Last week we talked about financial incentives to improve employee reliability, specifically hitting them in the wallet. There are many other ways to improve this most-important of all employee characteristics. Let’s look at a few. Have an on-time lottery. Set a prize each week, if you are a 3 man shop, make it a $20 bill. If you are 30 man shop, a DVD player […]

I was in a conversation with a business owner the other day, and he asked me what was my biggest employee headache, and how did I turn it around. An easy answer—employee reliability—was number one. Simply defined as “Did the employee show up, ready for work, when she/he was supposed to?” In my thirty years of leadership responsibility this is the one thing that got […]

I have been inundated with calls and mail from the glass industry in response to last week’s blog on Joe Torre joining the glass industry. I’ll easily place him. The most surprising call, though, was from Rudy Guiliani, who said, he, too, was interested in the glass industry. I thought somebody was pulling my leg, but I called back and indeed it was hiz honor. […]

On a delayed flight a couple of years ago I was sitting next to Joe Torre, and we had time to really understand each other. He told me about baseball and dealing with George Steinbrenner, and I told him about the glass industry and Chuck Kaplanek. I told him how happy I was, and he told me how unhappy he was. The boss DOES make […]

At last week’s Grand Rapids trade show, during my presentation on working with your glass vendors, I discussed one piece of a road map. “Take time ahead of an annual meeting with your key vendor to study what you are buying, talk to your receiving department, the finance department and your sales group. There are basic questions to see if your vendor is treating you […]