During the week for 1 hour in the evenings I join with a group of professionals of Cross-Fitters near Love Field Airport. Everyone is motivated to endure a tough workout that consists of a combination of fast paced burpees, push-ups and countless squats. What I discovered is most of the young and middle aged grouped participants work for Southwest Airlines. I’ve selected Southwest Airlines because of the uniqueness of the company’s business strategy and to know my Crossfit partners speak highly of Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines has unique values, vision and mission statements that gear towards their employee’s motivation. They have formulated a business strategy by creating a mission and vision statement that encompasses the company’s Even after 9/11 Southwest Airlines has always been the top airlines in the United States. The reason for their unwavering success is based on the simplistic way they execute common values. After extensively reading their value statement, I’ve come to realize the company’s ambition thrives on motivating and taking care of their employees. Southwest’s values revolve around a warrior spirit, a servant’s heart, and a fun-loving attitude. These values transcend the more original ones from other organizations and ultimately represent more than that. For example, a warrior spirit represent the area where Southwest Airlines provides the tools for employees to better serve their customers. A servant heart implies that one is encouraged to treat each other with respect by showing concern for the customer. Lastly, a fun-loving attitude suggests that employees should have fun at work. Value is a strong concept created to guide or direct individuals behavior towards a desired or favorable outcome. For Southwest Airlines, values are not just about what the company believes, it’s about how it sets the culture. Newly hired employees are tested in the company’s three core values and in reward Southwest Airlines provide a recognition program for all employees who are complimented by customers. These values are mentioned in newsletters, staff meetings by the CEO and at special event. Southwest’s The promotion of employees from within is a fact and testament of their successful development and training program. Southwest Airlines has a program designed to strategically developed managers in an intensive Manager-in-Training program that prepares them for the next level. The university is the umbrella for training and development for Southwest since 9/11 which has focused on enhancing its curriculum to help employees achieve their goals. Southwest Airlines provides a Career Development Group that helps employees focus on personal and career growth. This is accomplished by working on a component that will align the employee’s personal development needs and strengths so they can grow more. It also encompasses a skills assessment that’s structured toward helping employees align their degree to a specific job within the company. As stated before, Southwest’s purpose is designed to encourage employee fulfillment and by their Career Development services help them become more fulfilled in their jobs. According to their philosophy, Southwest Airlines hires for attitude and trains for skills. This is why they have become a company with high retention rates. Southwest Airlines is voted “the best place to work” for a simple reason. The company invests in their employees and are committed to their values and
Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer, therefore, has diversity in their employees from all over the world. They have employees from different cultures and experiences. Southwest Airlines invites military personell, active and retired veterans to apply. They also offer positions to qualified disabled individuals and disabled veterans. According to Forbes, “The icing on the cake is an elaborate recognition program for all employees who are recognized by customers. They are lauded in newsletter features, on the intranet, by the CEO in videos that are played at staff meetings, and dinners honoring them. Voluntary turnover is only two percent, and many of Southwest’s original employees are still there. The company receives 43,000 commendations a year, from both inside and outside the company.”
Southwest Airlines roots can be traced back to Texas in the 1960’s where a company by the name of Air Southwest Co. was created to provide interstate flights in Texas to avoid federal aviation laws. This technique of trying to avoid federal regulation was challenged when 3 other major airlines filed a lawsuit against Air Southwest Co.; later the state of Texas upheld Air Southwest Co. right to fly within the state of Texas and the Supreme Court decided not to review the case. (Southwest Airlines, n.d.) This was a challenging start for Southwest as it was being targeted right off the bat by some of its competitors. The company name was changed in the early 1970’s to Southwest Airlines Co. and a headquarters was established in Dallas, TX. The company’s main focus was interstate flights between the 3 major cities in Texas including Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. (Southwest Airlines, n.d.)
“Our people are our single greatest strength and most enduring long-term competitive advantage,” reports CEO Gary Kelly on the Southwest Airline website (https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest). The company works hard to hire great individuals and then rewards and supports them to make satisfied, productive employees (Ross & Beath, 2007). In fact, Southwest Airlines has received repeated recognition as a great place to work (“Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet,” n.d.). As a result, Southwest Airlines is able to provide a low-cost, fun-cultured experience with excellent customer service (Ross & Beath, 2007). This has allowed the company to build its final strength in this evaluation: a strong brand
§ Year after year Southwest ranks in the top for the best customer service, on-time flights, and fewest complaints on lost or damaged luggage.
The seventh largest major domestic airline in the United States (US), Southwest Airlines, is commonly known or referred to as a low-cost carrier. Southwest Airlines is the only major airline that provides short-haul, point-to-point service in the United States. In fact it was the first airline of its type ever started; it has become the archetypical low-cost airline. The idea has proven itself so well, that other start-up airlines have based their company strategies upon the basics of Southwest. Today, there are two other low-cost air carriers (the other two airlines are considered national airlines and not major airlines) that are actively and aggressively competing with Southwest Airlines for business and profit turning. The three American low-cost air carriers are currently posting profits even in light of the US economy’s current state of affairs, with Southwest Airlines first, JetBlue second, and Air Tran third, in profits. How is this possible when the major six airlines are reporting losses of millions and millions of dollars each quarter? The answer to this question begins about 30 years ago.
In 1971 Southwest Airlines started their operations with a vision of being a low cost/low fare carrier for passengers traveling between San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. After early legal battles and struggles gaining market share, their fighting spirit, integrity and will to succeed paid off. Over the course of the next 40+ years, Southwest has become the world’s largest low-cost carrier, while carrying more domestic passengers that any other U.S. airline (“Southwest Corporate,” 2015). Their culture, values and operating practices are what have driven this company to its current success and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Southwest Airlines is also well-known for having a very productive and loyal workforce. Such loyalty and productivity among the employees were brought by the way Southwest’s management treats them. As they say, the employees are willing to work hard for the company because they feel appreciated by the top management. Southwest maintains good employee relations because what they believe in is that if employees are happy, satisfied, dedicated, and energetic, they'll take real good care of the customers.
Southwest's philosophy of "Service for Smiles and Profits" encourages employees to treat customer service as the most important aspect of their job. It appears that when employees strive for this high level of service, the rest takes care of itself and success is inevitable (Amanor-Boadu, 2007). Southwest Airline's management structure is designed to carefully direct the activities of employees while still maintaining the spirit of "fun" that is the cornerstone of the airlines' customer service success (Lancaster, 1999). The fundamental concept of management at Southwest is the notion of a "loose-tight" design. Within the context of tight rules of conduct, employees are encouraged to take a wide degree of leeway. For example, the company encourages employees to make their own customer service decisions. Employees are encouraged to try new things, knowing that they will not be punished for innovation as long as they do not violate safety standards, endanger crew or passengers, or keep a plane from taking off or landing on time; this allowed not only to increase the speed of service but it allowed to increase the quality of it too.
... or that position. (as others' airlines employees were complaining that pilots and flight attendants were accommodated in different level hotels and pilots were always on fight with mechanics). If the teamwork is so important for the company, providing training on teamwork and building the team (what Southwest did) is also really important.
The Southwest Airlines company and its culture is one that is often cited in today 's business classes. The airline is widely known to be “different” compared to many of its competitors, a result of its founding values and strong corporate culture. This culture developed early in Southwest’s history and was deeply entrenched due to the competitiveness of the airline industry, as well as due to some of the pressures experienced as a result regulatory issues and stiff competition.
Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful airlines in the United States. There has never been layoffs or strikes in the history of the company, although there were several times when layoffs could have been justified, including the months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, Southwest's Mission statement says “Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.” (Southwest, 1988). The Airline has always believed that their corporate culture is one of the keys to their success. The culture recognizes that employees have emotional intelligence and that their attitudes and morale are key to the teamwork and creative environment.
Southwest Airlines strategy of focusing on short haul passenger and providing rates as low as one third of their competitors, they have seen tremendous growth in the last decade. Market share for top city pairs on Southwest's schedule has reached 80% to 85%. Maintaining the largest fleet of 737's in the world and utilizing point-to-point versus the hub-and-spoke method of connection philosophy allowed Southwest to provide their service to more people at a lower cost. By putting the employee first, Southwest has found the key to success in the airline business. A happy worker is a more productive one as well as a better service provider. Southwest will continue to reserve their growth in the future by entering select markets only after careful market research.
Although many companies are in business to make a profit, Southwest claims that their primary goal is not profit maximization. However, they have been consistently profitable by making air travel affordable to those who previously could not afford it (Freiberg, 1996).Southwest says the customer comes second, showing their devotion to employees. By taking care of their employees, the company encourages employees to take care of the customers. Employees are...
I. Introduction Southwest Airlines has come from an underdog to being one of the best airlines in the industry. This reputation translates from its strategic management of resources. The Co-founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, established a unique corporate culture that leads to high customer satisfaction, employees’ morale, and is one of the most profitable airlines in the industry (Jackson et al., 2012). Corporate culture concentrates on empowering the workforce. It shows through Southwest Airlines core values that “happy employees lead to happy customers, which create happy shareholders” (Jackson et al., 2012).
Values remind me of ethics and morals, necessary in any walk of life and imperative in the work place. These concepts are guidelines in which employees need to follow to be successful. “Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” (Robbins, 136) Integrity, courage, service, wisdom, respect and goal setting are a few of the values that are most crucial to me and what I hope to achieve within any work place setting. Values should be lived every day in the work place and should exemplify the