WILL BURT: EDUCATION

EVERY STEP OF THE WAY

Libin Raju
PGDM-B

CASE STUDY REPORT
This report is about Harry Featherstone who had rescued the Will-
Burt company from the verge of liquidation and improving its
business conditions. Will-Burt Company a small family owned
business was found on the verge of liquidation where it had its
insurance coverage just cancelled following a liability suit in which
the company had lost $ 6 million. Will-Burt had earned sales of $ 20
million . Employees had to spend almost 25,000 hours a year to
repair the parts of its products this was mainly due to low production
quality.
The employees in the company werent involved in the company
action this lead to an increase of employee turnover which was 30%.
Employees were paid below average salaries; this had affected the
employees morale to work in the company. Facing these problems
the owners of the company requested the CEO Featherstone to sell
the company. Even though the company was going through a dark
period of its time Harry Featherstone had a confidence in him to
change the future of the organisation. For this he had taken several
steps, since the employees had less involvement in the organisation
Featherstone had implemented Employee stock ownership plan
(ESOP).It is an employee-owner method that provides a companys
workforce with an ownership interest in the company. This made the
employees feel more committed in their work .But even after
implementation of this plan the employees found difficulty in
understanding the concepts. So in order to make them understand
Featherstone had given out the simplified handout of profit and loss
account statement were they it helped the employees in easier
understanding of the plan.
The next step taken by Featherstone was to earn profitability. The
company had a debt of around 2.5 million in addition the company
had owned $1 million to the bank as loan in which the first payment
of $250,000 due in only few months. So in order to earn a profit of
$1 million a year Featherstone had given more importance to
improve the quality of the product so that the company would also
save money and also attract new customers. So in order to improve
the quality of the product Featherstone had invested money in
educating his employees with assistance from university of Akron by
implementing as mini MBA program this had improved the lives of
the workforce. Will-Burts annul rework expense had dropped to
75% to $180,000 and the time devoted to remaking also fell from
2000 hours to 400 hours per month. Absenteeism had fallen to 2%
and workers compensation cost dropped from $ 160,000 to $662.
This had created a new wave of employee interest. With the
implementation of education employees had more involvement in
their work and better lifestyle. This had also helped the employees to
gain more career opportunities inside and outside the organisation.
These plans implemented by Featherstone had saved the company
from liquidation and from selling the firm.