DTW Town Hall Meetings

Thanks to everyone who took the time to attend our first Town Hall meeting in 2007.
Crystal Knotek, SVP and I were very pleased to see so many employees in attendance and for giving us the opportunity to speak about the EIT process.

I realize that you have all been through a lot and the last 5 years have been far from fun in our industry. I think we can all agree that moving forward and creating a more positive work environment is something that would benefit us all. Positive change will take some time and I understand why so many people say, "I like what I hear, but its all about show me". I hope you took away the main theme of the meeting, that we want employees to be involved in the process of positive change.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done to improve our work environment above and below the wing and we need to commit to spending the needed funds to give you the tools you need to be successful. No question, we have to get a group of employees together and do a complete review of our ground equipment allocation and repair program. Who better to find the way, then ESEs and PMO, thanks Steve.

Joe Conlon will be working with your ESE Shop Committee in finalizing the summer plan that will allow us to maintain current staffing levels. Also Hussein Berry will be communicating the process for the 1 time Tardy Waiver. Andy Zarras was busy all day with our new hire CSA's, it's great to see new people become part of the team. More info to follow.

See you soon,

Improving Communications

One of the top actions on our "improve employee relations – work environment list" is improving communication. Our fellow employees have created a communications EIT and are actively working a list of recommendations to improve communications.

One of the actions is already up and running, The DTW Today website and my blog. A great tool to keep you updated on whats going on and to keep you in the loop. Also, coming to DTW very soon will be that “all” employees will have their own e mail address. With this, we are working on making computers more accessible to our ESEs. Hussein Berry and his team are finalizing the plan to create an employee work area across from our Employee Support Center (old Adman) that will have additional computers available to support your access needs. And we are working with Informational Services to ensure all Ready Rooms have computers. More info will be coming out soon from Hussein and our EIT communications team.

Technology and computers are great tools to assist in the communications process, but nothing beats good old American face to face time. The DTW leadership team and myself, recognize that we need to commit to scheduled employee meetings and increase our time just walking around and stopping into break rooms. I think some of our leaders do a great job spending time in their busy day to meet with their employees, and I know it’s important to you, so we all have to do a better job in this area.

One commitment we will make is having quarterly Town Meeting with all employees. These meetings will be in addition to the supervisor and leads meetings your directors are currently having. The first Town Hall meeting will be next week and will include a 30 – 40 minute presentation and then time for open questions and answers. More info to follow.

I know there are always questions and rumors out there, no need to wait for a scheduled meeting, please feel free to contact your department manager, director or myself and we will do our best to help clarify things.

Thanks,

Mark

A Day of Sharing

Congrats to all on receiving your first Profit – Success sharing checks. A historical moment at NWA and well deserved by all. In today’s business world, good companies have processes that allow all employees the opportunity to share in the success of the company and we truly want to be one of those good companies. It is all about learning from the past and moving forward. Yesterday was a good start in moving forward.

I really think “sharing” is going to be a word we use more and more at NWA. Management sharing more information, employees sharing thoughts on how to improve our work environment and of course the company sharing our financial success.

I look forward to next year and really hope we will be handing out even bigger checks based on even greater successes in 2007.

Congrats and enjoy,

Mark