After reading The Lincoln Electric Company (Sharplin, A. 1989), I have come away with an in-depth understanding of Lincoln Electric’s culture. This company’s founder, James F. Lincoln, imbued the new business with his own personal values and beliefs. In his book, A New Approach to Industrial Economics (Lincoln, J. 1961), Lincoln speaks about not only utilizing a “Christian ethic”, but also an underlying belief that honesty and the customer’s needs should be the driving factor in his business. This belief still holds true with the company’s current priorities. Doing right by the customer is a priority, second to none.
Lincoln Electric’s incentive management plan, attributed to the company’s long-term success and high productivity, …show more content…
Harboring a focus on cost-savings, efficiency, and customer needs, Lincoln Electric provides annual bonuses based on the company’s profits. In addition to profit-sharing, employees are also able to gain “points” for implemented suggestions, which affect the individual’s year-end bonus as well. One more factor for employee bonuses is their bi-annual performance evaluations. As mentioned in the paragraph above, marks above 100 for a given category can be achieved during evaluations. So, as Arthur Sharplin outlines in his publication about Lincoln Electric, an employee receiving 110% on their evaluation would then be entitled to a bonus mirroring that 110% …show more content…
With supervisors managing vast teams, supervisor to employee interaction may be minimal. However, Lincoln Electric has an open door policy, allowing problems that arise to be dealt with by the most qualified individual, rather than a direct supervisor. By referring to the interviews conducted by Arthur Sharplin, it’s a safe assumption to say that upper management maintains open communication with the entire workforce, several of the interviewed workers stating that they have known the leadership for considerable amounts of time.
Lincoln Electric’s management style appears to have two very distinct traits. Decision-making seems to be predominately localized to the people involved in the process. Management allows their staff to operate autonomously in the day-to-day, allowing the workers to feel more empowered in their jobs. Countering that however, is the strictly enforced rule that managers have absolute power over the processes and final decisions. Employees are encouraged to participate and provide input, but in the end, the right to implement or cease processes or ideas is retained by the management
Lincoln Electric’s incentive management plan, attributed to the company’s long-term success and high productivity, …show more content…
Harboring a focus on cost-savings, efficiency, and customer needs, Lincoln Electric provides annual bonuses based on the company’s profits. In addition to profit-sharing, employees are also able to gain “points” for implemented suggestions, which affect the individual’s year-end bonus as well. One more factor for employee bonuses is their bi-annual performance evaluations. As mentioned in the paragraph above, marks above 100 for a given category can be achieved during evaluations. So, as Arthur Sharplin outlines in his publication about Lincoln Electric, an employee receiving 110% on their evaluation would then be entitled to a bonus mirroring that 110% …show more content…
With supervisors managing vast teams, supervisor to employee interaction may be minimal. However, Lincoln Electric has an open door policy, allowing problems that arise to be dealt with by the most qualified individual, rather than a direct supervisor. By referring to the interviews conducted by Arthur Sharplin, it’s a safe assumption to say that upper management maintains open communication with the entire workforce, several of the interviewed workers stating that they have known the leadership for considerable amounts of time.
Lincoln Electric’s management style appears to have two very distinct traits. Decision-making seems to be predominately localized to the people involved in the process. Management allows their staff to operate autonomously in the day-to-day, allowing the workers to feel more empowered in their jobs. Countering that however, is the strictly enforced rule that managers have absolute power over the processes and final decisions. Employees are encouraged to participate and provide input, but in the end, the right to implement or cease processes or ideas is retained by the management