A630.3.3.RB - A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee

Is the Cultural Committee at Southwest effective in establishing cultural norms?

From an initial view, the Culture Committee does seem to do a good job of establishing some type of cultural norms which focus on internal organization exemplary service, happiness, and kindness.  However, can a short video paint an adequate of their efforts from other factors of the organization that were not mentioned?   Employee appreciation has been around in many forms prior to the establishment of Southwest Airlines. Many companies give bonuses as a form of employer appreciation. Some companies have company picnics as a form of appreciation and comradery.  It is used as a time to laugh, play and appreciate one another not only as employees bust as human beings as well.  For what the video presents, I think that Southwest is effective because this type of appreciation carried out or established by the cultural committee makes the employees happy and appreciated.  Southwest models are well known throughout the aviation industry; however other carriers that see the results do not always conduct similar programs.  You would think that other aviation companies should be more willing to try to emulate success.  Because I have done studies on this airline, it would be fair to state that the values and traits of this culture committee mirror the attitudes of senior leadership.   

 

From what you can tell, what is the purpose of the Cultural Committee at Southwest?  It is a way of saying thank you; the Cultural Committee at Southwest is designed to show the pilots and flight attendants appreciation for a job well done. It also allows employees to show their team unity with fellow employees.  In addition to what is previously mentioned, a culture and climate for the organization-at-large is established and reinforced. A happy employee is a productive employee, plus this action set the example for how those very same employees should be treating customers.

What would you see as a viable mission for a Cultural Committee in your place of work (or your last place of work if you are not currently working)?  A viable mission for the cultural committee in my place of work would consist of a monthly luncheon or just someone saying thank you for asking how your day is going today. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own work and daily lives we forget the little things that are so important.

What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career? After completing this exercise, I think that I should just try to show appreciation to ward my co-workers whenever we complete a teamwork task by telling that they did a good job or by brining a snack like donuts to the break room for everyone to share.  After thinking about it, I suppose all of us at any job can do more to try to appreciate one another. However, we must not forget about the one we should appreciate the most: the customer. I would like to think that we should not get so caught up with the internal organization--forgetting about the external factors. As for the video itself, I think it was represented on a very small scale. Even though this was Southwest Airlines, no one can say that everyone at their company is 100% happy. The video only showed how employees utilized the cultural committee to show appreciation for flight attendants and pilots. What about everyone else? Do the flight attendants and pilots show appreciation for customer service representations, ticket handlers, etc?