UK 
United States
Samantha Cooke, HR & Coaching Manager at USAirtours, shares insights into how the business delivered IIP Gold Accreditation and Best Workplace in Travel with a fully remote workforce.
How has USAirtours built a culture that prioritises respect, collaboration and inclusion?
Building a culture that prioritises respect, collaboration, and inclusion requires clear values, strong leadership, and consistent reinforcement. Our company values - continuous improvement, challenge average and be supportive are embedded across the business and are linked to goals and feedback making them everyday habits. We encourage our department managers to be leaders and have provided training to help them set the tone by modelling respectful behaviour, encouraging open dialogue, and creating psychological safety so individuals feel comfortable sharing ideas and to both give and receive feedback.
Samantha Cooke
HR & Coaching Manager
Respect and collaboration is fostered with fair recognition and strengthened by aligning teams around shared goals, rewarding collective achievements, and creating cross-functional opportunities. We ensure that our hiring practices both internally and externally are inclusive and, as a fully remote working organisation we can accommodate different working styles and needs with our flexible working policies.
Sustaining such a culture depends on ongoing investment in training, rituals, and accountability. Workshops on inclusive leadership, unconscious bias, and conflict resolution build skills, while regular team check-ins and retrospectives reinforce positive behaviours. We encourage employee voice and measure progress with twice yearly engagement surveys and regular pulse surveys in between. This helps us monitor retention across groups and creates anonymous feedback loops ensuring our culture remains healthy and evolving. Ultimately, respect, collaboration, and inclusion thrive because they are lived practices shaping every interaction, decision, and process within the organisation.
