Southwest Airlines Reviews

Pros

The leadership generally has great communication with the employees, however, it seems after the merger with AirTran, leadership has lost vision and communication with the employees

Cons

Leadership recently has lost their vision for their employees. Senior leadership is most focused on the merger and getting into details of day to day operations when they should be leading a company.

Additionally, management is most focused on getting returns on investments and marginal profit rather than total net profit.

Pros

Job security and a great working atmospere

Cons

to much senior management that don't want to disturb the status quo.

Advice to Senior Management

Do they really know what your doing with the integration?

Pros

They promote from within. The pay is comparable or better than other airlines. The dress is business casual and the people are great to work with.

Cons

There could be more communication from senior management.

Pros

flexibility to work any hours/days preferred, free travel around the world

Cons

working with extremely poor managment and agents/supervisors that pick on each other and love to write up people just because they like drama. and passengers yelling at you for their mistakes and then taking it to a higher level just to complain. to management just because they are upset.

Advice to Senior Management

treat everyone with respect and like humans, not animals...don't stick to their own race of people, show fairness and equal treatment to every individual..be courteous, kind, humble and understanding of each other...

Pros

Benefits, shift trades, good training

Cons

Poor Team Leaders, probation is 6 months any little thing your gone! Low pay, call center....customers can be awful not enough pay to have to deal with so much condescending people. Half the time computers or website is not performing as it should.

Advice to Senior Management

Better training for there Team Leaders! Very political, drama, he said she said to get others in trouble. Probationary period of six months is ridiculous. Micromanaging unfortunately is like prison.

Pros

Flight benefits
People were great
Great company to learn from

Cons

Had to go through too many channels to get stuff done.

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Employees are great and very easy to work with - our People Department does a really good job recruiting Employees with a positive attitude
Employees are very respectful towards each other
Overall atmosphere is very positive
Encouraged to try new things
The company's Executive Leadership is made up of great people who are very approachable
Opportunities to explore other Departments - If an Employee is interested in what another group does, they can schedule a "day in the field" and sit with others from the Department

Cons

There are currently some issues in Senior Leadership (uncertainty, concern about their own positions) which is having an effect on many HDQ Employees
There is not a lot invested in Employee development (such as tuition reimbursement, training in advanced skills etc.)
The Manager in Training program is supposed to be great however finishing the program is not given much value when being considered for Leadership positions

Advice to Senior Management

While I have a huge amount of respect for our CEO and Executive Leadership (they are all very intelligent and wonderful people) I feel like they sometimes inadvertently lose sight of their Employees. My advice would be to lose the high dollar consultants (use the skills, resources and knowledge of your own Employees!) and start walking around HDQ (as well as visiting Stations) and meeting and talking to Employees. When I first started at Southwest, it was not uncommon to have someone from Executive Leadership strolling through Departments and stopping to chat with Employees of all levels, sitting in on informal gatherings, or coming to your cube to ask a question (rather than go through all the Leadership levels). These days, many have their heads down while rushing between meetings, and information goes through many "filters" before it gets to the top (often too late to get ahead of the problem). Committees and processes will never be able to replace direct personal interaction. I would like to see our Senior Leaders stop shying away from Employees, have direct, candid conversations with their direct reports (so they are not always guessing where they stand), and empower their VPs and Directors to make more decisions. I would also like to see VPs and Directors being rewarded for surfacing some of the great ideas from their Employees, rather than being made to feel that only they can be the idea generators. It takes their focus away from what is really important - Leading and developing their Employees.

Pros

Good people, fun work environment, casual setting, they really do care about people and the community. There are a lot of passionate people to help ignite your own passion.

Cons

If you really just want to do a job and go home you do not always fit in as well as if you spend a lot of social time with workers.

Pros

good contract and pay is good

Cons

don't think of using your sick time-because thinks everyone is faking it. inflight supervisors grossly inept. you'll be pounced on when some inept/never flew supervisor questions you. good work is not recognized. company is the master of smoke and mirrors and P.R.- in times of irregular ops- company goes into melt down phase.

Advice to Senior Management

get some inflight supervisors who actually - flew- and know the job instead of hiring off the street -former K mart employees. recognize employees who do a good job and do NOT put out any more "you're all abusing the sick leave policy- blast letters" THAT's killing morale.

Pros

Flexible schedule, AWESOME benefit package, best pay in the industry!

Cons

Working holidays and having to stay late for delayed flights. Being yelled at by customers, for things clearly out of your control.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't forget that you most likely came up through the ranks, be kind and offer support to the 'front line troops!'