Southwest Airlines: America's Happiest Airline Employee

According to an article published by Huffington Post, based on statistical data obtained by payscale a site that ranks airlines based on pay, work stress, job satisfaction, and customer complaints, Southwest was ranked second in terms of happiest airlines, compared to Delta who ranked third (America’s Happiest Airline Employee, 2012). The same year that this ranking was published, Southwest saw a profit increase of over 40% while Delta only saw a increase of 8.3%. In 2017 Indeed, who used their database of employee’s review, listed Southwest Airlines as the second best company to work at while Delta was only ranked eleventh (The Best Place To Work In 2017, 2017). Although Delta has been scoring consistently well in employee satisfaction, there are things that they can do to improve on it.

In fact, Southwest has a system in which top managers visit four or five stations each year to meet with employees and allowed them to learn about their concerns as well as any on going problem. The Executive Vice President also meet with a group of employees who help draw out issues and problems of concern. These issues are then ranked and small task groups are created to help mediates these problems. By enacting a similar concept that Southwest has, Delta can better improve communication with its employee while creating a community that is committed to their company. This in effect will cause a cascade of numerous positive outcomes, such as causing employees to hustle or up-sale more due to company loyalty. This will also cause a decrease in numbers of employee quitting, therefore increasing productivity due to not having to re-train new