A630.RB - A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee

Corporate culture is something that is well established within Southwest Airlines’ reputation.  According to Brown (2011) “a corporate culture is a system of shared values and beliefs that interact with an organization’s people, structure, and systems to produce behavioral norms.” Southwest Airlines highlighted some of their efforts to establish a strong company culture in the video for this module, but they also utilize these cultural norms in many other aspects of their company as well.  On their website, Southwest has a link to numerous videos similar to the one for “Hokie Days” where they are continuing to create a cultural norms of friendliness and appreciation for their employees. 

According to Ginger Hardage, Southwest Airlines’ chief communications officer, three values that motivate the employees at Southwest are a warrior spirit, a servant’s heart, and a fun loving attitude. (Makovsky, 2013) These ideal cultural norms are highlighted and encouraged with the use of the culture committee.  The culture committee is in place as a “elaborate recognition program for all employees who are recognized by customers.” (Makovsky, 2013)  This committee is not set up to be something that happens rarely, it is built in to the culture through many other efforts including video publications for the CEO, newsletter blurbs, and features on the website.  All of these efforts have worked in Southwest’s favor, as they only have a 2% turnover, with many of the original employees still active with the company. 

At the last company I worked for, I saw a lot of company culture campaigns aimed at changing the feelings toward the company.  There was a lot of negativity as many layoffs had recently occurred and many people’s jobs were on the line.  Brown (2011) notes that cultures often clash during downsizing and other restructuring.  These clashes were evident during every effort to increase employee morale.  The company would start campaigns and make big promises, but never made any internal changes.  After awhile, employees became aware of the trend and began to ignore any efforts made on the part of the company.  A more viable effort for my last company would have been to first develop a new, shared mission that recognizes all goals and priorities for the various areas of the company.  Second, developing a model for change after they downsized would have helped with employee morale because the employees would have understood why and would also see a goal to work toward.  Finally, rewarding areas of the company that are succeeding can help to reinforce the idea of improvement and adaptation.  Instead, my previous company would reward individuals who showed no reason for the rewards, making the employees who were working hard feel neglected. 

Overall, people do respond to positive attitudes and effective use of cultural norms.  Having a strong company culture that has cultural norms, as well as changing actions can be beneficial for a company.  My current job would benefit from these practices by encouraging internal leadership and development within the company and also helping to keep employees longer.  We have a high turnover rate at my current job and a lot of it is caused by a lack of a strong company cultural within my branch.  We lack vision, so we have no overall goal or individual goal.  Utilizing these characteristics that Southwest Airlines uses would benefit my current company.

References

Brown, D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (8^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Makovsky, K. (2013). Behind the Southwest Airlines Culture. Retrieved August 26, 2015.