As we face the increased cost of raw materials and the rising price of crude oil; our labor cost and performance become noticeably important to keep Treadway ahead over our competitors.
We at our Lima plant should be able to meet our role as the best plant in the Treadway family. And part of that challenge to be the best in the market comes from a culture that is shared by all levels of employment. Our line-workers, our foremen, the supervisors and managers; we all must embrace this opportunity of interaction and share responsibility in reinventing ourselves on an environment of trust, professional advancement, quality and efficiency.
Problem
Three major areas may be looked into consideration;
1. Training - More than 85% of our employees are under union contract protection while most of our foremen have little knowledge of such contractual implications. As we look into our training programs, we have allowed this fundamental tool to fall into a discretionary action made by supervisors and managers that most times is only given in an informal way. Our present employee morale has shown negative effects in our rate of retention for our critical positions of foremen. As these positions are perceived as opportunities to grow within our company, our foremen (mostly promoted from within) have lacked;
• union contractual sensitivity,
• forecasting to meet production expectations
• and supervisory skills in dealing with conflict resolution.
Other training observations that may need consideration for efficiency improvement include;
• time management skills,
• payroll knowledge,
• how to manage a dispute and disciplinary actions as