National carrier Gulf Air's newly released People Development Report for 2011, details the extensive learning and development programs provided to its workforce across all departments, with an emphasis towards national employees. In its continued efforts to equip its employees with necessary skills, the airline's corporate development programs during 2011 included several workshops, seminars and training programmes; such as Customer Care Service Training (CCST), internal and external training programs, airline-related technical courses from Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) and Postgraduate and Diploma programmes in aviation offered by the City University London. In addition, Gulf Air launched the second phase of the Career Progression Programme (CPP2), in cooperation with Tamkeen, to provide Bahraini employees with extensive development programmes. This programme targets the development of 1,300 Bahraini employees to acquire professional qualifications in areas such as Human Resources, Marketing, Sales and Finance. Gulf Air Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Samer Majali commented, “Positive business results are best achieved when internal growth, empowerment and success are taken care of. Our sustained focus has always been to continuously develop and upgrade the capabilities and skills of our employees in order to ensure their personal growth as well as Gulf Air's." He continued, “We are well aware that human capital is one of the airline's greatest resources and as such, we strive to develop the entire Gulf Air team so that we excel in what we do. Of particular importance is the development of Bahraini colleagues, who are an integral part of the national carrier." “I am glad that the 2011 People Development Report reflects this goal and reiterates our on-going commitment towards strengthening the Gulf Air team. We will continue to invest in people development in 2012 and onwards," Mr. Majali concluded. Under the CCST Programme, 1211 staff members, a majority of them Bahrainis were trained in 15 training sessions conducted through 2011, delivered by a team of 21 Gulf Air champions. Internal and external training programmes included airline-related courses and soft skills courses, in which a total of 279 employees were trained. Of this, 71 Bahraini employees attended courses conducted by AACO while 16 Bahrainis undertook external and overseas courses. Furthermore, the prestigious City University MSc programme saw 15 staff members graduating, of which nine were Bahrainis. Year 2011 also saw numerous ongoing projects which include public address announcement improvement, airport manager and sous-chef training, internal soft skills training and the associate trainers' program. In tandem, Gulf Air also recognised special events such as the Gulf Air Induction Programme and Customer Service Champions Training during the year.
