Assessment Information

Southwest Airlines is a well-known company featured in our textbook. Throughout the course, you will take on the fictional role of an intern at Southwest Airlines Human Resources. You will utilize the textbook and other professional resources to complete your assessments.

Your first weeks on the job are filled with learning the ins and outs of Human Resources and the industry. Your manager informs you that one of your projects is to assist with a new HR strategy for the company. This strategy is broken down into 3 parts that you'll work on throughout the course. They are:

Examining current practices

Talent recruitment and selection

Strategy recommendation

Your first task for this competency assessment is to examine Southwest's current HR practices, as reported in public sources.

Instructions

For each of these 7 HR design decisions, check the box for the choice that most matches where you think Southwest Human Resources falls. While the organization likely does not fall cleanly into one or the other extreme, pick the one that it more clearly resembles. Then, in the right-hand column, evaluate how well that choice works.

Items to consider, but not limited to, in your analysis include:

The impact on company performance of the approach

Effectiveness of the approach

The impact on employee morale and engagement of the approach

Alignment with the strategy of the approach

Design Decisions

Design Decisions

Choices	Analysis of how well each choice works
View of employees
Employees as expenses	Employees as assets
Compensation
Below market	Competitive	Above market
Training and Development
Spontaneous	Planned
Job Descriptions
Specific	General
Recruitment
External	Mixed	Internal
Onboarding - Socialization of new employees
Limited	Extensive
Bargaining
Collective	Individual

References