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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ae8Gh93GbUfo&refer=home

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In both cases they are workers whose experience will be lost.

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I remember when the jobs bank program began in the mid-80′s at GM and the workers were assigned to help improve customer satisfaction and quality; a number of them became very good and conscientious go-fers.

You’re dealing with people and the variation that comes with them. Some have gone on to get their PhD’s while in the jobs bank while others had more trivial pursuits over such a long-term assignment.

For most assigned to this “training program”, I doubt their experiences would “energize them to look forward to the next morning with the positive anticipation for the awesome accomplishments to come that day”

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In the Jobs Bank program, you get paid NOT to work:

“Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working — on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.

‘We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, I’ve just sat.’”

Toyota provides their team members with job security, but they invest in continuous training of their people. Team members get paid, but they are not sitting around idly, doing crossword puzzles.

They will be doing 5S, training, and some kaizen (although kaizen without mass production is largely meaningless, in my opinion). Although it’s monotonous to do this for 3 months, this is exactly what Toyota did at their UK plant for one year, back in 1996-97, when the currency environment made their Burnaston factory highly unprofitable.

Toyota’s first and only mass layoff off full-time employees was in 1948, when they were on the verge of failing. The juggernaut we see today started off as a small business that went through extreme growing pains.

It’s hard to ascribe cause-and-effect here, but the promise of stable employment and long-term relationships are the foundation for Toyota’s success.

In 60 years, when a Chinese or Indian company has achieved Toyota’s level of success using low-paid temporary workers, we can revisit whether financial success is a prerequisite for long-term commitment to front-line employees…

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Toyota is in a MUCH better financial situation than Dana, which has been coming out of bankruptcy. I don’t think it would be fair to pin this all on Convis, since he’s not responsible for getting Dana INTO bankruptcy.

I think the lesson is:

1) Build financial security (cash position and profits) through long-term thinking and Lean

and then (and only then)

2) Can you afford to keep employees on board.

Or do you have to do #2 to be able to make #1 happen? What would you do if you were Convis?

ARTICLE LINK

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DETNEWS

Toyota can afford to train people while GM can afford to buy out 19,000 employees. GM can afford to close four truck plants and those 10,000 people are lucky to take one of the jobs freed up in the buyouts?

Sure, Toyota can “afford” to invest in it’s people (they’re not teetering on the edge of bankruptcy), but how could GM afford NOT to look after it’s people the same way all these decades?

Toyota is just people (they’re not perfect). GM/Ford/Chrysler are just people also. Toyota’s average employee IQ can’t be any smarter than the Big Three. They’ve just managed smarter over the past three decades.

Is there any doubt the true Lean approach is best??

But we’re preaching to the choir here.

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