The ATNS philosophy is to create shared accountability for development

Employees are encouraged to seek out opportunities for experiential learning and development

The Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) philosophy is that of a life journey of learning and development, and that such learning occurs through a multitude of daily experiences. The intent is to afford all staff the opportunity to learn and develop, either within their immediate domain or beyond the mere daily job routine.

This inevitably means that ATNS is depending on employees to identify, create and make use of opportunities to develop themselves beyond traditional work-based training. ATNS employees are encouraged to seek out opportunities for experiential learning while being immersed in the industry and to share this knowledge and expertise among each other. Moreover, it is the aim of learning and development in ATNS to cross-pollinate, and find reasons and opportunities for formal and informal mentoring and employees’ coaching of each other. It is the desire of the ATNS chief executive that every employee creates regular opportunities for development by spending time reading up on matters that direct the leading edge of their discipline and the industry that they find themselves in.

ATNS subscribes to the philosophy of thought leaders Richard Branson, who said in 2014: “Train your people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” and Nelson Mandela, who famously declared in 1994 that: “Education is the great engine of personal development”.

Creating personalised employee development plans is part of the ATNS performance contracting process, which is managed through an internal electronic tool. The aim of creating the plans is to help managers and employees decide how they can work together to maintain or increase performance, and to more fully develop each employee’s potential value. The development of a personal development plan consists of five basic activities: determining if change is needed, analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation according to the competencies required for the role. Developmental needs captured in an Individual Development Plan (IDP) enables the leadership within each department to determine the priorities for that year.

All employees have electronically signed IDPs linked to their performance that drives their developmental focus. Driving the achievement of the development plan is the responsibility of each employee, and the manager is expected to provide the support, infrastructure and coaching for the employee to achieve these goals. ATNS believes that employee development should consist of the following principles:

• You must keep your knowledge and skills up to date throughout your working life;

• You should be familiar with relevant guidelines and developments that affect your work;

• You should regularly take part in educational activities that maintain and further develop your competence and performance;

• You must keep up to date with, and adhere to, the laws and codes of practice relevant to your work; and

• All training must be aligned to the Vision, Mission, Objectives and Values of ATNS.

The ATNS staff is committed to creating an enabling, equitable, supportive, challenging and stimulating environment, which values and empowers employees at all levels. Training and development is and will remain an important factor in achieving this goal.