Treadway Tire Company Issues

Treadway Tire Company Issues

The Lima tire company is one of eight manufacturing plants managed by the Treadway tire company. Lima is one of Treadway's best plants when it comes to productivity, qualitative, and quantitative management because they utilized the newest high profile technology and equipment unlike other tire companies in the United States. The Treadway Tire Company consists of at nearly 9,000 employees who are salaried and hourly employed. Lima currently has numerous issues that are affecting the company's growth such as 1) high turnover, 2) Low Morale, 3) Communication, 4) Lack of training and education, 5) job dissatisfaction and high turnover at the foreman level. Moreover, misfortunes never come singly. The entire manufacturer industry is facing some huge challenges including drastic increase in raw material costs and fierce global competition.

Treadway Issues

. One of the main issues in this case is the Foreman and his communication skills with other employees. The Foreman thought he was living up to the mission and vision of the company, only to realize that he may have been living up to those standards alone. It seems that many of the staff members and managers have an issue with communicating with the Foreman. The problem is that the foreman wants to do everything himself and not give the others an opportunity to really address or express their concerns. With this lack of communication comes a high turnover rate.

The company experienced 43% of their foremen quit the organization voluntarily (Skinner & Beckham, 2008). This comes with another issue that revolves around the lack of education as well as understanding leadership. They are not sure how to lead any of the other employees. This falls in line with other issues with a low morale and dissatisfying culture that is deteriorating from low performance, lack of supervision, and incompetent attitudes from managers. With the current percentage rate of employees quitting their jobs and the company carrying a statistics of high turnover rates can cause outsiders to view the company different and give them a bad reputation.

Another issue is that union employees are treated differently and affected by the workplace because of the chaotic issues. Because of these issues, their union usually protects them from negative situations, lack of performance, but since there is no direct power at be to tend to, it is hard for the union to address these issues. Skinner & Beckham (2008) questioned "if the authorities could even be trusted" (pp. 3-4)? Many of the hourly employees have direct supervisors they report to, however the line foreman still continue to give critical to them and are uncompassionate towards them (pp 4). Some of the supervisors mentioned that the foreman were also ineligible to adequately hold down their position due to a lack of training and education (Skinner & Beckham, 2008). This has brought about a more negative reputation against the organization and the lack of trust amongst other issues that occurred.

It is going to important for Ashley to have informal communication with the employees so they can have chance to express their concerns regarding the issues. She doesn't want anyone to feel unappreciative, or in fear of losing their jobs. She has designed herself to be open minded, positive, and expressive regarding what she sees and how it can benefit the organization and employees. Ashley is familiar with the Lima Company's production over the past years. Skinner & Beckham (2008) states "The Lima Plant made a $100 million extension and modernization effort in 2000, which allowed the plant to increase capacity and utilize new manufacturing technology" (p.3). This shows that she knows the company can be increasingly better than where they are now with the simple changes she wants to undergo for the success of the company. As a leader within the organization and