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I am also leaving because I do not see the potential for me to grow into a decision making position within this company.

While I can accept that a privately held company desires to keep certain financial records confidential, it would have been beneficial for your key managers to understand the financial condition of the company. By being exposed to information such as the cost of goods sold, sales, general and administrative expenses and manufacturing overhead expenditures, we might have provided some fresh ideas on how to make the company more profitable.

But you never shared this information, despite the fact that I raised this concern in my last performance appraisal.

These things would be more bearable if it weren’t for the fact that you put a freeze on raises and promotions. While I understand that these are tough times and company cash must be preserved, how can you reconcile this decision with the luxuries the company can afford?

For example, you announced in last year’s staff meeting that the company purchased an expensive membership at a very exclusive country club. Additionally, you have taken some long vacations despite the downturn in sales.

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This seems to be a disconnect between what the company can provide its senior management (who are benefiting from the downturn) as opposed to what it can afford to provide its workers.

Over the past few years, I have noticed yet another disturbing trend in the company. It seems there has been a great deal of favoritism displayed, as raises and promotions have been given to people for no explained reason.

This has caused me to question the integrity of the people who make and accept these decisions. I could understand if the individuals promoted made noteworthy contributions, but most of these promotions were questionable because the individuals lacked the training, experience and education to do the job.

I was under the impression that this organization did not promote based on seniority, but it appears to me that the decision on who to promote is based on personal loyalty to the boss, and not necessarily upon the commitment to doing the right thing.

I will miss the people that have become my friends, and I believe that I have been a productive and profitable employee for this company.

Thank you for allowing me to further expound upon my reasons for leaving, and I wish you well.

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Part of the layoffs have been administrative staff, so I now find myself copying, stapling, collating, filing and performing basic clerical tasks. Would you not agree that this is not the best use of time for someone at my salary level?

You have told me many times that it is likely I will work on any day that ends in the letter “y”, but you must understand that I am not an owner. I have a salaried position and receive a paycheck, not dividends or profits.

I don’t think that you should expect me to have the same passion about this company as you do.

On a positive note, I do believe that if you provided employees with incentives, it would make a big difference in how the company is perceived. However, after waiting for 4 years to see such a program, I determined that you were never going to offer this to your employees.

The continual change in direction and lack of sustained focus may serve your need for busyness, but it has not (in my opinion) moved the company forward. People never seem to know what is happening next, so they simply show up at work wondering if “the plan” will change, and it usually does.

Other than increasing company sales, I have never been too sure of the company’s goals. Because you never provided objectives, work that my department completed and sent to you was frequently rejected, damaging morale.

Additionally, I found that you never allowed your management to make any decision of consequence.

Last Friday, I turned in my resignation notice after four years of employment with this company.

My decision was not a hard one, as many problems have transpired during the time that I have been here. Still, you asked me to reconsider my decision because you felt that I was making a mistake and would benefit from staying with the manufacturing company.

It has been said that people do not quit companies—they quit their bosses. In this case, I believe that you quit being my boss a couple of years ago.

Please let me provide you with the specific reasons I am leaving so that you might be aware of them, and perhaps even address them before others leave. Some people have already left the company due to layoffs, while others have resigned to pursue other opportunities.

The department in which I work has been downsized from 12 to 3 people in the last year, and everyone is anticipating more layoffs if the economy and company sales do not improve.

As a result of the layoffs, I have been doing the essential work of those that departed. While I understand that the company does not need as many people when sales have decreased, it would also be nice if the workload was reduced proportionately.

Unfortunately, I am now working long days and nearly every weekend. Because I am an exempt employee, this extra time is not compensated over and above my normal salary.

The second thing is that the company focuses on what they have determined is their primary aim: getting planes into the air.

Too many of Southwest’s competitors focus on something else; there are too many to mention here, but the reality is that with too many things to focus on, nothing gets focused on.

Southwest realizes that to make a profit, the planes have to be in the air, taking people to their desired destination. A plane that is not in the air is not making money.

Third, the company has an efficient organization. The fact that they fly only Boeing 737 airplanes is well known but apparently, until recently, not well respected by their competitors.

The efficiencies of having a single kind of plane to service, fuel and fly makes a tremendous difference for all involved. The learning curve is shorter and less steep.

The company knows who their customers are. Years ago at a conference a regional manager for Southwest told the audience that the ideal customer was not always a business person, although they served that demographic, but a traveler who had some leeway in planning the trip and was flexible about flight schedules. This could be a business person but was more likely to be a vacation traveler or a senior citizen.

Fifth, the company does market research by taking the time to watch customers during the airport experience. By sitting in an airport terminal and observing how different people deal with real and imagined obstacles, the company can take that first hand knowledge and use it to make it easier for those customers to be and stay customers.

As an example, those that use wheelchairs and walkers have an easier time today because someone witnessed firsthand what those individuals had to endure. The competitors of Southwest might see this differently, as a problem and not an opportunity.

Most organizations can learn something from Southwest. Do you hire the right people, for the long term? Is your primary aim crystal clear to every employee? How can you make your organization more efficient? Do you have a solid grasp of your ideal customer? Do you perform research by seeing how your customers “experience” your company? Answering these five questions could make a good company a lot better, very quickly.

Which one will you address first?

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The airline business is a brutal one. If you added up all the profits earned since the industry started, and subtracted the losses incurred during the same time period, the net profits would be a loss. Yet, consistently for the past 30 or so years, without fail, one player has made money, and had fun doing it: Southwest. www.Southwest.com

There is something to be learned from this well run organization. Many books have been written about this company, and many stories have been banded about on how the company got started and how it has grown.

Here are some of the key competitive advantages that Southwest has utilized to become a leader in an industry known for failures.

First, the right people are hired. One key to this is that the organization is not in a hurry to hire people. While the company has the same urgent need to fill positions as any employer, they want the individuals they hire to be the right ones. Southwest hires for the long term. The right people don’t get hung up on titles and job descriptions. People that work for Southwest do what it takes to get the job done. There is a culture of respect within the organization.

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There is a culture of teamwork. There is a culture of fun. There is a culture of openness.