Paying it forward at Southwest Airlines

The concept of ‘paying it forward’ has been used in in various ways. Often it is a random act of kindness that someone does and it gets carried forward –or backward in this case.

So it is interesting to see it used as an expression of corporate culture, as we hear from Mallory Messina, an employee of Southwest Airlines, posting on the NutsaboutSouthwest blog. It involves paper towels in the restroom! Employees had noticed that paper towels were being left (dispensed) in restrooms, eliminating the need to touch the “germy lever.”

“every time I washed my hands in the ladies’ room, paper towels were magically waiting for me,” Ms. Messina noted.

She later discovered that this random act of towel dispensing had been happening in the men’s restroom as well. One more reason to fly Southwest: friendly folks + clean hands on deck.