Southwest Airlines is the fifth largest airline in the United States. It is operating more than 2,100 flights per day and carrying over 44 million passengers a year to 50 different cities all over the United States (Cohan, 2003). Southwest is very well known for its best on-time record, best baggage handling, and gets the least customer complaints in the airline industry.When Southwest Airline uses the word "love" or "luv" as a marketing approach they are not talking about what most customers think. They are describing where SWA is based. SWA is based in Dallas at Love Field. SWA says that they are spreading love to other cities whenever a plane leaves Dallas. Most customers would think t ...view middle of the document...
Their policy for not assigning seats saves time for the flight attendants. When the customers can pick their own seats, the flight attendant doesn't have to take the time to show each customer where their seat is. This philosophy allowed the executives at Southwest to adopt a tolerant attitude and give liberty to its employees to fulfill their job responsibilities so that they can work with maximum productivity and satisfaction. The result was that the airline experienced a considerable growth in its traffic during the last few years, which was primarily because of excellent service and meeting the commitments. Another considerable factor, which contributed to airline's success, is the compensation policy of the airline. In Southwest, company shares its gains with its employees by rewarding them through different profit sharing programs and giving benefits to its employees. In fact, majority of the employees have experienced considerable gains in terms of stock ownership.The management of Southwest believes that individuals tend to take better care of things they own and therefore they have promoted the concept among the employees that they "own" the airline. This concept is not just one of many so-called employee motivational strategies but in fact employees of southwest do own their airline.The management has developed a profit sharing program for its employees and has provided stock options to them as well, which allows the employees to benefit from company's financial success, which is in fact because of their efforts. This ownership culture has motivated the employees to take better care of the customers and provide best level of services (Gittell, 2002). It is also interesting to note that the ownership is not just limited to financial benefits of the firms but also encourage the employees to take initiative and assume responsibility.The organization expects its employees to participate in organization's success through their entrepreneurial skills and take effective measures to bring improvements in organization's operations. They encourage their employees to utilize their entrepreneurial skills and participate in the organizational decision making to bring continuous improvements. This encouragement from the management allows the employees to take effective measures for the improvements in service and assume responsibility. Moreover, financial participation also encourages them to seriously consider the strategies for organization's improvement.The profit sharing option of Southwest Airline is considered as the primary reason for its success and its reputation for providing best level of services. Management experts believe that...
