Southwest

The culture of JetBlue and Southwest are much alike in principal, but they have significant differences as a result of dissimilar implementations. Both companies place a high priority on values and relationships, but contrasting leadership and policies resulted in two distinct cultures.

Southwest’s culture without a doubt placed the highest priority on employees. It was their belief that happy employees would result in happy customers which would result in happy investors. Southwest would sometime even make sacrifices in efficiency to better serve their employees. For example, Southwest would not keep permanent employees teams in order to provide more flexibility in scheduling. Continually working with different people decreases efficiency, but the culture at Southwest dictated that employee satisfaction would come before process improvements.

In contrast, JetBlue appeared to place its highest priority on customer satisfaction and efficiency. Being the best funded startup in aviation history, JetBlue had the opportunity to purchase new planes with leather seats and individual television sets for each customer. These investments were clearly made to satisfy customers and not their employees. Additionally, JetBlue employed technology everywhere they could in an effort to be more efficient. While technology certainly afforded JetBlue improved efficiency, Southwest would sometime favor a more humanistic approach which would in turn develop relationships. For example, Southwest would avoid boundary spanners who would interface strictly via a computer, but JetBlue’s pilots, who also served as boundary spanners, would employ laptop computers and email to conduct their business.

JetBlue did share Southwest’s focus on relationships, but again the policies of each company differed which led to contrasting results. Southwest fostered a family-like culture where they took care of their employees very well. While JetBlue also placed a high value on their employees, JetBlue regarded some positions as temporary and implemented policies which discouraged employees from staying. For example, flight attendants at JetBlue would receive no pay increases or benefits from seniority. Assuming a high turnover rate is unlike the Southwest culture which is designed to maintain happy employees and effectively reduce turnover. The two companies also differed in how they fostered inter-employee relationships. JetBlue was careful to cultivate open relationships between management and frontline employees. Southwest also did the same, but they were also