Treadway Tire

For the last several years, tire manufactures have been faced with a variety of challenges, most significant escalating raw material costs and strong global competition. In an effort to cut operating costs, remain efficient and stay significantly profitable, Treadway Tire Company’s Lima, Ohio facility needed to address their current 46% annual turnover rate of line foreman.

* This case study is principally concerning job dissatisfaction and company morale and their cause for the company’s high turnover rate. This is quite obvious in the very first sentence, “We have a serious problem.”

* The line foreman lack the proper training needed to perform their job effectively and most have a horrible relationship with their direct superior. There are clearly two reasons why many line foreman ended up leaving the company:

1. They didn’t have the proper training. The 12 hour shifts, variety of concerns and antagonism of the union helped foster a very negative culture that caused a tense and uncomfortable work environment. There was no training process that addressed these floor level management responsibilities.

2. There was conflict between the line foreman and their superiors. Instead of giving the foreman the tools and teaching them the skills needed to perform their job, management simply demanded results. Management often even threatened the foreman to get the job done, and the lack of leadership and cohesiveness ultimately caused the system to fail.

* The foremen were compensated with a considerably high level of pay. They were being paid at least $30/hr and all had the opportunity for overtime. However, the majority (80%) of these salaried jobs however were internal promotions of these unionized workers, not necessarily having any management knowledge or skill set.

To solve the primary turnover problem, we must also assume plant management is looking to address these secondary concerns:

* An overhaul the company’s current, and...