Harvard Business Publishing: Treadway Tire Company
This case shows that the underlying reason for Treadway Tire Company high turnover at their Lima Plant has been mainly caused by their employees Job Dissatisfaction. I see the main reason as lack of the leadership. It seems like the upped manager expect the line formen to run their business without giving them proper training. Line formen see the problem in lack of authority as the main reason why they cannot resolve any conflict with the unionized hourly employees.
I think there is just too much expected from the line formen. They should not be responsible for the turnover, their managers should be. Their supervisors need to build better working environment for the line formen and the hourly employees so that they can work well with each other as opposed to have one watch the other one.
Another reason for dissatisfaction is that there is no room to grow for the line formen who want to move up in the company. In my opinion this is a good thing because it looks like the line formen’s style of leadership is driven by their management. I think this company need some fresh blood and really shake things up or they need to send their line formen to extensive leadership training so that they can relearn their leadership and reevaluate how they have managed in the past.
