Ber2dca

I think that's a naive line of thinking. Staff, management and customers typically have very different interests. Paying staff more doesn't automatically make them provide a better service. I've seen people on obscene salaries providing awful service, worse than what you may get from some high school kid in a part-time job.

I think the problem at United, more than anything, is the culture of the place and that's on management, but it's also on the long-time staff who say they provide service 'with a smile', but in reality are just as likely to glare, scowl or roll their eyes at customers.

bocastephen

Paying more is not a primary motivation for better performance, your analysis is missing the integral features of what drives people to do better for an organization.

bldr1k

This is essentially what is destroying US corporations. United had horrible employee sat, has had horrible publicity, isn't viewed positively by travelers and their board of directors is a bunch of morons that let this happen. Scott Kirby will do whatever makes himself the next wealthy CEO. Like many CEOs, he thinks cutting and increasing earnings is the way to success. Like Smisek he feels passengers are trapped. I just sat next to a United Pilot and told him I thought Oscar was great, but Scott Kirby was as bad as Smisek. He completely agreed with me and said the entire workforce is worried that Scott Kirby will destroy the airline.

twkidM3

United Staff has enough benefits.
They get to fly essentially free by paying employee rates. They also get to standby in every class.
Most of the staff that I know bring on their family to sit in Business/First on long international flights. We as loyal customers don't get upgraded.

Kevo171

It's almost as if airline industry consolidation has led to a situation where employees as well as customers have very little leverage against regional monopolies.

This is the logical result of what happens when there is no completion for customers or labor. Shareholders are the only winners.

gene2632

In simple terms when employees are really unhappy and feel cheated and used they don't give their best effort and the end product suffers. The employees are a big part of an airline's end product because there is a lot of personal interaction every time we fly. With a change like this I expect to see the end product suffer and that is going to effect me. Going back to the days of Frank Lorenzo running CO into the ground the service got so bad I simply stopped flying with them until Gordon Bethune came in and fixed things up. In those days I had a lot of options of carriers but today my options are very limted with the mergers and demise of many carriers so the whole situation concerns me going forward. Yes, it smack of Jeff S and he was a clone of Frank Lorenzo....My concern for the employees comes from my concerns about my own flying needs being met.

zymm

As somewhat of an aside, why do there seem to be so many awful executives in the airline industry? I've worked for some companies with high turnover and questionable management, but nothing like this.

freshairborne

Ber2dca

I didn't provide any particular analysis of what makes people do better for an organization, but this thread is about money - bonus payments to be specific. Quite a few people in this thread created a very direct relationship between payments to staff and the level of service they provide. But that actually depends on a lot of other factors, many of which can be summarized as 'culture'. And I am not convinced bonus payments are required to create a culture that breeds success nor do I believe that bonuses always lead to any performance improvements.

I'd be quite curious to see what their bonus structure has been up to this point, so if a UA staffer who posts here wants to explain the exact nature of their bonuses, that would be pretty helpful.

Lawyerneering

Smisek caught a lot of grief on this board, mostly justified. But Kirby is worse and needs to go.

artvandalay

Jeff Smisek "resigned" in September, 2015. United Airlines decided limes were too expensive in May, 2014, the same year their net income was more than a billion dollars.

freshairborne

ap14

UAL now has a job posting up "Compensation Program Design - Manager" on their united.jobs website.
"
The position works under the leadership and direction of the Director, Recognition and Incentive programs and leads the development, implementation,
administration and communication of all non-executive, non-union employee compensation programs, including base salary, annual or periodic incentives,
long term incentives, profit sharing, job titling and level architecture, business-specific incentives and other related programs. The position will be expected to
resolve complex compensation issues throughout all levels of the company, while balancing the company’s and employee’s best interest. The position will serve
as the primary liaison between the compensation team and HR Technology, IT, Payroll, Finance and external vendors to support the management of the
annual compensation cycle. Major responsibilities include ownership of market pricing strategy, project management, implementation and
maintenance of compensation tools for the business, and technology solutions for salary surveys and market data analysis. Other responsibilities
include compensation data analysis, modeling, and subject matter expertise on market trends and best practices to support the overall Total Rewards strategy.
"

I hope this is backfilling the person fired for coming up with this stupid idea aka "Total Rewards strategy". Considering this is UAL, I'll assume that is not the case.

Yea, good luck filling that position.

ctownflyer

The spawn of America West/USAirways have managed to destroy customer and employee morale at AA and UA.

Wish UA had brought back Bethune instead of this Kirby clown.

warrenw

Maybe Kirby is tanking UAL on purpose, at the bidding of AA, so he can later join AA again after UAL's demise?