Love Is in the Air at Work

While most working couples try to arrange their schedules to spend a few hours together on Valentine’s Day, few are as fortunate as Michael and Lezli Richie. This past February, the couple was able to work and enjoy a romantic getaway to Seattle.

Both are flight attendants at Southwest Airlines.

Though flight delays canceled their plans to go to the Space Needle, they ordered dinner and spent a romantic evening together in their hotel. The next morning, the Texas couple returned to the place they first met: work.

Michael, who has worked at the Dallas-based airline for twenty-three years, met his future wife, Lezli, in 2001 during “ground time” in the crew lounge and married her five years later.

The Richies are part of a growing population of people who found work to be a place for more than just… work. This cultural trend is perhaps particularly strong at Southwest, where 2,200 of the airline’s 32,000 employees are married to each other. Many met while on the job.

“It’s an incestuous type of company,” Michael says with a laugh. “The family atmosphere is a part of the culture that has been ingrained in us from the beginning.”

As “the most successful airline in history” according to Fortune magazine, Southwest has been committed to a philosophy of putting employees first since its inception.

“If they’re happy, satisfied, dedicated, and energetic, they’ll take real good care of the customers,” writes founder, Herb Kelleher, in a company blog. “When the customers are happy, they come back. And that makes the shareholders happy.”

Southwest not only touts itself, but trades on the New York Stock Exchange as the LUV airline—both for the loyal relationships it has with its customers and because it is an apt description of the employee environment.

Southwest’s employees are some of the highest paid in the industry and have one of the lowest turnover rates. In 2006, the airline received almost 285,000 resumes for just 3,363 available jobs.

Part of the employee loyalty stems from the number of couples and families that work together at Southwest, the airline’s executives believe.

 “You want to take care of your family and the company,” says Michael, whose sister also works at the airline. “And they’re one in the same.”

With fully half of the US population unmarried and the average age of marriage on the rise, it makes sense that people are turning to their workplaces for potential mates.

Employers may even be the best matchmakers, recruiting people with similar backgrounds, talents, and career goals, and placing them on team-based projects, where they not only spend a lot of time together, but also provide each other mutual support.

“There’s more of an idea of what’s actually happening at work,” says Michael. “We understand what’s going on and how unpredictable each other’s schedules can get.”

Longer working hours and high stress jobs have caused employers to recognize the need for a balanced atmosphere at work, and everything from on-site fitness centers to business casual dress codes are now the norm.

Once taboo, workplace romances are being accepted. A recent vault.com poll found that only 16 percent of employees were aware of an office policy on romance. As long as they’re kept professional and do not interfere with workplace responsibilities, most employers with tolerate office romance.

But some companies go beyond just allowing workplace relationships. Southwest celebrates them.