Southwest Airlines is a well-known company featured in our textbook. Over the next 4 weeks, 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 week on the job is filled with learning the ins and outs of HR and the industry. Your manager told you 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 will work on throughout the course. They are:
Examining current practices
Talent recruitment and selection

Strategy recommendation
Your first task is to examine Southwest’s current HR practices, as reported in public sources.
Complete the HR Design Decisions Chart with your review and rationale of the elements listed below to decide where Southwest Airlines’ HR practices fall. Support the analysis with evidence from sources on the web.

Employees as expenses vs. employees as assets
Compensation below market, above market, or competitive
Spontaneous training and development or planned training and development
Specific job descriptions or general job descriptions

External or internal recruitment, or both
Limited socialization of new employees or extensive socialization
Collective bargaining or individual bargaining
Possible sources for information include but are not limited to:
Organization website and associated websites
Websites that specialize in company reviews and job postings
Magazine and journal articles from the Internet or University Library
ORG/535 v1
Wk 2 – Apply: HR Design Decisions
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
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
Copyright 2020 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved.
Wk 2 – HR Design Decisions
ORG/535 v1
Page 2 of 2
Limited
Extensive
Bargaining
Collective
Individual
References
Copyright 2020 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved.