Southwest Hire the Right People presentation 97-2003

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Southwest Airlines Recipe for Success: Recruiting the Right People, at the Right Time and with the Right Attitude

Office of Personnel ManagementAugust 18, 2010

What should we talk about?

History of Southwest Airlines

Our Culture, Our People

Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill

Recruiting Transformation at SWA

• Founded in 1971• Profitable for 39 consecutive

years• Serve 69 cities nationwide • Largest airline in U.S. in

terms of Customers carried• Consistently received the

lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded of all Major U.S. carriers that have been reporting statistics to the Department of Transportation (DOT) since September 1987*

Our History

*1987 is the first year the DOT started tracking Customer Satisfaction

Locations Served

Our Employees

35,000 Employees in 35 states

83% of our workforce is unionized

We have 1,164 married couples working for us!

Mission of Southwest Airlines

THE MISSION OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINESThe mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highestquality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth,

friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.

TO OUR EMPLOYEESWe are committed to provide our Employees a stable work

environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth.Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectivenessof Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same

concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they areexpected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.

Living the Southwest Way

Hire for Attitude

Southwest has a long history of “Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill” which emerged from the belief that you can train People to do whatever it is they need to do on the job but what Southwest

cannot change is inherent attitudes.

What happens when you need to hire for skill, too?

Business Pressures

Competition – more low-cost airlines taking flight

Sky rocketing costs – People and fuel

Government compliance

Post 9/11 environment

Recruiting Pressures

Technology and interviewing processes which were not scalable

High volume of candidates and high volume of positions.

Declining time to fill High first year turnover Higher demand to fill highly skilled and Leadership

positions External competition for Talent OFCCP’s Internet Applicant Definition

Sound familiar?

Pop Quiz!

What do Southwest Airlines, Harvard, and NASA’s

Astronaut Candidate training program have in common?

Less than 1% who apply get in!

Mile High Volume

Year Applications # Hired2008 329,000 4,4002009 90,043 834

Spring 2010 Internships

10,000 50

Know what you can’t change

Never relinquish the belief that we must hire for attitude

Take our work seriously but not ourselves

Putting our Employees first Fight to stay the low-cost

airline Provide Positively Outrageous

Service Follow the letter & spirit of all

employment laws and compliance obligations

Yep! That’s our CEO!

It starts at the top!

Recruiting Transformation

Areas of focus Organizational structure Technology The Interview Process and methodology Measuring for success and accountability Retaining our Talent

Our Organization Structure

We are the People Department! Centralized recruiting

function HDQ plus 5 (almost

6!) Field Offices HR Business Partner

model

Silo

Over the past 4 years, we have eliminated 11 job titles and integrated the functions of 10 Teams into 5 Teams

Technology

Upgraded and standardized our ATS

Added a prescreening tool

Eliminated paper resumes

Instant messaging

Sourcing for Talent

Just because you receive tons of resumes doesn’t mean that the best have applied!

Passive vs. active candidates

Social media

Interview Process & Methodology

Telephone Interviews

Behavioral interview Career Motivation

interview Involve the hiring

manager and line Employees in the processHire TOUGH!

Measuring for Success

Cost per hire Time to fill Percentage of Stations

fully staffed First year turnover Quality of hire (failure

rate in background) Recruiter success (New

hire turnover by Recruiter)

Retaining Our Talent

Two areas of focus The quality hire Integration into the

culture OnBoarding initiatives

Online orientation LUV@First Bite

Luncheons FLY nights Duck Derby

Summary

Know who you are Know what can’t

change Color outside the

lines

Julie WeberSenior Director PeopleJulie.Weber@wnco.com

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