Secret to WestJet's success lies in its people, culture: Durfy

CORNER BROOK Listening to Sean Durfy, its hard not to adopt his companys work philosophy and drink what he calls teal Kool-Aid.

The chief executive officer of WestJet spoke to the Greater Corner Brook Board of Trade on Tuesday, a day after the airlines inaugural flight to Deer Lake for seasonal service.

The Corner Brook native painted a tempting picture of the WestJet working environment. He said the people who work for the airline are the most important part of the company and that leads to a different way of doing business.

Some people make it at WestJet and some people dont, and usually they know in the first six months, Durfy said. Either youre in, or youre out.

Some people say, oh my God, Ive got to drink the Kool-Aid and they call it the teal Kool-Aid. Its because we have a certain culture and a certain set of principals we guide our lives by.

Ive got to tell you when I went there, it was like wow, whats this all about? But you understand it and you understand its what makes us so strong.

The culture is strong enough and works well enough that it was voted one of the best run companies in Canada, along with one of the best to work for.

He said the airline has been the top-earning airline in North America for the last seven quarters and its because of the people.

He said those who work at the company all take part in squaring away the aircraft between flights, from the rank and file to the chairman of the board and that illustrates the point that everyone has a stake in the success of the company.

Its all about the culture, Durfy told The Western Star. Its a tremendously empowered culture. Its about understanding how to treat people and then how those people treat our guests.

If you empower people to do the right things, then they will. If you align the interests of the people with the interests of the company, its very powerful. Thats what we do.

Theres even a group within the company called CARE, or Creating A Remarkable Experience, whose purpose is to propagate the culture in the company throughout its operation.

CARE helps WestJesters make their videos and plays that make the staff laugh. It plans more than 250 parties a year including the profit-sharing parties. Those are the twice-annual events where the people who work for the company get their profit-sharing cheques face-to-face from a company executive as a personal thank you.

He said the culture was something deliberately set up from the start of the business 11 years ago.

Our founders, they were a little upset with the way they saw air travel in Canada and they felt as airline people pilots they could do it better, he said. Sometimes you dont know what to do, but you know what not to do. They knew what not to do with airlines.

They had some good models. They looked at the SouthWest model and a couple of other models. They took a hybrid of those models and built this one.