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Delta Airlines - Management and Organizational Issues

Autor:   •  November 17, 2017  •  3,086 Words (13 Pages)  •  929 Views

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With a committed relationship to employees and its high level EI program, Delta has maintained motivation from its workers throughout the years. In 2014, Fortune magazine named Delta as the number one airline on the year’s most admired companies list (Tully, 2014, p. 116). The EI program has been a success because employees from all levels of the organization have significant control of Delta’s performance through their participation. Employees are able to achieve their own personal goals through their efforts to reach Delta’s objectives.

Learning and training during airline mergers

Learning is an important part of any organization, but it can be especially difficult when merging two entirely different companies into one single entity. Delta and Northwest Airlines (NWA) entered into an agreement in 2008 that involved merging together more than 80,000 employees (Freifeld, 2012, p. 38). Delta and Northwest had to work together to devise learning and training programs that would be beneficial to everyone. Employees in roles ranging from pilots to flight attendants to customer service representatives had to be involved in the learning process.

Nelson & Quick (2013) describe learning as a “change in behavior acquired through experience” (p. 198). Prior to the merger, both Delta and Northwest already had learning systems in place. It was crucial that the two companies came up with a strategy that would work for both companies and still maintain quality customer service. Goals were set, which was important to improving work performance and customer service (Nelson & Quick, 2013, p. 209).

One important goal at the beginning of the merger was to combine Delta and Northwest’s operating certificates into one certificate issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (Freifeld, 2012, p. 38). Instead of automatically doing away with specific learning techniques that one or both airlines possessed, Delta and Northwest took the approach of training everyone using a variety of delivery methods, such as traditional class room learning and virtual learning (Friefeld, 2012, p. 38). The two companies set performance standards high; therefore accomplishing securing a single FAA operating certificate in only 14 months, where most airline mergers take years to accomplish (Freifeld, 2012, p. 38).

Scott Nutter, Delta’s flight operations manager, states that Delta’s training development [for pilots] is centralized and standardized” (as cited in Freifeld, 2012, p. 39). Each pilot goes to the same simulation school for training in addition to being able to do some of their learning at home on the computer (Freifeld, 2012, p. 38). In contrast, Northwest had a very decentralized and unstandardized system, requiring pilots to report to different training divisions (Freifeld, 2012, p. 39). Improper training can cause safety issues in the air. In 2010, two NWA pilots were distracted because they were using their laptops and ended up missing their destination airport by more than 100 miles (Walsh, 2010). After the incident, Delta representative, Anthony Black, stated that Delta “has policies in place that meet or exceed Information for Operators (InFO) guidance” (as cited in Walsh, 2010). Evidently, the NWA pilots were not abiding by Delta policies at the time that they missed their proposed landing.

Delta takes learning and performance seriously. They utilize operant conditioning, which is “the process of modifying behavior through the use of positive or negative consequences” (Nelson & Quick, 2013, p. 199). A form of operant conditioning used by Delta is organizational behavior modification in which two primary consequences are used to change behavior (Delta, p. 11)

- Financial rewards for excellent performance

- Withdrawal of rewards for poor performance

Delta believes that people should get rewarded for outstanding performance, or have rewards taken away for less than stellar work. The NWA pilots that missed their destination landing had their licenses revoked and were suspended from the airline (Walsh, 2010).

Unfortunately, Delta’s organization has faced problems with customer service relations over the past several years. In 2010, Delta had the “highest number of customer complaints filed with the Department of Transportation”(McCartney, 2011, p. 3). In an effort to revamp organizational behavior related to customer service, Delta sent over 11,000 agents back to training in an effort to revitalize their image after the merger with Northwest (McCartney, 2011, p. 3). How employees handle customer service affects employee attitudes, customer loyalty, and the company’s reputation and profitability. The training sessions were aimed at teaching agents to “put the focus back on the customer after years when airline employees were concerned about their own job losses, wage reductions, and schedule disruptions” (McCartney, 2011, p. 3).

Ethical Issues at Delta

According to Nelson and Quick (2013), “A few of the ethical problems that managers report as toughest to resolve include employee theft…” (p. 54). Delta is no stranger to employee theft issues and has recently been in the media regarding employee misuse of “buddy passes” – a program that allows millions of current and former employees and their families to fly every year at little or no cost (Carey, 2015, para. 1). According to Carey (2015), “Abuse of the [buddy pass] programs, however, has cost the carriers money and has even facilitated criminal activity…” (para. 2). Some of the abuse referred to includes illegal selling of the passes, employees fraudulently designating non-related individuals as family members, and use of the buddy passes for non-approved purposes – such as non-Delta business travel (Carey, 2015, para. 5).

According to Nelson and Quick (2013), “organizational success depends on the managers’ ability to address the three challenges of globalization, workforce diversity, and ethics” (p. 63). Nelson and Quick (2013) go on to say that” these three challenges are important because the way managers handle them shapes employee behavior” (p. 63). So how has the management at Delta handled the ethical issues surrounding the abuse of the buddy pass program? For starters, Delta has made their presence known online by posting information on classified-ad websites such as Craigslist (where passes are being sold illegally) regarding their rules for the buddy pass program (Carey, 2015, para. 6). Delta has also “…disciplined or fired some of the ticket sellers…” (Carey, 2015, para. 8). These disciplinary actions by Delta

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