Free Essay. Southwest Airlines' Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management

One of the most prominent strategic approaches that Southwest Airlines uses in human resources management to gain competitive advantage is charismatic leadership and ensuring that there is a match between the applicant and the organization's values (Yang & Xinde, 2014). Through this strategy, the airlines have been able to achieve high employee engagement to the organization and consumer satisfaction. The organization ensures that the potential employees during selection have a warrior spirit which means that they are self-driven and have a high level of perseverance which has been instrumental in their success (Yang & Xinde, 2014). Besides, the organization ensures that the potential employees have a servant character and are fun-loving, which are instrumental characteristics for creative and consumer satisfaction-oriented employees. All these factors are established before the recruits are hired and coupled with a charismatic leadership approach, Southwest Airlines has been able to gain competitive advantage through its human resource instrumentally.

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Approaches for Improving HR Recruitment through Southwest Airlines Market Place Image

Objective Recruitment: Southwest Airlines can be able to achieve greater HR qualities by conducting objective recruitment, which is key to ensuring that the organizations regularly conduct an assessment to establish the skills gaps within the organization. This approach ensures that all the recruits in the organization are geared towards filling the existing skills gaps.

Promotion of Diversity: As a leading airline, Southwest Airlines can be able to attract employees from diverse backgrounds, which is key to improving innovation and creativity within the workforce (Sharma, 2016). Besides, the highly diverse employees can enable the airline to meet the needs of travelers from different cultural backgrounds and needs through customized service and customer care.

In School Career Mentorship and Guidance: Southwest Airlines should invest in school career guidance and mentorship in the areas they operate which can increase the overall motivation and desire of creative and innovative individuals to seek employment within the organization. This approach can help the airline to attract and recognize talent in time.

Approaches to Increasing Diversity

• Policy: One of the most effective methods of improving diversity is through the organization legislations that increase diversity observance and respect within an organization.
• Merit-Based Reward: Merit-based reward improved cohesion and professionalism within an organization which eradicates discrimination and foster a good working environment for people with different cultural characteristics, skills, age, and ethnicity (Sharma, 2016).
• Multicultural Competency Education and Leadership: The organization should foster greater diversity through education which helps identify and eliminate stereotypes and promote greater cooperation and sharing between employees from different backgrounds, ages, and skills (Sharma, 2016).

I believe that diversity is a good element within an organization and should be promoted due to the multicultural nature of the consumer market as well as the ability to create new innovative ideas. Besides, diversity can be used as a tool to increase consumer satisfaction and customer-oriented customer care.

References

Sharma, A. (2016). Managing diversity and equality in the workplace. Cogent Business & Management, 3(1), 1212682. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311975.2016.1212682

Yang, D., & Xinde, C. (2014). Innovation Research of Enterprise Human Resource Selection - The Selection of Southwest Airlines. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 5(7). Retrieved from https://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_7_June_2014/29.pdf