Treadway Tire Company Case Analysis Case Analysis

The case study focuses on Treadway's Lima Tire Plant, paying close attention to the expressed job dissatisfaction of the plant's line foremen leading to a high turnover rate. The company had been faced with challenges, and it was forced to implement cost-cutting measures. The cost cutting measures were in reaction to the rising costs of conducting business. The HR advisor Ashley Wall had deemed it necessary to reduce costs by restricting the rising rate of employee turnover in 2007 (Skinner & Beckham, 2008). The Lima plant had all the resources necessary for leveraging the company recovery plan. Wall established that the rate of employee turnover had a direct effect on the costs of running operations. Employee turnover was causing dysfunction within the company at the time. The move from eight-hour shifts to twelve-hour shifts played a huge role in causing the dysfunction. The manufacturing plant operating for 24 hours was a nice strategy for the company because it allowed for the reduction in labor costs and maximizing the plant's capacity. The main issue Wall was facing was how to reduce the rate of employee turnover, while reducing costs for the company at the same time.

Analysis

Streamlining plant operations is not the only solution for cost cutting, and this was evident in the case for Treadway Tires. There were crucial workforce disparities that resulted in cost overruns. The company had around...

970 employees were paid hourly, and 150 were salaried (Skinner & Beckham, 2008). All the hourly employees were unionized workers, and they had union stewards who represented any grievances an employee with the company. Having a union steward handle, all grievances might indicate that there were cordial relations between the employees and the company. However, this was far from true because most of the hourly workers did not have respect for the line foremen, and they would report any minor issue to the union. The union would send a steward, and the line foremen were not allowed to attend the grievance committee meeting. This caused a breakdown in communication, and the union employees would rarely be disciplined for their actions. The line foremen did not have control in terms of enforcing work standards, because the of union interference and no management support.
According to Skinner and Beckham (2008) majority of the line foremen were promoted from hourly employees, and this means that they do not have formal college education. Wall had identified the need for training that most foremen lacked. Wall had developed a schedule that would have enabled the line foremen to gain hands-on experience in Payroll and HR, which would assist them in handling and dealing with employees effectively. The training program was never funded since the company was cutting its costs. The lack of requisite skills was a great contributor towards the high…