Case Summary
The case is related to United Air and its bad public relations nightmares that happened continuously. Several incidents were reported, which involved the employees of United Air forcing a variety of regulations, rules, and protocols, which on the other hand, offended the customers’ dignity and led them to face international outcry. The case shows that firstly, the Airline stopped two teenage girls who were wearing leggings and were flying via using the United Air travel perk programs. The airline travel perk program had a stricter dress code and wanted the customers who were to enjoy the heavy discounts to go by these dress codes. The Airline wanted the passengers who were using the travel perk programs to appear in a respectable manner as they are representing the Airline itself. The united Airline defended its position on the leggings by giving a statement that these are not inappropriate attire; however, except for traveling with the airline perks program. The airline perk program provides huge discounts to travelers and their families and friends.
A similar, however, the more brutal incident happened after some time again when a Doctor who was required to see his patient the other day was intending to travel by United Air to reach his destination. The staff of the united employees was needed to board this plane at the last moment; however, there were no seats left. The Airline announced that four passengers would be needed to volunteer to give up their seats, or else they would have to cancel the flight. As no one volunteered, the airline staff invoked the involuntary denial of the boarding process by which they selected the Doctor and his wife along with another couple. Dr. Dao declined to give up his seats, and this soon converted into a scene that was filmed by several people on their cell phone cameras in which he was being pulled out by force by the Aviation police officers. These videos soon went viral as Dr. Dao could be seen being dragged with his bloody nose out of the plane by the police officers. Dr. Dao sued the Airline, and the Airline had to fire the aviation two police officers.
However, this has not been enough, and another incident appeared when a soon to be wed couple was ejected from the plane for trying to repeatedly sit in the upgraded seats. The real situation, however, has been very different. The couple had found his seats occupied by another person who was sleeping, so they found some other seats. After a flight attendant asked them to return to their seats, they went back to their originally assigned seats. However, a US Marshall approached them and ejected them out of the plane. Another gruesome incident occurred when a flight attendant forced a passenger to keep her pet dog in the overhead compartment. When the flight reached its destination, the dog had died. The company on this incident said it is investigating why the pet dog was put in the compartment when it is not the company policy.
All these incidents suggest that the employees of the company are forced to comply with the rules and regulations of the company to such extent that they forgo basic empathy. The case shows that the company has not been very customer focused. This is going to be discussed in detail in terms of its root causes in the following section.
Case Analysis
7-11-How United Airlines handled incidents
The incidents which have been shown in detail in the introduction part of this paper included the incidents of United Air employees stopping teenagers wearing leggings to board the plane, and the United Air passenger dragged out of his seat on the plane by Aviation Officers because of excess passengers, the ejection of a couple because of seat swapping, and the incident of a dog dying in the overboard compartment. All of these incidents show that the employees of the United Air had been completely unprofessional and completely rely on following the company policies blindly, which had been very outdated and impractical (Aquinas, 2009). Even though these policies of the Airline are bringing a lot of dissatisfaction among the passengers and the brand value of the Airline is also damaging, the company has still not stopped adopting it. This clearly shows that the United Air employees do not have the power to respond as it is only following the policies which had been already framed by its upper management no matter how offensive and impractical it is. The company has been critiqued a lot about the way it has been treating its employees and its customers. The united airlines have been famous for these PR disasters and how they then mishandle them. The underlying fault is the lack of company leadership. The brand identity and the company culture are at two contrasting ends. While the slogan of the company is to fly the friendly skies, the employees of the company are not friendly at all when it comes to the company policies (Maguire, 2012).
7-12- United Airlines view of formalization
The company, United Airlines formalization, is laid on the policy that is founded by upper management. The company policy has been totally inappropriate and inconsistent, as it is illustrated in many similar incidents. The formalization is the degree to which the jobs within a company are standardized and the measure to which the behavior of the employees is guided by the procedures and rules set by the company. The highly formalized jobs are the ones that offer very little discretion as to what actually can be done. The low formalization shows that there are fewer constraints on how employees can work their tasks. The employees at United Airlines are not given much choice in terms of how they can perform their tasks (Meyer, 2017). The employees of United Airlines were found to be liable to strict restrictions. The flight attendants were held accountable for the time departures. This puts a lot of pressure on the employees. There have been speculations that the employees are so pressured at the boarding process that it could be the reason that a flight attendant suggested putting the carrier in the overhead bin as he might not have heard the passenger because of the stress. Whatever the reasons, the employees know better; however, they still do what they are expected to do with the company showing the high formalization view of United Airlines. The company has been quite successful in earning revenues because of its employees who have been able to get the planes out on time. This pressure is, therefore, for the profits for the company and thus that how it needs high formalization (Ashkenas et al., 2015).
7-13-What United Airlines organizational structure should resemble?
In terms of the organization structure of United Airlines, I think it should be taller with numerous hierarchies. I think this is true because the company had a flat organizational structure, then it would have been able to use it to effectively report the incident, and the management would have heard about it in time and responded to it immediately for formulating new policies. The mechanistic organization structure is higher specialization based on which there is rigid departmentalization. There is also a clear chain of command in this kind of organizational structure. The spans of control are narrow, and it is more centralized control. The formalization is also high in this organizational structure as compared to the organic organization structure. The organic organizational structure is composed of a cross-functional team and has to cross hierarchical teams to support its decision making. The flow of information is free, and the structure has decentralized and wide spans of control with a low formalization of the jobs of employees. Naturally, united airlines had a mechanistic organizational structure. The contingency factors show that the size, strategy, technology, and environmental uncertainty is linked to the company structure. This all shows that with bigger size, stable environment, routine technology, and a cost minimization strategy support a mechanistic organization structure (Kortmann, 2012).
7-14- United Airlines should do in the future
United Airlines should first and foremost rethink their policies. This means that they should make their company goals more customer-focused as against more profit-focused. By changing the goals of the policy, the company would then beheaded in the right direction. The second important step to take would be to align its corporate culture with the company policy goals. The company should then strategies for re-structuring of its organizational structure. The company should delegate some of its powers to the middle management in order for them to make an immediate decision for resolving problems and such incidents. The company should also have to remain up to date in terms of its policies and how it is affecting the customers’ and employee’s morale and satisfaction level. The process of the policy review should be done on a periodic basis as well. The company should focus more on pursuing a competitive advantage by providing unique innovations and meaningful service as compared to minimizing their costs. This can be supported by the deployment of advanced technology for their applications and customer service. The company would need an organic organizational structure (Kortmann, 2012).
7-15-Employees actions and how United Airlines managers encourage employee
The incidents of the United Airlines show that sometimes following policies and regulations turn out to be unethical and irresponsible. However, if the employees are empathic and consider the situation from an ethical perspective, they could have handled the situation significantly in a better manner. Moreover, if the company adopts the approach in which it encourages its employees to behave ethically and help its customers even if they have to forego the regulations, the company will earn more by creating more goodwill, which will consequently convert into better profits after some time. This shows that having more customer-focused and ethical approaches will pay off in the long run for the company even if it seems to not pay much in the short run. However, the other alternative is showing evidence of hurting not only the brand value of the company but also its revenues as well. The managers and employees of the company should, therefore, be demanded, trained, and encouraged to show empathy and have responsible and ethical conduct with its customers (Kinley & Ben-Hur, 2015).
Conclusion
The case analysis can be concluded by showing that United Airlines has been wrong in pressuring its employees to follow its rules and regulations to the extent that such incidents can happen. The company has been pursuing cost minimization and has a high formalized employee structure, which is supported by the Mechanistic organizational structure. However, the company has been witnessing many incidents in terms of its employees, pushing passengers to unrealistic and harsh situations under the pressure of following the company policies. Therefore, it is suggested that the company should not continue to follow its cost minimization strategy and look over to review the root causes of these problems. The case analysis has shown that the main problem is the company’s high formalization and its rigid organizational mechanistic structure, which does not leave any room for the employees to choose their actions. Hence, the company should look to align its corporate culture with the company policies. However, it has to review its policies as well as it should make it more customer focused. The employees and the customers of the company should feel satisfied and ethical while working for and traveling with the company and not ashamed. The company employees have been found to have very low morale with such incidents when they were only trying to follow the company policies. The company employees consider the boarding time to be very harsh for the flight attendants and consider the pressure of putting the plane on time for departure as one of the reasons for treating the customers and passengers so badly. Therefore, it is suggested that the company should review its corporate culture and use strong leadership to invoke a new policy that is more customer-focused, empathic, and encourages its management and its staff to prioritize customers over rules. The company should delegate its powers to the middle management in order to respond to the situations in time.
References
Aquinas, P.G., 2009. Organization Structure & Design: Applications and Challenges. 1st ed. Excel Books India.
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. & Kerr, S., 2015. The Boundaryless Organization: Breaking the Chains of Organizational Structure. 2nd ed. Wiley.
Kinley, N. & Ben-Hur, S., 2015. Changing Employee Behavior: A Practical Guide for Managers. 2nd ed. Springer.
Kortmann, S., 2012. The Relationship between Organizational Structure and Organizational Ambidexterity: A Comparison between Manufacturing and Service Firms. 2nd ed. Springer Science & Business Media.
Maguire, E.R., 2012. Organizational Structure in American Police Agencies: Context, Complexity, and Control. 1st ed. SUNY Press.
Meyer, N.D., 2017. Principle-Based Organizational Structure: A Handbook to Help You Engineer Entrepreneurial Thinking and Teamwork into Organizations of Any Size. 2nd ed. N D M A Publishing.
