Tan Sri Tony Fernandes: An open culture Airasia corporate environment

          The success of being the world’s leading low-cost airline is not only the fruitful effort from Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and his team, but also the working culture Tony stemmed ever since he started to run AirAsia airlines. He stresses over openness, innovation and a never-say-die attitude, thus, he practises open culture in the working environment.

In the physical working places of AirAsia, the management department do their work on a huge stage in an open space office with only few physical barriers between desks. Moreover, in the reception area, there is a flight attendant team where the chief pilots deserve for a corner desk monitoring the operation team. It is a sign of respecting the pilots are part of the team where they have their own physical space in the company even though their main responsibility is flying the plane. Although Tony is the CEO of AirAsia, that does not make him much different on his working space. His office is set up at the heart of the company with no walls or doors surrounded. Tony sees his team members in the office and so do them. The cafeteria is also another feature to be mentioned where it is set up for every single people in the team including trainee, captain and ground handling staff. This is to expose them to have interaction with each other regardless of working position. (Ghandour, 2012)      

A snapshot of AirAsia Headquarter at Sepang District, Malaysia.

Source: business.inquirer.net

            Tony encourages the employee to use their first name on the name cards with no titles at all. Instead of conforming to preconceived concept on the duty of cabin crew, Tony pushes them to develop their own personality. He looks every employee valuable in running the operation. Anyone inside or outside the corporate either, can walk up to Tony even just for a high-five or providing their opinion or suggestion or maybe just grumble about football. This makes Tony to be open and easily involved on every issue the employee or even the consumers discuss about in order to keep innovating in the industry. The informal culture helps in keeping the internal operating cost down since AirAsia is a low-cost carrier. (Govindasamy, 2009)

There is no such hierarchy in the corporate as well as the commitment to job flexibility, its culture and management style reflect Tony Fernandes’s personality as informal, friendly and cheerful. He uses his personal style in creating a unique identity for Air Asia. It is also evident based on his usual dressing with a coordinate of jeans, open-neck shirt and the signature Air Asia red coloured base-ball cap, visible even during working hour in the company. It is ultimately to provide clear and precise interaction under Air Asia’s unstuffy and open culture. (Grant, 2015)

Photo shows are the look of Tony’s office in Malaysia.

Source: business.inquirer.net