Delta’s Allison Ausband on People-First Culture and Business Success

Roula Amire
2025-09-03T15:11:49-04:00
Podcast
Great Place To Work

Allison Ausband, EVP and chief people officer at Delta Air Lines, joined the Better podcast to share how Delta’s people-first culture has propelled the company’s success — including a dramatic leap from No. 94 to No. 15 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For? list in just one year.

Ausband began her career as a flight attendant and now leads the charge in creating a workplace where employees feel valued, heard, and supported. “If our people know they matter,” she says, “they’ll serve our customers extremely well — and that drives business success.”

On the 79-rank jump on Fortune from No. 94 to No. 15:

It’s people first, and it started 100 years ago. We've had nine CEOs and they all put people first in everything we do. When you put your people first, it's also about listening to them and then responding, and acting.

Our founder said, and I'll paraphrase, ‘We can all buy the same Airbus 350. We can buy the same snacks. We can buy the same airplane seat. But one thing that others can't replicate is the Delta people.’ If you ask our CEO Ed Bastian what his No. 1 job is, he says, ‘Take care of Delta people.’

On how Delta culture drives business success:

We firmly believe that if we put our people first, we are putting our customers first. We want to make sure that the 100,000 people at Delta know they matter. And if they know they matter, they are going to serve our customers extremely well. And if our customers keep coming back when we serve them really well, then our investors are going to get paid, and it comes back full circle.

We firmly believe that if we put our people first, we are putting our customers first.

On the importance of profit-sharing with employees ($1.4 billion in 2024):

Feb. 14 is the best day ever. Not because it's Valentine's Day, but because we get to go thank 100,000 people on profit sharing day. This is a day that we can all stop and say, ‘Thank you for what you've accomplished for Delta.’

We can't get anywhere without teamwork at Delta. We’ve got a huge frontline team and we've also got people at headquarters, and it takes all of us to get that customer in that seat. It's about teamwork and shared success. We’ve gotten to where we've gotten by working together, not by a single individual.

This profit-sharing program has been wildly successful. In the end, it's about industry leading total compensation for industry leading performance. That's our commitment to our people and one that we continue to live up to.On the ‘Behind the Wings’ program, where corporate workers see how frontline operations run:

One of our values at Delta is servant leadership. And to me, this is a great example of servant leadership where we empty out our headquarters and our executives really walk the walk of our frontline teams, stand beside them, roll up their sleeves, help check people in, and guide people at our airport.

It’s invaluable for us to see where we can help our frontline improve things. And at the same time, our frontline gets extra set of hands, which is fantastic.

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On ‘Velvet’ listening sessions with frontline employees:

We’re in our 19th year, so this is something we've been committed to. We kicked them off in a deserted Macy's building in downtown Atlanta. It was called the Velvet Rope so our employees can see behind the rope. We have anywhere from 600-800 employees from every area of Delta. Our CEO and all our senior leaders participate in it; it’s something none of us miss, because we get as much out of it as we hope those that attend Velvet do.

It’s an opportunity to align around the mission and celebrate. We recently celebrated one of our employees who donated a kidney to a customer, saved the customer's life and actually saved her life because she found out she had issues. We celebrate major milestones, service anniversaries, 50-year employees, etc. It's an opportunity to recognize and celebrate, and at the same time, hear what they need, what's working well, and what isn't working well for them every day.