Getting buy-in
Prior to Bedford’s arrival, Republic Airways had gone through three CEO changes in two years. There was a lot of skepticism among the ranks, and employees wondered if Bedford was part of the system or simply another face that would pocket a fee and leave in a year.
“Try to make your employees partners in your business,” Bedford says. “As difficult as it is for management to change, it’s even harder for employees because they don’t have the same information that the management team has. Sometimes information is competitively sensitive; you can’t just broadcast it to your employees.
“To the extent you can, you need to make sure you’re being open and honest with your frontline people.”
One thing Republic did have going for it was a strong, dedicated group of employees. Bedford knew that for his changes to take root, he needed to win over the frontline workers.
“We discovered we had an airline that had a great corporate culture — [like] a family-run business, a small business, a company with a soul,” he says. “We needed to leverage these strengths with more of a financial discipline and a model that would provide the most value for its customers and still make a profit and return.”
Bedford knew trust and respect could only develop over time by being upfront with employees.
“Just being honest with them about the steps that we were going to take, realizing things weren’t going to change overnight,” he says. “Let’s take a 30-day view of the world, a 90-day view of the world and a one-year view of the world. Here’s what we’re going to do, when we’re going to do it, and then you can grade accordingly.
“As long as we were meeting or exceeding the deliverables, that was building the foundation for trust.”
E-mails weren’t going to cut it. Bedford knew he had to provide, at least in the beginning, face-to-face contact.
“I spent my first 90 days just going out visiting with all the employees,” Bedford says. “We took one of our small turboprops and flew it to all of our cities that we operate in and met all of our employees. Back then, we only had about 600 people, so we could do that. Then we tried to give them an assessment of where we were.”
Despite the fact that the company has grown much larger, Bedford still prefers to deliver his messages face-to-face. Whenever he and his executives travel on business, they make sure to visit with pilots, flight attendants and mechanics.
“In fairness, the employees were just as concerned about the quality of the service that we were operating as our partners and our customers were,” Bedford says. “So, making the commitment to fix the operation was something they needed to hear as well, and then delivering on the commitment.”
A greater purpose
How a business delivers its service is often as important as what the service actually is, so Bedford set out to give the employees some guidelines.
“We tried to enhance what was already a good corporate culture (by) setting ground rules on how we were going to work with one another,” Bedford says. “We put together our mission statement.”
That statement includes all the traditional ideas of commitment and respect. And although it was true to the company’s goals, Bedford recognized the statement wasn’t exactly motivating.
“We decided we needed something that was inspirational and yet true to what we were trying to become,” he says. “So we created what we call our vision statement, which was to recognize there was more here than flying airplanes.
“We did something that some people thought was controversial at the time. We recognized God as an important contributor to our business practices and our business success. There was some resistance to bringing God into the workplace, but it was important that our employees understand where the management team was coming from.”
Instilling the value throughout the company has had a profound effect on the entire organization.
“We do have a Christian value system, and we’re not ashamed of it,” Bedford says. “It’s not a marketing gimmick. I think it was stunning to many people both on the management team as well as the front line employees. By expressing those Christian ethics, it also puts some boundaries on how we do business. We’re not in the business to profit for the end of profit. This is a company that has a soul.
“It’s certainly not a hiring criteria; it’s not a box you check yes or no. People are smart when they’re making employment decisions. They generally make a decision that they want to go to work for somebody that has similar values and virtues that they do. We try to advertise what our virtues are, and we try to act on them.”
One way Bedford acted on the new ethic was by developing the Circle of Stars program to honor employees who go above and beyond the normal call of duty.
“We fly over 850 flights a day all over the United States, so most of our employees work remote,” Bedford says. “We don’t get to see the thousand good things our employees are going to do today. Their co-workers do. Thankfully, many of our customers write us and tell us about the great things our employees are doing.
“We created a program where employees can get together quarterly and look through the nominations for what we would consider our best and brightest employees based on real things that they’re doing.”
Take, for example, the flight attendant who noticed a passenger crying on a flight from Orlando to Columbus (Ohio). The passenger had missed her flight to Pittsburgh, where she was going to visit someone having emergency surgery.
When the plane landed, the flight attendant, concerned the passenger was too distraught to be alone, took the woman to the car rental counter, rented a car and drove her from Columbus to Pittsburgh.
That employee earned a $1,000 bonus for her actions. Republic honors 20 employees every quarter, and at the annual recognition dinner held in Indianapolis every August, Bedford selects President Award winners who receive a $5,000 bonus.
“If you give a person a choice of working at a place like this versus working at an identical company, but one without that soul, they’re going to choose this one every time,” Bedford says. “It does engender a loyalty and commitment that gives us a clear competitive advantage. It’s a nicer place to be. There’s more to life than work.
“If you’re going to have to work, let’s enjoy what we do. Let’s get the psychic income that we’re doing something more than just moving airplanes from point A to point B.
“It’s an absolutely vital component of this particular business, and not having had it, I’m not sure we’d be here at all quite frankly.”
Bedford’s vision has proven successful for the company. He has grown the operation from $85 million in revenue in 1999 to $905 million in 2005.
“Those early months, and even years, building that trust and rapport with employees has been difficult,” he says. “We can look back seven years and say with absolute confidence that we did everything we said we were going to do.
“Our employees are intensely proud of the airline that we’ve all created here. They realize we’re all in this together now.”
HOW TO REACH: Republic Airways (317) 484-6000 or http://www.rjet.com/