Not only were layoffs avoided, but 100 people were added to the company payroll by the end of the year. Stack regards layoff prevention as the primary management responsibility and sustainable growth as the way to protect jobs. Once the annual plan is set, compensation is geared to the year's financial goals, and bonuses are generated by exceeding them. This is the management approach that Stack found lacking at Harvester and finds lacking in most companies. At SRC, the process started with distribution of financial statements and the realization that most people didn't understand what they were looking at and didn't feel that they made a difference.
Special seminars supplement the process, usually on company time.
The process, which involves all 950 employees, begins with meetings at each of the 22 SRC units where income, sales, and cash-flow statements are drawn up for the year ahead. Representatives of the units come together to create a company-wide financial statement and goals and then return to share the total picture with their people in a series of meetings that include everyone. Thereafter, regular Huddles take place to track the goals of the annual statement. Having made every employee a businessperson, SRC has made every last one of them a potential entrepreneur. This accounts for the SRC miniconglomerate of 22 businesses.