Good Companies

There are a number of things companies can do to improve.

 

Their primary responsibility is to deliver good products and good value to their customers.

 

Companies need to treat employees with respect and honesty and join employees to increase productivity. Lean Management allows employees and managers to improve processes to increase productivity.

 

Companies need to recognize the true nature of the “employment contract”. Employees are “free agents”. In Georgia, they are employed “at will” and their employment can be terminated “at will”.

 

Most employees are quick to settle for jobs they think they will like and join companies based on proximity and pay level offered. Employee retention often depends on how comfortable they are with their bosses and co-workers. Employees realize that they need to “get along” and “fit in” with their co-workers and managers.

 

Most supervisors only hire the applicants they like and base their decisions on “gut feel”. Some companies have developed recruiting sources and methods to make the hiring process more efficient.

 

Companies have “cultures” that can be defined by their owners, managers, customers, employees, work activities and experiences.

 

Schwan Foods chose Salina Kansas to expand into the frozen pizza business in the 1970s. The work was physical and the workforce was mostly female assemblers and male maintenance technicians, loaders and semi-drivers. Ages varied and moms and daughters were co-workers. Rock music was piped in to the plant. When I joined Schwan’s in 1975, we had 1400 employees and we were the largest employer in Salina. We had a “work hard / play hard” culture developed by the founder as he was building his “Driver-Salesman” business to deliver gourmet frozen food to the farmwives. The employees were very smart. Many had grown up as “farm kids” who grew up with chores and insistence on high grades. They were disciplined and most were high school graduates. We gave employees blue wind-breaker jackets with a Tony’s Pizza patch on the back. We looked like a motorcycle gang.

 

I joined them as their Personnel Manager where they already had team building and employee development underway. Schwan’s already had a “no layoff” policy, a generous benefit list and a generous 10 year vest profit sharing plan.

 

I spent a lot of time in the plant and wrote their job descriptions and then created a wage survey to establish market rates. I designed a performance appraisal employees liked and established a promotion from within process. I automated security and payroll by adding computers and lowered the trash bill by selling the cardboard, empty drum containers and sold floor waste meat, cheese and crust to the hog farmers. I joined the effort to move the plant from manual production to full automation to increase productivity

 

Schwan’s gave lavish Christmas dinner-dances and Summer picnics with carnival rides for all employees. They never wavered in appreciating employees and it made them very successful. Schwan’s grew from $150 million to $650 million during my tenure and grew later to $50 billion.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader