Genius or cowardice? That’s my quandary as United CEO Oscar Munoz continues to defend employees over the dragging incident in April.
If you recall, Dr. David Dao was dragged off a flight from Chicago to Louisville after he refused to give up his seat on an oversold flight. United initially blamed him, backtracking only after vocal outrage by the media and public.
In the aftermath of the incident, United promised travelers a new customer service paradigm including a promise never to repeat what happened to Dr. Dao.
But Business Insider reports that at a recent Glassdoor’s Recruit Event in Chicago, Munoz refused to criticize employees over the incident.
He reportedly stated–
It was about supporting our employees because for me, the objective is I cannot lose these folks. As much as people wanted me to potentially blame other people, I couldn’t do it because once they see someone who they think highly of — in this case, me — if they see them in a tough moment giving up on their principles and starting to blame somebody else, I think you start getting at the root and the heart of someone’s true principles, and I could not let that happen.
I’m not clear what Munoz is saying. I understand that employees look up to him. I also understand that throwing employees under the bus does not win union support. The buck stops with him, after all. But wasn’t there also an element of common sense that was lacking in the Dao incident? Do employees really need training not to board passengers that may have to be bumped? Or to threaten passengers with arrest rather than cajole them with kindness?
Munoz: Principles, not People
Munoz continues–
I had to support our employees despite the intense, massive, ugly scrutiny that we got because of that. It wasn’t them — it was policies and principles that got in the way.
I get that. I understand that employees were not empowered to offer additional compensation to entice others to voluntarily give up their seat. But I do think Munoz supports his employees best by holding everyone at United, starting with him, to a high level of integrity that treats every passenger with dignity and respect.
Munoz is wrong that employees are blameless. I’ve flown United for far too long. There are so many gems, but also many, many disgruntled employees who seem to go out of their way to antagonize others. This is a cultural problem that will not be cured overnight.
But holding employees accountable, especially now that a new customer service plan has been set forward, is absolutely essential.
CONCLUSION
While a smart CEO defends his employees, some things simply cannot be defended. I don’t envy Munoz’s precarious position, but do believe it is time to hold employees more accountable while empowering them to be more creative in finding solutions to customer service issues.
I think what he means by that is that there are rules set up by company and should be follow. In such case the employee was meerly following the rules. No one would think that such incidence might happen as a consequence. Mr. Dao being it a dr. and all, Whether they know it or not who knows. Maybe they think he would act a little more civilize and handle the situation differently to solve the issue at hand? They probably assume he wouldn’t resist? So the employee follows the procedure as any procedure calls for it. However, they have no control over how the other company (the security) would handle the situation. Thus what happens. It’s human flaws on both end. Of course what happened was truly unacceptable. So now better guidelines must be set up so no such incident should happen again. But what he is saying is that when employee follows company guidelines, they should not be condemn otherwise no employee could do a proper job in the future if they weren’t being back up by doing their job. I don’t beleive anyone could have anticipated what would have happened. Dr. Dao obviously wasn’t an average passenger. I wouldn’t have resist and allow myself to be beaten that way.
I can not believe you are still discussing this. As a “reporter”, you would have thought you did your homework.
The reason Oscar Munoz had a difficult time with this is because this was a REPUBLIC AIRLINES flight and crew flying as United Express.
Not one of the employees were from United. They didn’t go through United training, the crew who were deadheading were also Republic Airlines Employees. Oscar was between a rock and a hard place because he wasn’t about to throw another airline under the bus when he really should have.
Before you say “But they were flying under the United label” well they also fly for Delta and American.
Next issue is the Republic Employees had nothing to do with dragging Dr Dao off the aircraft. This was due to Dr Dao becoming psychotic and running past airport personnel and breaching security. Then airport security asked him many times to get up. He refused. The security officer is the ONLY person who dragged him off.
Not ONE United employee was involved and that’s the shame of this all. United, by virtue of the fact they subcontract Republic Airlines, is taking the hit on this.
I would hope next time you decide to publish old news that you do your homework. You hurt all 80,000 United Employees who had nothing to do with this.
Oscar Munoz just had a heart transplant yet still manages to maintain his composure despite idiots like you who love to report dirt rather than facts.
You fail as a reporter.
Reading this in conjunction with interviews he has done, such as with Richard Quest, I see his statement as an attempt to: (1) take the blame by saying his employees were captives of bad company practices; (2) tell his employees I’m going to stand by you as we implement a new culture and not look to blame you when the company doesn’t empower you to serve our customers better.
Its either:
– esprit de corps; or
– FA is an asshole, but she/he is our asshole. Only we can condemn him/her. Nobody else have the right to do so.
On another note, united has settled things with Dr. Dao and government didn’t even gave a slap on the wrist. Legally, nothing were ever wrong, only assumption and prejudice.
So, what he did was tactical decision to win favours from employee. And he can say to union, you owe me one.
His employees for the most part followed the rules. It was stupid on the part of MANAGEMENT to even try what they were attempting to do. He should not blame the employees, he should go to the stupid rules that the corporation has. Customer Service at UAL will never improve until they give the employees on the front line the ability to settle these issues instantly rather than have them explode. they could have chartered a plane to take
those crew-member to Toledo or wherever they were going, they could have chartered 10 planes for less than the cost of this single incident. Until they fix the rules and allow the front-line people to fix these things, the draggings will continue.
I think he is right to stand beside the employees in this case.
1. The dead head crew showed up at the last minute after people were already onboard.
2. They offered compensation up to the maximum amount allowed at the time.
3. They randomly selected people to get off. Dr. Dad decided to be a jerk and violate federal law. Despite repeated requests he simply refused to move. At this point the only option open to the employees (at that time especially) was to notifry law enforcement.
4. Law enforcement were the ones who ultimately removed him and they violated their own SOP in doing so utterly and totally botching the entire event. Especially when he was allowed to run back onto the airplane.
5. The organization that United should have thrown under the bus was the Airport PD. They are the ones who caused the injuries to Dr. Dao not to mention his own role in this. When a cop keeps telling you your going to get arrested and dragged off the plane and you refuse to comply on what planet do you think this will end well?
United’s failures in this case were not people it was policy. Policies that didn’t allow agents to resolve this without having to remove people from the plane who didn’t want to get off. I’m not saying United has people who don’t need to be held accountable. They do and they should. But in this case he is absolutely right to have the backs of the front line employees who truly did not do anything wrong.