Strange success (how a “strange” workforce can retain employees and customers)

Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 16, Issue 6

Cable D.Business Strategy Review (UK), Spring 2008, Vol. 19 No. 1, Start page: 44, No. of pages: 4

Purpose – Advocates a “strange” workforce as one that makes customers and potential employees want to do business with it. Design/methodology/approach – Summarizes the author’s book Change to Strange, and its model called the Strange Workforce Value Chain. Describes the“strange” case study of the Lincoln Electric Company, a successful welding company. Findings – Organizations need to stand out from the rest to be great. Lincoln is “strange” in that it focuses on product innovation, guarantees lifetime employment, pays wages on the basis of quality products rather than time, and reinvests an unusually large percentage of company profits into annual bonuses. Practical implications – Managers should decide what is strange enough to make job seekers and new employees see the firm as genuinely different, and develop a system of complementary strange features – as Lincoln does. Originality/value – Examples like Lincoln show the value of being strange; they are not to be copied, as they are strange in their own ways. ISSN: 0955-6419 Reference: 37AJ241

Keywords: Lincoln Electric Company, Innovation, Recruitment,Unique selling proposition