Southwest Airline

Southwest Airline

Situation

Ann, vice president of people for Southwest Airlines is preparing for the upcoming meeting in which she will have to reflect her options in view to the threats that the company is facing.

SWA’s Strategy

SWA adopted a low-cost and low-price strategy to market itself as a budget and convenient airline, yet with quality services. To achieve low-cost, SWA first, concentrates on underutilized airports to reduce taxes and turnaround times. Second, SWA buys all the same and fuel-efficient aircrafts (737s) so that training costs and maintenance can be minimized. Third, SWA maintains a relatively small crew. These altogether enabled SWA to price tickets at a relatively low price.

Human Resources Management

SWA sees its human resources as an inimitable and the most important competitive advantage. It treats their employees as internal customers and ensures the Southwest is a comfortable and fun place to work. In this way, their work is in line with the company’s strategy.

When it comes to recruitment, they hire and fire for attitude. The ability to work as a team is critically emphasized but not work experience or educational backgrounds. There is also al emphasis on peer recruiting such that current employees will take part in deciding whether the applicant will fit in at the company.

At operations, informal teamwork is promoted. Employees routinely help each other out so that the synergy produced increases productivity. This is essential to keep crew size minimal. The company also ensures that employees are comfortable at work so that they will deliver quality customer service and even volunteer to help customers in need. In view of company expansion and geographic dispersion, a culture committee is set up to preserve and enhance the Southwest spirit that is most valued by the People Department. Besides, the department continually feed back information to employees to keep people focused and make them aware of how their...