Southwest Airlines Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

- Lots of fun
- Senior leadership was always open Employees about company business
- The BENEFITS!!

Cons

- The pay was low compared to other industries (but I guess average for airline industry)

Pros

401K, profit sharing, health insurance, flight privileges, culture in workplace

Cons

lower than average salary, location

Pros

Really a great and happy place to work with a lot of flexibility!

Cons

Seems to be a shift in Senior Management thinking/philosophy in our overall direction. Maybe we need it, but there seems to be a lot of new people coming in from consultant type roles, etc. There seems to be a stark difference between existing management and new management.

Pros

Great health and travel benefits. They have a very casual dress code as well. There is the option to work 9 hour days and either have every friday afternoon off or every other friday off.

Cons

Working from home is not permitted on a regular basis. Getting recognized can be hard unless you are in the right spot. To start out they only give 2 weeks of vacation and are very inflexible on negotiating more to start.

Advice to Senior Management

Please find ways to recognize individual contributors. An occasional bonus or perk would be appreciated for a job well done.

Pros

nice people, humorous culture

care about employees

Cons

salary might not be very competitive

Advice to Senior Management

nothing

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

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.