Ready for (on)boarding: How ServiceNow supports Manchester Airport Group

When COVID-19 struck, few industries were hit quite as hard as travel. The events of 2020 saw flights grounded, strict regulations prone to change at a moment’s notice, and no clear end date in sight.

Today, the situation is extremely different.

In fact, it’s predicted global travel will return to pre-pandemic levels earlier than expected — and just one visit to your nearest airport will confirm this to be true.

With such a sudden increase in passenger numbers in the short period of time since travel restrictions have been lifted, airports across the world have been struggling to meet the demands of the new world.

And Manchester Airport Group (MAG) is no different.

MAG, the UK’s largest group of airports, owns and operates East Midlands Airport, Manchester Airport, and London Stansted Airport. In 2019 alone the Group served over 60 million passengers. Yet, since January 2022, the organisation has had to hire more than 1,500 employees in order to meet the demands of post-pandemic travel.

In doing so, the team realised there was room for improvement when it came to the onboarding process. Enter ServiceNow.

A need for smoother onboarding

When dealing with such a high volume of recruitment and an increased number of passengers — who deserve the very best service possible — there’s no room for inefficiency.

In order to onboard staff members quickly, effectively, and professionally, the team needed to ensure that the whole process was streamlined. Any disjointed processes or errors would not only slow the recruitment process down, but also increase the risk of staffing shortages or partially trained staff, which would in turn impact the customer experience.

Ryan Cant, Chief Digital Officer at MAG said: “With travel returning to pre-pandemic levels, we know that bringing our colleague numbers back to full strength will help us to ensure the best experience possible for our passengers.”

How ServiceNow streamlines the onboarding process

By implementing ServiceNow solutions, MAG is able to deliver an enhanced onboarding experience for new employees.

Processes are digitised, streamlined, and automated where possible. This removes the need for cumbersome, time-consuming manual tasks and reduces the risk of human error, while simultaneously freeing HR staff up to focus on other areas of the business.

The result? MAG is able to bring more employees into the business, faster.

Benefits across the entire organisation

And the benefits of this kind of technology don’t end with the recruitment process. By implementing HR Workflow, a more seamless process can be created across the whole employee experience.

The new service portal for MAG employees includes virtual agent technology and an agent workspace that automates common requests. This not only saves employees time, but also reduces the number of touchpoints necessary to complete tasks, simplifying the process.

MAG will also extend its use of ServiceNow’s Service Management capability, further helping reduce the number of tickets raised with IT and moving to a more proactive service. This will help ensure both IT and HR systems meet the broader business objectives for MAG and create frictionless integration between the internal functions.

Looking to the future

We’re thrilled to support MAG in building an outstanding employee experience, and we’re excited to continue our work as the organisation migrates from ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) to the ITSM Pro version.

This will further support the onboarding of new colleagues, while helping ensure that all hardware, software, and access is provisioned as part of the process.

To learn more about our work with MAG, or to find out how ServiceNow solutions could help you and your business, head to our website.

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