In 1994, employees at Continental Airlines were embarrassed to admit they worked for the airline that was ranked dead last among the major U.S. carriers and so often the butt of late-night talk show jokes.
Four years later, employee purchases of logo items from the company store increased 400 percent and employees were championing Continental's debut at number 40 in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list. (Fortune's rankings are heavily weighted by anonymous surveys of 150 employees at each company.) Last year, the Houston-based airline returned to Fortune's list for the second time, moving up to the number 23 slot.
The sea change at Continental has been largely attributed to changes at the top - and with good reason. In 1995, Gordon Bethune assumed the post of CEO and, with President Greg Brenneman, launched the "Go Forward" plan, a comprehensive initiative comprising major overhauls in marketing, financing, operations and employee benefits. Both leaders realized that internal communication would play a critical role in making employees feel valued and appreciated.
Then and Now
Once upon a time, "employees hated working at Continental. The company had no employee communications prior to 1995, and there was no trust between employees and management," says Ned Walker, VP corporate communications. Today, however, four people on the airline's 22-person PR team are devoted exclusively to internal communications.
"We work closely with HR, and we're on the executive floor, so we have a lot of face time with the CEO and president," says Beth Dombrowa, manager of employee communications. The "Go Forward" plan has spurred significant improvements in benefits, such as controlled healthcare costs, profit-sharing and more competitive pay scales. "It's our job to come up with ways to communicate those benefits," Dombrowa says.
Granted, these are the kinds of announcements communicators live for. In recent years, Dombrowa's team has faced the happy challenge of informing employees about a host of new perks.
For example, all employees with six months of perfect attendance are entered into a drawing for Ford Explorers, and the airline hands out cash incentives for every month the company ranks among the top five airlines in on-time arrivals. Most recently, employees who worked over New Year's weekend in anticipation of Y2K glitches were eligible for a drawing, in which the company gave away 114 checks for $2,000 each.
Yet even communicating good news is a challenge when you're trying to reach a global staff of more than 43,000 - many of whom don't stay in one place for long.
"Pilots and flight attendants are a very transient workforce," Dombrowa says. But they want up-to-the-minute company news. So it's not enough to post announcements on the company intranet. "We make sure the information goes out in every way imaginable. There's just no way someone can't find us."
Let Us Count the Ways.
Print publications play a leading role in Continental's employee relations arsenal. All staff members receive The CO Times, a monthly, four-color newsletter featuring corporate news, profiles of the various airports Continental serves, and updates on the "Go Forward" plan. A four-color magazine, Continental Quarterly (CQ), is mailed to all employees' homes.
For breaking news, email, voice mail and fax are critical pipelines. Continental's Daily News Update (DNU), an electronic report on operational performance and stock updates, is emailed to employees and broadcast faxed to Continental's 90+ satellite offices. It also is recorded on the airline's voice mail system so that traveling staffers can call in for updates.
On Fridays, Bethune records a weekly voice mail message to keep employees apprised of senior management decisions and activities. The announcement is later transcribed, posted on the Web, and blast-faxed to satellite offices. Employees are invited to reply with questions or comments by hitting the "one" key on their phones, or by responding via email. "Officers have been given the mandate to reply to all employee comments within 48 hours so that everyone gets an answer," Dombrowa says.
Most recently, Continental launched a toll-free employee hotline, and promoted the service by distributing wallet cards imprinted with the hotline at a town hall meeting attended by roughly 8,000 employees. "After that, we went from about four calls a day to about 30 per day," Dombrowa says. Next month, the wallet cards will be distributed as payroll stuffers with employee checks.
Measures of Success
While tracking incoming hotline calls is one measure of success, the real proof that the company's communications strategies are working can be seen in the airline's attrition rate. Despite an extended labor shortage, the turnover rate has dropped from 8% in 1997, to 7.2% in 1998, to 5% in 1999 (see chart), according to Fortune.
Houston, we have a solution.
Beth Dombrowa, Continental, 713/324-5080.
About Continental
Total staff - 43,000
PR staff - 22
Employee communication staff - 4
Employee communications manager - Beth Dombrowa
1998 revenues - $7.9 billion
Headquarters - Houston
Hiring Trends at Continental
| Year | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| # Job Applicants | 70,000 | 90,000 | 97,000 |
| Turnover Rate | 8% | 7.2% | 5% |