Herman Miller Inc Case Study
Q4
Until 2003, HMI offered lifelong employment. How did this practice affect the company’s ability to staff the organization with managers and employees capable of executing the strategy? How did this practice build the organizational capabilities required for successful strategy execution?
Lifelong employment is known as permanent employees work for a single employer and are paid directly by that employer. In addition to their wages, they often receive benefits like subsidized health care, paid vacations, holidays, sick time, or contributions to a retirement plan. Permanent employees are often eligible to switch job positions within their companies. Even when employment is "at will", permanent employees of large companies are generally protected from abrupt job termination by severance policies, like advance notice in case of layoffs, or formal discipline procedures. They may be eligible to join a union, and may enjoy both social and financial benefits of their employment.
Lifelong employment facilitates long-term growth for employees, companies and industries. It develops seasoned personnel and allows company and projects to build on lessons learned. Project in particular, benefit from this information transfer, as teams and individual are poised to take the expertise and knowledge of one experience to the next challenge, building continuity for the entire industry. This experience results in better asset management and improved life-of-field systems that are safe and efficient to operate. Lifelong employment facilitate: improved engineering designs; longer lead times for manufacturing and sourcing of equipment; improved constructability; lower cost for operations and maintenance; opportunities for expanded development; stronger knowledge base to tackle tough technical issues.
Organization provides lifelong employees a much better benefit package such as paid vacation, sick leave and holidays. Most importantly, those employees normally can expect career
Until 2003, HMI offered lifelong employment. How did this practice affect the company’s ability to staff the organization with managers and employees capable of executing the strategy? How did this practice build the organizational capabilities required for successful strategy execution?
Lifelong employment is known as permanent employees work for a single employer and are paid directly by that employer. In addition to their wages, they often receive benefits like subsidized health care, paid vacations, holidays, sick time, or contributions to a retirement plan. Permanent employees are often eligible to switch job positions within their companies. Even when employment is "at will", permanent employees of large companies are generally protected from abrupt job termination by severance policies, like advance notice in case of layoffs, or formal discipline procedures. They may be eligible to join a union, and may enjoy both social and financial benefits of their employment.
Lifelong employment facilitates long-term growth for employees, companies and industries. It develops seasoned personnel and allows company and projects to build on lessons learned. Project in particular, benefit from this information transfer, as teams and individual are poised to take the expertise and knowledge of one experience to the next challenge, building continuity for the entire industry. This experience results in better asset management and improved life-of-field systems that are safe and efficient to operate. Lifelong employment facilitate: improved engineering designs; longer lead times for manufacturing and sourcing of equipment; improved constructability; lower cost for operations and maintenance; opportunities for expanded development; stronger knowledge base to tackle tough technical issues.
Organization provides lifelong employees a much better benefit package such as paid vacation, sick leave and holidays. Most importantly, those employees normally can expect career