Treadway Tire Company Employee Turnover
Unit 5 Case analysis
Introduction The Treadway Tire Company has been plagued with high employee turnovers in the line foremen positions. From low morale, lack of training and authoritative issues the foremen are deciding to either resort back to hourly employees or leave the company altogether. Ashley Wall a new Human Resource Director is left to research why the employee turnover is so high and what can be done to alleviate the problems. The company has to deal with a variety of challenges including extreme prices on raw material costs and immense global competition but finding a way to decrease employee turnover would need to be a priority.
Background
The Treadway Tire Company employed almost 9,000 hourly and salaried staff in North America. The company was a major supplier of tires to the original equipment manufacturer and replacement tire markets, selling Treadway Primo, Treadway Performance, and private tire brands. The Lima Tire Plant was one of eight manufacturing plants operated by the Treadway Tire Company. Located in Lima, Ohio, the plant building encompassed over 1.5 million square feet and was situated on 128 acres of land. About 1,120 people were employed at the Lima …show more content…
location: 970 were hourly employees and 150 were salaried employees. The hourly personnel at the plant were unionized by the United Steelworkers (USW), which had merged with the United Rubber Workers in 1995. (Skinner, Beckham)
The Lima Plant had undergone a $100 million expansion and modernization effort in 2000, which enabled the plant to increase capacity and utilize new manufacturing technology. Due to the updated equipment and technology spending, Lima had become one of Treadway’s top plants for productivity and quality ratings. (Skinner, Beckham)
Major Issues Some of the major issues for Treadway included high line foremen turnover. Line Foremen managed the day to day activities of the hourly employees. They were responsible for productivity, quality, payroll and time sheets. The manufacturing foremen constituted the largest group of salaried employees at Lima. Foremen were employed primarily in four main areas: Production, Maintenance, Material Control, and Quality Assurance. (Skinner, Beckham)
According to Wall, “Our most successful general supervisors and area managers have risen from the foreman ranks. However, currently there do not seem to be enough people in the foreman position with the potential to move up to the next level of management. In addition, none of the hourly employees that have shown an interest in the foreman position have a college degree. (Skinner, Beckham) The job of line foreman at Lima was a daily challenge, requiring foremen to juggle and resolve a variety of personnel, resource, and administrative issues in a 12-hour shift. On top of this, line foremen often felt pulled in different, often conflicting directions by management, the workers, and the union. (Skinner, Beckham) The top priority of the foremen’s is the tire production line. Each day the foremen have to ensure that there is an absence of technical issues that could possibly stop production during the shift and staff the production teams. Staffing caused a high problem for the foremen because of the shifts at the plant the hourly workers would often show up to work late or call in sick for their shifts. That cause the foremen to frantically find more workers and assign them different task that they may not have been trained for. An employee satisfaction survey conducted in August 2007 and exit interviews of departing foremen revealed solid discontent in the plant and highlighted concerns about the line-foreman position. In addition, several incidents had occurred that highlighted the tension between hourly workers and foremen. The plant manager of the Ohio location states, “the morale problem of the foremen primarily to lack of communication. Bellingham commented, “Foremen feel isolated from the rest of the plant. They are the lowest players on the totem pole, and they feel that their contributions are undervalued and their concerns ignored. Open communication is essential to this.” (Skinner, Beckham)
Alternative Actions The HR Director decided to implement some new training ideas that she felt would better help the foremen in their positions.
They would know how to handle each role of their position and could better manage the hourly employees during their shifts. Wall had been trying to create a new, month-long rotational training program for line foremen. The program would assign area managers as formal mentors and expose the new line foremen to the key processes in the plant. The new foremen would spend a day with Payroll to learn about problems with time sheets and paychecks, and a day with Human Resources to cover information on union contracts and disciplinary issues. (Skinner, Beckham) However, with the current cuts to the budget the plan for formal training could not be
implemented.
Recommend Action Treadway is still working on a way to decrease its high employee turnover of the Line Foremen positions. Although an alternative action was designed it was not feasible because of the budget cuts. Wall was able to design a plan of action that allowed the foremen to become better acquainted through formal training with the new position and gain some insight into all of the department that intermingle within the department and had it been implemented it could have brought about a necessary change that would have shed light on any other issues with the foremen position.
References
Skinner, W and Beckham, H., The Treadway Tire Company: Job Dissatisfaction and High Turnover at the Lima Tire Plant, The Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/content/19937721
Introduction The Treadway Tire Company has been plagued with high employee turnovers in the line foremen positions. From low morale, lack of training and authoritative issues the foremen are deciding to either resort back to hourly employees or leave the company altogether. Ashley Wall a new Human Resource Director is left to research why the employee turnover is so high and what can be done to alleviate the problems. The company has to deal with a variety of challenges including extreme prices on raw material costs and immense global competition but finding a way to decrease employee turnover would need to be a priority.
Background
The Treadway Tire Company employed almost 9,000 hourly and salaried staff in North America. The company was a major supplier of tires to the original equipment manufacturer and replacement tire markets, selling Treadway Primo, Treadway Performance, and private tire brands. The Lima Tire Plant was one of eight manufacturing plants operated by the Treadway Tire Company. Located in Lima, Ohio, the plant building encompassed over 1.5 million square feet and was situated on 128 acres of land. About 1,120 people were employed at the Lima …show more content…
location: 970 were hourly employees and 150 were salaried employees. The hourly personnel at the plant were unionized by the United Steelworkers (USW), which had merged with the United Rubber Workers in 1995. (Skinner, Beckham)
The Lima Plant had undergone a $100 million expansion and modernization effort in 2000, which enabled the plant to increase capacity and utilize new manufacturing technology. Due to the updated equipment and technology spending, Lima had become one of Treadway’s top plants for productivity and quality ratings. (Skinner, Beckham)
Major Issues Some of the major issues for Treadway included high line foremen turnover. Line Foremen managed the day to day activities of the hourly employees. They were responsible for productivity, quality, payroll and time sheets. The manufacturing foremen constituted the largest group of salaried employees at Lima. Foremen were employed primarily in four main areas: Production, Maintenance, Material Control, and Quality Assurance. (Skinner, Beckham)
According to Wall, “Our most successful general supervisors and area managers have risen from the foreman ranks. However, currently there do not seem to be enough people in the foreman position with the potential to move up to the next level of management. In addition, none of the hourly employees that have shown an interest in the foreman position have a college degree. (Skinner, Beckham) The job of line foreman at Lima was a daily challenge, requiring foremen to juggle and resolve a variety of personnel, resource, and administrative issues in a 12-hour shift. On top of this, line foremen often felt pulled in different, often conflicting directions by management, the workers, and the union. (Skinner, Beckham) The top priority of the foremen’s is the tire production line. Each day the foremen have to ensure that there is an absence of technical issues that could possibly stop production during the shift and staff the production teams. Staffing caused a high problem for the foremen because of the shifts at the plant the hourly workers would often show up to work late or call in sick for their shifts. That cause the foremen to frantically find more workers and assign them different task that they may not have been trained for. An employee satisfaction survey conducted in August 2007 and exit interviews of departing foremen revealed solid discontent in the plant and highlighted concerns about the line-foreman position. In addition, several incidents had occurred that highlighted the tension between hourly workers and foremen. The plant manager of the Ohio location states, “the morale problem of the foremen primarily to lack of communication. Bellingham commented, “Foremen feel isolated from the rest of the plant. They are the lowest players on the totem pole, and they feel that their contributions are undervalued and their concerns ignored. Open communication is essential to this.” (Skinner, Beckham)
Alternative Actions The HR Director decided to implement some new training ideas that she felt would better help the foremen in their positions.
They would know how to handle each role of their position and could better manage the hourly employees during their shifts. Wall had been trying to create a new, month-long rotational training program for line foremen. The program would assign area managers as formal mentors and expose the new line foremen to the key processes in the plant. The new foremen would spend a day with Payroll to learn about problems with time sheets and paychecks, and a day with Human Resources to cover information on union contracts and disciplinary issues. (Skinner, Beckham) However, with the current cuts to the budget the plan for formal training could not be
implemented.
Recommend Action Treadway is still working on a way to decrease its high employee turnover of the Line Foremen positions. Although an alternative action was designed it was not feasible because of the budget cuts. Wall was able to design a plan of action that allowed the foremen to become better acquainted through formal training with the new position and gain some insight into all of the department that intermingle within the department and had it been implemented it could have brought about a necessary change that would have shed light on any other issues with the foremen position.
References
Skinner, W and Beckham, H., The Treadway Tire Company: Job Dissatisfaction and High Turnover at the Lima Tire Plant, The Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/content/19937721