The road to excellence [human resource management]

Lakeside is an autonomous division of Aeroquip Aerospace (USA) and is responsible for meeting all its budgets, development plans and goals. It has been extremely successful over the last few years and has undergone a tremendous change process. In January 1996 the company was re-organised into product focus factories by collocating different functions together as a team. Self-directed work teams have also been introduced throughout the organisation, further enhancing the workforce empowerment and their strong teaming culture. Having created the culture for change, it was necessary to ensure that everyone cleared understood what was expected of them. By creating clear alignment and having everyone pulling in the same direction, they have saved wasting considerable resources and energy. In order to create this alignment, personal planners were given to each employee every year. The planner showed the linkage from the Corporate Goals through to European, to Division and down to team/individual goals. Each employee signed their planner committing to specific individual goals that linked back to the Corporate Mission.