Tyler Hoberty MGT 361 11/20/12

Lincoln Electric Case What are the Vision, Mission, and Value statements of the Company? The Lincoln Electric Company is a global manufacturer and the market leader of the highestquality cutting, welding, and joining products. With the use of their technologies Lincoln Electrics goals are to make their customers more productive and successful. The Lincoln Electric Company has 6 principles that make up their mission statement. Total solutions, expertise, global, principles, stakeholders, and responsibility are all apart of these. They will be driven by customer satisfaction, and they will strive to exceed customer expectations. They will differentiate from their competitors by technology, quality, applications engineering, and sales, and marketing expertise. Over 40 percent of their total sales will come from outside North America. Lincoln Electric will also have manufacturing facilities located worldwide. They will base their human resources systems to attract, reward, develop, and motivate high quality people. With their continuous improvement they will be able to reward their shareholders and employees. The company will be responsible and maintain health and safety to every single employee. Lincoln Electric also has 6 values statements that they conduct their business in accordance with. They will respond to their customer needs and expectations with quality, integrity, and value. The company will recognize people as their most valuable asset. They will maintain and expand the Lincoln incentive management philosophy. Lincoln Electric will practice prudent and responsible financial management. They will strive continually to be environmentally responsible. Finally, they will support communities where they operate and industries in which they participate. Describe the operating philosophy regarding the customer, stockholders, unions, and their beliefs/assumptions about employees. James Lincoln said, It is obvious that the customers interests should be the first goal of industry. Lincoln Electrics main goal has always been to satisfy their customers. They will do whatever they can to achieve this goal. They will do anything in their power to make something better, more useful, and cheaper. Also Lincoln Electric gives last priority to stockholders. James Lincoln stated, The last group to be considered is the stockholders who own stock because they think it will be more profitable than investing money in another way. James Lincolns attitude towards unionism has never been too serious. There should always be a civil relationship between workers and managers. All parts of the organization should cooperate fully and happily. The Lincoln attitude towards employees is very important. The program must provide that what is paid to the worker is what he has earned. They claim the greatest incentive that money has is a symbol of success. There also must be complete honesty and understanding between the hourly worker and management if high efficiency is to be obtained. Describe Lincolns management incentive and employee bonus plans.

Describe each of the nine human resource practices credited with their success

As I mentioned earlier Lincoln Electric has remarkable HR policies and practices that have lead to the companys success. The first practice that Lincoln follows is recruitment and selection. Every job opening the company has is posted on the companys bulletin boards. Any person can apply for a job as advertised. You have to go through an interview in which you may possibly be selected for the job. A committee of vice presidents and supervisors interview these candidates. All selections are made by the supervisor who has the job opening. The second practice that Lincoln practices is job security. Lincoln Electric has a guaranteed continuous employment policy. This policy includes every worker who has worked there for at least two years. The workers are entitled to and guaranteed at least 30 hours per week, and 49 weeks per year. Also something very interesting about Lincoln Electric is they have had no layoffs since World War II. Even though they have faced some challenges over the years, they still retain their employees as long as they can. The third practice that Lincoln follows is performance evaluations. Each supervisor evaluates subordinates twice a year on performance criteria of quality, dependability, ideas and cooperation, and output. As supervisors mark on their cards, these are converted to numerical scores that usually average anywhere from 80 to 110. If you receive a score over 110 it requires a special letter to top management. Performance evaluations for managerial and all salary employees is conducted using 6 competencies. These include leadership/ownership, decision making and judgment, results orientation, teamwork/commitment, quality and customer focus, and finally creativity/innovation. All of these grades are given back to the employees and all employees get coaching at least once a year to improve performance and development. Also these grades can reflect pay and bonus decisions. When it comes to vacations, Lincoln Electric is shut down is shut down for two weeks in August and two weeks during Christmas. Any employee who has worked for more than 25 years is given a fifth week of vacation. As you can see Lincoln Electric tries to help out their employees as much as they can. Even though employees get some freedom management still has more authority. At any time they have the right to transfer employees or assign specific parts to certain employees. Even though this may sound strict employees still have a say in the decision making process. Richard Sabo once said, The most important participative technique that we use is giving more responsibility to employees. We give a high school graduate more responsibility than other companies give their foreman. Employees also have access to Advisory Board members, and all answers are promised.