Corporate Culture at WestJet

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EXCERPTS

When the founders were contemplating starting a new airline, Mark Hill started reading about US-based SouthWest Airlines to understand how the culture of the company had evolved. He understood that it was the high performance culture that differentiated Southwest from its competitors. Hill felt that the culture in the company was reflected in the way the customers were treated. He believed that by aligning the interest of the people with business interest, it would be possible to foster a great culture. The founders were of the view that the people working at WestJet, called WestJetters, must show a caring attitude toward the passengers, who were addressed as guests, and also toward their co-workers. The culture at WestJet was guided by a set of values...

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Incentives, a good culture and work environment, and open communication helped the founders to position WestJet as a fun airline. According to Rick Ericson, Aviation Consultant, "(Corporate Culture) It’s a key asset, and I give Beddoe full credit for creating that. Beddoe has done an excellent job of promoting WestJet externally as "a quirky little company that could. He has marketed the image of a company you can like and that you want to do business with."

The atmosphere in WestJet was informal with the employees calling even the CEO by his first name. With all the employees having a share in the company, there was a feeling among them of working for themselves. There was a total absence of hierarchy, and anybody, irrespective of the position in the company, pitched in to help others, to get the work done on time, and to serve the customers....

There were some formal groups in the company to address employee grievances and encourage employee participation. At WestJet, CARE, or Creating a Remarkable Experience, was one of them. CARE was a group whose aim was to propagate the WestJet culture throughout the company. Inculcating the culture was not a one-time effort but an ongoing process, according to company insiders. CARE was responsible for organizing more than 250 events every year for the employees and their families. These included meetings with the pilots, the crew, discussions about culture, and town hall meetings. Twice a year WestJet held profit sharing parties – one during the spring and the other during the fall. At these parties, employees were given profit-sharing checks. The CARE team also brought out videos and plays to entertain the employees. At these celebrations outstanding employees received awards...

Analysts attributed WestJet’s success to the sense of ownership that was cultivated among the employees. Encouraging the employees to assume responsibility and providing them a role in the growth, resulted in better productivity, highly motivated employees, and high morale, all resulting in better customer service. "All of us are owners here, and we're all very passionate about what we do. When you have a stake in the company, you want to do whatever it takes to make it work,” said Lisa Puchala, director of in-flight training and standards

Beddoe was of the view that as the employees were responsible for providing a friendly environment to the guests, it was important to recruit people who fit in with the culture of the organization. According to Darryl Howard, of CIBC World Markets, the lead underwriter on the IPO of WestJet, "Hiring the right people is the most critical one. For the first couple of years he probably interviewed every person (himself) before they were hired. (Secondly,) he kept things simple. The business itself is quite defined. They’re not trying to compete on long hauls or business travel. They went specifically to short haul passenger service. And the third principle is that he insists that his people have fun. You’ve seen that on the flights where they tell hokey jokes. That goes a long way."

Analysts attributed WestJet’s ability to provide the best customer service in the airline business mainly to its employee focus. The airline attributed its success to hiring the right kind of people and empowering them.

Since its inception, WestJet had been ranked among the most profitable airlines in the world, showing consistent growth in revenues. As of 2014, the company had achieved 38 consecutive quarters of profits, an impressive statistic in the highly turbulent airline industry. WestJet was able to save on employee costs, as the supervisory level was almost absent in the organization. The productivity per employee in WestJet was the highest in the Canadian airline industry. The company’s attitude toward its employees helped it score high with potential employees too. It was ranked at the top in Canada’s more admired corporate cultures for several years...

As the organization grew, there were subtle changes seen in the corporate culture with every new employee who joined. The fast pace of change in WestJet brought with it some anxiety among the employees. Analysts pointed out that as the number of employees was expected to exceed 10,000 by 2015, it might be difficult to keep them connected to each other and to the culture of WestJet. Analysts said that with WestJet expanding to European destinations, its business model had changed, placing a stress on the culture of the company. As it moved into international markets, it might be a challenge for WestJet to retain high levels of employee engagement and provide a unique guest experience that differentiated it from so many other carriers, they opined...

Exhibit I:WestJet – Revenue, Passenger, Employees and other Details