Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has been known to be very efficient in the industry in order to achieve the success. Southwest is a stakeholder conscious organization and understands that success starts with the employees. The employees will in turn provide excellent and effective customer service to their passengers. Southwest has been able to maintain a low employee turnover ratio. Southwest has also successfully implemented an online-booking system where over 60 % of their sales are generated. They have efficient airline operations of getting from point A to point B through carefully selected airports. These ultimately help with the reduction of operating costs. The company has an efficient human resource plan when it comes to hiring new employees, their policy is they have pilots hire pilots, and gate agents hire gate agents. In addition to this, Southwest is successful in implementing their strategy, but the company's strategy can be easily duplicated by competitors and become a threat to Southwest in the long run. Another downfall to the company is their emphasis on satisfying their employees. As a result, the employees have too much authority and can ultimately control the company (Lauer, 2010).

Characteristics of Southwest's Culture

Southwest Airlines is vigilant about maintaining its' culture. The behavior directions and boundaries of southwest airline are relatively clear and communicated often. This is especially factual considering the expanding worldwide mobility of persons and cultures and values.

The importance of business heritage is growing as the result of some latest developments. Businesses are boosting workers to be more to blame and act and believe like owners. Furthermore, the five key characteristics of Southwest's culture include drive learning into every one of your employees, create partnerships among the workers constructed upon equality, believe and sharing, arrest the hearts and minds of your employees, emancipate the action of every worker to boost service and profits and open communication between all levels or your organization (Hellriegel and Slocum, 2007).

Recommended Actions

Southwest is the only airline where the flight attendants sing and dance in the airplane and the pilots may be wearing Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts, and deck shoes. Southwest Airlines has been successful because management realizes the value of its employees, and provides an avenue for them to let their ideas rise to the top. The physical workplace for Southwest Airlines employees varies from the cockpit to the boardroom and everything in between (Rogovsky and Sims, 2006). The ...