Word: sheaffer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bigger profit was the result of increased efficiency and greater worker productivity which, said Sheaffer, can be traced back to the company's profit-sharing policy. From a bonus of 4% of wages in 1934, when the system was established, the bonus rose to 25.5% in Sheaffer's current fiscal year (e.g., a worker earning $2,400 a year got $612 extra). Another efficiency incentive: every worker who suggests a new method or machine for cutting costs also gets one-third of the first year's savings. Frequently, the worker's share may exceed...
...employees who work in Iowa's four air-conditioned Sheaffer plants have never joined a union, never gone on strike and their turnover of 3% a year is a third less than the U.S. industrial average for last year...
...Craig Sheaffer meets regularly with the workers' employees council, gives them the latest sales and profits figures, points out weak spots (e.g., a department's failure to cut scrap waste). "We have no secrets from our employees," says Sheaffer. "We've been able to make them see the reasons for things...
...Sheaffer has been learning the reasons since 1908, when, as a ten-year-old, he watched his father, Walter A. Sheaffer, experiment with messy medidne-dropper-filled pens in his Fort Madison jewelry shop. Father Sheaffer got the bright idea of putting the dropper inside, scraped up $35,000 in capital, and in 1913 started his company. Craig, after two years in college, hurried back to the business. In 1921, his father took a big risk. When most pens sold for $2.75, he brought out one for $8.75-with a "lifetime" guarantee. The gamble paid off, and Sheaffer became...
...rough going for a while. Parker Pen Co. pushed him out of first place, then Eversharp with its ballpoint eclipsed them both. But Sheaffer brought out its own cheap ballpoint ($1.50) and forged again into first place. Craig Sheaffer expects to stay there, confident that his workers will match the higher bonus with lower costs and higher productivity...