Case Study the Treadway Tire Company

Organization: The Treadway Tire Company

• The Treadway tire company is a major supplier of goods for replacement tire markets and original equipment manufacturers such as Ford, GM, and Chrysler. In 2000, the Lima tire plant underwent a $100 million expansion; this increased the plant's capacity to utilize new technology for the manufacturing department. The rising cost of materials, global competition and a high turnover rate of the line foramens position, the plant was challenged to increase productivity. Director of human resources, Ashley Wall, knew that some things she could not control for example the cost of raw materials, she also recognized the could increase productivity and reduce overhead by decreasing the turnover rate of the line foreman position, the turnover rate of the line foreman is a serious issue and hinders productivity of the company.

• The company closed the Greenville, South Carolina plant in 2006, the Lima plant went to continuous operations implementing two 12 hour shifts rather than the normal three eight hour shifts, this was designed to increase performance potential. The line foremen are expected to deal with resource, administrative and personnel issues. There are additional problems attributing to the high turnover rate in addition to dealing with the issues mentioned previously. The line foreman lack formal training and are still expected to exceed target production, the lack of upper management availability and

conflict with the union, management and the hourly employees. The line foreman felt undervalued due to lack of promotions, only one foreman had been promoted to a general supervisor since 2007, complied with poor work environment, the line foreman job satisfaction of line foreman decreased leading to the high turnover.

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• The Company can address the poor job satisfaction in a variety of ways. Ashley Wall could on behalf of the company implement an employee feedback forum. The plant manager recognized that the decreased morale is due impart to lack of communication. When an employee is in an exceptionally stressful position they need to know they can voice their concerns when a problem arises in effort to arrive at a solution. She could also implement a line foreman training program, after the initial training refresher courses could be given periodically to keep the foreman up to date, this would let them know the company is attempting to keep them informed and up to speed with new innovations. The initial cost of the training program would be offset by the employee retention, increased productivity and increase in the employee morale. Yet another alternative would be to reduce the workload of the line foremen, they experience extreme stress at times during their long shifts. The amount of stress they experience contributes directly to the turnover rate, this