Home-Cooking Approach Works at Airways Freight

The management at Airways Freight Corp. figures waffles in the morning and perhaps some spaghetti at lunch will help its employees feel right at home.

It seems to work. In fact, sometimes the atmosphere is so much like home, employees stick around after the end of the work day to socialize with coworkers in the company’s friendly Fayetteville confines.

“A lot of our people are in the 25 to 35 [age] bracket, so we have a lot of young married people,” said Denny Wood, vice president and general manager of Airways. “When we have a company gathering with all of the kids, it looks like a small elementary school out here. But, that’s what it’s all about … that type of togetherness.”

Formally known as an air-freight forwarder, Airways is actually much more. It offers international air-freight services by air and ocean. It also has domestic air and ground service. It deals with everything from nuclear power to public utilities and their vendors. But about 65 percent of its business is the trade show industry, both nationally and internationally. And three years ago, Airways started its own travel service.

“First of all, our employees are the biggest asset we have,” CEO Dale Caudle said. “You want to have the best technology and equipment to work with. But a lot of companies have the tendency to buy the good equipment but then not treat their people right. I’ve certainly worked at places that had a different approach. So, there’s always been a desire for me to have a company that operates the way I would have liked to have been treated.”

Aside from an industrial-sized kitchen where managers often cook breakfast and/or lunch for the employees, Airways also has a first-class fitness facility complete with dressing room, sauna, showers and lockers. Employees can spend their lunch break right on site.

“A lot of our operations managers are responsible for specific accounts and sales people,” Wood said. “They operate a business within this business. An example is they kind of come in with a blank check in the morning, and we say ‘OK, let’s play. Let’s see how much money you can make for the company today.’

“They have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. The business itself is a stressful business. We try to promote an atmosphere here where there’s not any built-in stress that is due to our environment.”

Airways is expanding its offices. The two-level, 12-year-old current facility soon will have an additional 15,000 SF to go with its existing 22,000 SF.

But material benefits at the office won’t keep employees as happy as the financial rewards.

“We have a pay scale that’s competitive with most other companies in the area,” Wood said. “And we have very good benefit packages with bonuses, 401k, health, vacation — you name it.”

Obviously, success has allowed Airways to treat its employees so well.

Wood has been with the company for 16 years. When he arrived, Airways had 12 employees and a big month in revenue was about $250,000. It now has about 85 employees, and the company had more than $30 million in revenues in 2001.

“The thing about our business is that it takes a long time to train somebody to do our job,” Caudle said. “There’s no market out there, so people that come to Airways have no experience. In our industry, our competition is at [New York’s] JFK, Chicago and Los Angeles. But with technology the way it is now, we can do it in Fayetteville just as easy as a guy can at JFK. We’ve got the same buttons and same numbers they do, except we’ve got a better work ethic than they do.

“It’s a long training period, so we have a lot of investment in our employees. We want them to stick around. To do that, we need keep them happy.”