Alaska Airline & Corporate Culture Essay

A unique cultural characteristic of Alaska Airline would be the benefits they allot their employees. After 90 days of working with Alaska Airline, an employee earns benefits which allows him or her to fly anywhere at anytime with 1 other individual. In addition to this, the employee is given 6 â€Å"buddy passes† each year which allows the employee to give 6 roundtrip tickets to people other than himself or the 1 person he chooses to travel with. The best part about these benefits is that as long as the employee remains in good standing with the company, they are issued indefinitely, even after retirement. Companies can unknowingly cultivate negative culture among its employees and customers. This can happen in numerous ways. If a company were to institute a new policy which applied undue stress to its employees, adopt new prices that are greatly higher than what its customers are accustomed to paying, or allow a top representative to behave in a manner which sharply contradicts the values of the company, it would certainly be cultivating negative culture. While such behaviors may be immediately illusive to the company, some, if not many, employees and customers will notice it, and the company will suffer for it. In order to know specifically how a business’ corporate culture can be amended for the better, it would be necessary to know which business is being discussed or at the very least, the disposition of it’s corporate culture. While a grocery chain may need to focus on training employees to assist the elderly or the otherwise incapable individuals with carrying and loading groceries into cars, the corporate culture of an electronic store may benefit from having better-educated employees about the products in order that said employees may help customers make better-informed purchases. As far as developing a sense of corporate culture directed at the employees, a company may issue monthly kudos to employees who overachieved or plan celebrations after goals have been reached. Nevertheless, any and all amendments put into effect by a business for the purpose of improving corporate culture must result in an enhancement of customer or employee experience and or perception. There will certainly be a cultural shift in Microsoft as they reorganize to emphasize customer service. Before, the company was not so focused on customer service, and therefore had a corporate culture with its center of gravity more on product development. Now, however, the company must necessarily implement changes ubiquitously, effectively replanting its center of gravity, in order to meet is goal of honing in on customer service. Such a drastic make-over will involve a significant cultural shift. While Jet Blue has experienced much difficult as a result of bad weather which has in fact damaged their culture, it would be hasty to say their culture has been irreparably damaged. There can be work done through public relations and customer appreciative measures to repair its damaged culture. Work Cites 1. â€Å"Work-Life and Benefits- Alaska Airlines.† alaskaair.com. Alaskaair, n.d. Web. 20 April 2011. 2. March, Suzanne. â€Å"JetBlue Airways – Flight Change Fees Waived For Passengers Affected By Bad Weather .† starglobaltribune.com. Starglobaltribune, n.d. Web. 20 April 2011.