Singapore Airlines (SIA) has established a new arm that would offer training programmes for external businesses and organisations.

The national carrier announced on Nov. 3 the training programmes will be in the broad areas of service excellence, operational excellence, organisational innovation and digital transformation.

Among the programmes offered are Service Mindfulness and Awareness, Effective Communication and Professional Image, which targets frontline staff.

It covers topics such as practising appropriate self-grooming techniques.

The airlines said the Singapore Airlines Academy will "tap on the decades of experience that has been accumulated by SIA staff", as well as leverage the "wide range of globally recognised skills and competencies that exists within SIA, which have enabled the airline to establish a pre-eminent position in a highly competitive industry".

A two-day programme, the Innovation Programme and Playbook, teaches how to build an innovation culture for an organisation and design a leadership practice for supporting staff in innovation work.

Training packages will be customisable and the courses will be conducted by SIA trainers, who are certified instructors and facilitators with practical frontline experience, SIA said.

Calling the Singapore Airlines Academy strategic move for the SIA Group, Vanessa Ng, senior vice-president for human resources, said: “SIA receives many requests from organisations wanting to know how we have attained our reputation for industry-leading service and operational excellence, and to better understand how we achieved our successful digital transformation."

"We are happy to share our competencies by offering specialised training programmes to external organisations. This would also allow us to contribute to Singapore’s national goal of reskilling and upskilling the country’s workforce," she added.

Background

SIA started offering external courses in September, when it said it would cut around 4,300 positions across its three airlines.

However, this figure was likely to be reduced by measures such as a recruitment freeze, early retirement scheme and voluntary release scheme.

That month, it collaborated with Khoo Teck Puat Hospital on a customised training programme for patient care officers.

The three-day course included topics such as effective interpersonal communication and customer handling.

That same month, SIA launched a limited plane dining service, home food delivery and public tours of its training grounds.

SIA cabin crew have been redeployed to hospitals and nursing homes to work as Care Ambassadors.

We deliver more stories to you on LinkedIn

Top photos via SIA