The mission of
Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service
delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company
Spirit (Haasen, 2003). This mission statements is in aligning to how Brown
(2011), defines how an organization creates a culture within their company. The
term “organization culture” refers to a system of shared meanings, including
the language, dress, and patterns of behavior, value system, feelings,
attitudes, interactions, and group norms of the members (Brown, 2011).
Southwest airlines created a culture committee to enhance the employee’s
relationship and to encourage positive environments within the company. One
example of the way the culture committed enhance a positive climate is by doing
“Hokey Days”, this is a way for the committee to show support towards the crews
that clean and maintain the aircrafts. This is one way in which the culture
committee has effectively influenced a culture change and has created norms
that member care about.
The purpose of the culture committee
at Southwest is to show camaraderie within the organization and it’s employees.
It helps to create an environment where employees are encourage to share ideas
regarding what members should do and feel, this sense of cultural norm helps
create positive behaviors in the organization (Brown, 2011). Additionally, the
behavior exhibit by the employees is a testament to the world-class service
offer to consumers. Culture committees can empower employees and help increase
morale in the company. I believe my department can greatly benefit from a
culture committee like the one described by Southwest airlines. The only time a
member of our employee is acknowledged is when they are transferring from the
command. We have approach our superior about this and hopefully should see a
major change in the future. One idea is to have departmental family trips,
where families are encouraged to participate bonding events.
In
conclusion, the values of a company and its practices are an important part in
the development of the organization culture. As we have seem from the culture
committee of Southwest airlines, where culture are created by empowerment and
family values, and not through any formal representative forums or structures.
This is experience has encourage me to start a departmental culture committee,
to better understand how we can increase awareness and motivation in the
department.
Brown,
D.R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th
ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Haasen,
A. & G. Shea. (2003). New Corporate Cultures that Motivate. Westport, CT:
Praeger Publishers
No comments:
Post a Comment