March 30, 2006 - Recruitment and Training

Hi, it's Glenn, and it's Thursday the 30th of March.  I am joined here in Chicago by Randy Rotondo, managing director, Human Resources, to give all of us on the call a full update on our recruiting and training efforts.

Yesterday, I had breakfast in Chicago with a number of key corporate customers, listening to their feedback and discussing the investments we are making in our business.  We talked about the work we have under way to improve our products.  We also discussed the important investments that we are making in our people and our ability to deliver on customers' expectations.

We have been talking on these calls recently about those expectations, and the different path we have taken in making decisions about the products and services that we offer.  Knowing what matters to our customers and how we can deliver what they value most -- more effectively and consistently than our competitors -- is critical to our success going forward. 

To achieve consistency across the organization, we are focusing on recruiting, training and employee education. 

We are designing a more effective recruiting process to find potential employees with qualifications, the experience and attitude that support our objectives.  We are also reinventing the training and tools we provide to support our day-to-day businesses and build the skills that we need. 

The Human Resource and Operations teams are focused on exactly that work as a top priority.  

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Randy.  Randy, over to you. 

Randy Rotondo:

Thanks, Glenn.  As you have said, we are taking a path that is distinctly United, and our ability to meet and exceed customer expectations rests squarely with our people.  Our success, in no small measure, depends on having the right people in the right jobs, with the skills and knowledge they need to make a difference for our customers.

With this in mind, we began taking a fresh look last year at how we recruit and hire employees -- and how we ensure that everyone at United understands how they can make a difference.  We have moved quickly to fundamentally overhaul our approach, combining outside vendors, new technology, unique approaches and internal expertise to deliver the people we need more efficiently.

First, we established a foundation for all of our recruiting that is focused on the customer and finding the skills, experience and attitude that put us in the best position to be successful.

With the foundation in place, we have created targeted programs for our major hiring efforts to find the candidates with the specialized skills we are looking for in each area.

We began this work on the ramp in the Airport Operations organization.  We started with a small program to recruit new supervisors.  We were looking for very confident leaders who could work in a difficult and dynamic environment.  To help us in our effort, we partnered with an outside firm that specialized in hiring former military officers.  The program convinced me this new recruiting method -- specialized programs for each job -- was the right decision for United.

With that experience, we looked to the next available opportunity, which was the hiring of 2,000 new flight attendants.  Again, we partnered with a firm -- Valtera -- that is known for designing selection systems that deliver the best candidates for customer service jobs.  Using models similar to those in place at Ritz-Carlton and Nordstrom, we defined the profile of the ideal flight attendant candidate.  Then we focused on creating a compelling offer to generate a large, very qualified pool of candidates from which to choose.

To date, we've received 50,000 applications for 2,000 U.S.-based jobs.  We've hired 1,000 new flight attendants, and approximately 200 are working today with training classes starting every Sunday.

The story is similar in Asia.  We're opening regional flight attendant bases in Singapore and Bangkok.  Within three days of announcing the news, we had 2,000 candidates in person at recruiting events in Singapore.   We're working again with Valtera and using a similar process to the one used by Singapore Airlines.

This effort has been so successful on the Ramp and with Onboard that we're now implementing the same process for CSR recruiting.  We've outlined new profiles, and we've redesigned the system.  We begin implementing the program next week.  

While we've been focused on service positions that have the most dramatic impact on our customers, we are now proposing to expand our new recruiting strategies to our staff organizations.  We're going to first-tier schools, such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia School of Business and University of Southern California, to hire top business school graduates into careers at United.  We're offering these candidates exposure to commercial, operations and financial department positions in hopes of retaining them as future leaders of the business.  The next phase in this program is to expand it to international schools with similar reputations, such as the London School of Economics.

Getting the candidates into the company is only the first step.  Once we hire them, we have to work harder to keep them.  That means looking at our training and our education programs to ensure all of our employees understand our business, our goals and their role in our success.

We've recently launched a number of programs -- Pit Crew U training, new hire flight attendant training and recalled pilot seminars -- that all work on the same principles.  In Pit Crew U, we teach participants how to meet business objectives by improving their processes.  With the pilot and flight attendant programs, we immerse our employees in our business -- how we earn money, why we make the decisions we make and how they can influence the customers' experiences.  We introduce participants to the leaders of the company.  All of these programs are designed to improve the service side of our business as we continue to improve our products.  We are currently looking for ways to expand these kinds of programs across the company.

To tie back to your breakfast yesterday, Glenn, all of our efforts to improve our recruiting, training and education are not just good business for us internally.  Several of our corporate customers in recent contract negotiations asked specifically about our work in these areas.  They believe these efforts impact their employees' experiences on our airline and factor it into their spending decisions.  Getting this right gives us a clear competitive edge in the U.S. market.

Thanks, Glenn.  Back to you.

Glenn Tilton:

Thank you, Randy. That's great work, and on behalf of the entire organization, we appreciate it.

This fresh thinking -- coupled with our success in the marketplace -- has reestablished our company as a sought-after employer, bringing people in from other industries and attracting experienced professionals from our competitors. 

It has enabled our new hires to be effective on day one of their new assignments, bringing to the job the exact skills they need to be successful with our customers and for themselves.

Beyond the investments we are making in products, the collective commitment of each individual and every team determines the quality of our customers' experience and the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations.

Providing ongoing support for our new recruits and all employees demands an equal commitment.

Randy has talked about training, and we are investing in better tools and technology.

We are also improving our communications.  We believe that transparency and sharing information, the very same information we share with customers and investors, is vitally important.  It means a personal commitment from our managers.  It requires leaders to be visible and to provide clear direction.  

Finally, it asks all of us to ensure that we are informed and that we are clear on the role that we play in the context of the company's larger objectives. 

That's all for now, I'll be talking to you again soon. Until then, stay focused on our customers, on one another…and on our new colleagues… and stay united.