharpen that pencil from the start, but without knowing if you’ll ever manage to get a sharp point on it.

The selected areas, on the other hand, the pencil is already sharp [there is no perfection in underground oil & gas]. And so, working together, we arrived at the Big Rules: What do we have to take into account to increase our chances of success? In so doing, we had actually created a predictive model for future projects, with all the positive implications of such a tool, such as significant savings in terms of efficiency and an increase in effectiveness and success rate”, says Sven.

He follows this fascinating account with how they are now applying the approach in practice.

“We are therefore making increasingly critical evaluations of whether a project matches the Big Rules. If the answer is ‘yes’, we have a big chance of continuing the process. If not, then we must be disciplined enough to stop applying it, before it goes wrong.

I do operate at mega high level. One shows a number of slides and makes a proposal and then the people in the country take that and get to work. And once I see that happening I step out of it. But in the case of the strategy for the new energy source I hung around, because I found what happened there very special”, says Sven.

“It’s so great when you see a result. They were using the sharpened approach, which was something in itself, and there was a positive result for our business, for our employees and for the surrounding area.

What I could recommend to everyone is focus on your current source of business. Look at the facts: Do not just go out and start the adventure anywhere and then go for it, full on. Things could go very wrong. The chance of things going wrong is much larger if you’re in areas that are new to you, than in those where you already know all the ins and outs.
The risk of something going wrong in unfamiliar territory is many, many times bigger – and that is the risk we have now reduced, with this new approach.”

“You’ve been with Shell for a long time?” I ask.

“Yes”, says Sven – in the manner of one contemplating this for the first time. “In fact, for my whole working life. The funny thing is that when I had interviews at Shell there were people who’d worked for the company for ten, twelve, fifteen years – and I was amazed that they could have been with the same company for so long. I didn’t understand it. Now I can identify with them completely – the international opportunities, job rotation, leadership development and travel are all things I’ve now also experienced and, indeed, have enjoyed very much. So I would now give the same answers if young people asked me why I’ve worked for this company for so long. I have had many different jobs. I have worked in different countries. I work for one of the largest and oldest companies in the world. In fact a company like this is a world in itself. It has everything. Yes, it has everything and, as a result, evolves and continues to re-invent itself as time passes. Which fascinates me no end.

Somewhere in our company smart men and women are busy right now, just like you, discovering their own Bitsing method and, in the process, applying it. Using it to develop smart things and trigger better and different ways of doing things. They also help drive the entire company, by continuously improving themselves. It’s what we at Shell do, we’re always improving ourselves.
These people are spread throughout Shell, they are to be found in every department and country. And that is very inspiring.”

“Looking at the Bitsing method as a strategist, at Shell, I think it has wide applications”, says Sven. “I was also recently thinking about its application in searching for a job or career, and in the achievement of many other kinds of goals. This methodology automatically makes you think about the choices you are offered. You ask, ‘Does this job offer fit the overall picture?’ Instead of just taking any job. The whole career process could be approached more thoroughly and systematically. I haven’t developed this any further yet. But there, too, lie many opportunities. There are so many applications. I think it’s a great opportunity to investigate all these other applications and apply them.”

Nothing would please me more than to tackle these tasks, together with Sven. Instead, I ask my last question: “You responded to my blog with, ‘Bitsing remains impressive in its simplicity and accuracy’. It’s great to hear this from someone who works for a company the size of Shell, in a complex area, and who has so much influence in the world.”

Sven: “What we’re after isn’t something that’s available off the shelf. Gigantic sums of money are involved and a lot of uncertainty. And one has a lot of responsibility then, to the world. Because no one knows exactly what is under the ground. There are huge uncertainties, with many different aspects, in which a lot of money is involved. And a lot of responsibility – for instance to your employees and to the environment, to take just two aspects.

I would like to pass on the following advice: Keep making forecasts – and use that information to populate a financial model and a planning model.
Try to keep this as fact-based as possible. For us at Shell, this is not an easy process. We don’t know what is under the ground, or in a reservoir. And, to re-visit my example of the new energy source: whereas we originally invested in areas just because we thought we could be successful there (with investments that quickly rise to tens of billions), our forecasts are now significantly more fact-based, also using a Bitsing-like method.
So what I am basically saying is, don’t just start up a project. At least make sure that you estimate the risks you’re going to take, based on the facts to hand and taking all possible risk factors into account.”