10个英语经典案例.doc

经典案例十：Johnson & JohnsonHuman Resources ManagementFacing Business Challenges at Johnson & JohnsonDoes a healthier work force translate into healthier profits? This was one of the key issues facing Johnson & Johnson CEO Ralph S. Larsen and his predecessor, James E. Burke, as they considered the challenge of managing the companys human resources and keeping employees satisfied and productive. Johnson & Johnson operates throughout the world, employing more than 70,000 people to research, manufacture, and market health-care products in dozens of countries.Employee health was a major concern for several reasons. Company studies showed that over 30 percent of Johnson & Johnsons employees were smokers, and one internal report revealed that smokers had a 45 percent greater rate of absenteeism than nonsmokers. Smokers also contributed disproportionately to the companys medical expenses (30 percent higher than nonsmokers), an ominous statistic at a time when health-care costs were rising at nearly twice the rate of inflation.Another problem confronting J&J was how changing demographics were affecting employees. Employees increasingly fell into one of three groups: They were part of two-career couples with children; they were responsible for an aging parent; or they were single mothers or fathers. A survey of 10,000 J&J employees revealed that they were frustrated by their inability to meet all their obligations, both to their families and to their employer. Many stated that they had difficulty finding day care, especially sick-child care and infant care, and almost 20 percent responded that they could not afford day care even if they could locate a suitable provider.Although these employees felt torn between family pressures and employment roles, they found little help at work. Most stated that their managers were unsympathetic about the dilemma. Balancing their work and family obligations took its toll on employees, who reported higher levels of stress, greater absenteeism, and lower job satisfaction.For guidance on these issues, the CEOs turned to Johnson & Johnsons operating document, the corporate credo written by Robert Wood Johnson, son of a founding Johnson brother and chairman of the company for 25 years. Johnson ranked the companys obligation to its employees ahead of its responsibility to its shareholders and second only to its commitment to its customers. This credo would serve as a blueprint for successful human resources management.So how could J&J top managers promote health in the workplace? How could they help J&J employees balance family and career obligations? What programs could be established to meet the personal and professional needs of their employees more effectively? What effect would such programs have on the companys bottom line?Meeting Business Challenges at Johnson & JohnsonRalph Larsen and James Burke understood that effective human resources management was the key to the satisfied and highly productive work force so necessary to Johnson & Johnsons future success. The first step toward improving productivity was to help employees meet their dual responsibilities to family and job. To start, the company opened child-care centers at its corporate headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and its nearby Somerset office. Child-care costs at these centers are limited to 10 percent of an employees disposable income. Then J&J expanded its child-care program to include home care. The company contracts with child-care providers to offer employees reduced rates on home-based child care. It also gives the providers advanced training and access to the resources in its on-site child-care facilities, such as books and toys.Under its Balancing Work and Family Program, J&J helps employees locate resources and referrals for child care and elder care. It also goes beyond the bare legal minimum, allowing employees to take family-care leave of up to one year after the arrival of a newborn or adopted child and letting employees arrange a flexible work schedule to attend to an ailing family member. Moreover, employees in some locations can set flexible schedules that allow them to better meet their family obligations and still do excellent work.In addition, Johnson & Johnson managers participated in training to sensitize them to work and family issues. To underscore the companys commitment to family care, human resources managers added a new sentence to the company credo: We must be mindful of ways to help our employees with their family responsibilities. This commitment to helping employees better manage family pressures boosted productivity by reducing absenteeism, tardiness, and stress. In addition, the companys commitment to work/family policies helped attract and keep qualified employees in a tightening labor market.Productivity was also enhanced by a wellness program. Live for Life was designed to emphasize steps employees can take to maintain and improve their health. The program sets four goals for employees: They should quit smoking, eat more fruit and fewer fatty foods, exercise regularly, and buckle their seat belts. At J&J headquarters, employees can work out in a gym, select healthy heart foods in the cafeteria, and check their weight in rest rooms. To encourage participation, employees are eligible to win prizes for meeting their goals. Over 35 J&J locations now have fitness centers and wellness programs, and 75 percent of the work force participates.The results have been impressive. Smoking among employees has been reduced to less than 20 percent, a decline of more than one-third. Live for Life costs J&J $225 a year for each employee, but lower absenteeism and reduced health costs have saved $378 per employee.Live for Life was so successful that J&J formed a new company, Johnson & Johnson Health Management, to market the Live for Life program. The new company assists with fitness center design and management, and it orchestrates health promotion campaigns in such areas as smoking cessation, nutrition, and stress management. Live for Life is available at 60 leading corporations and medical centers that together employ more than 850,000 people.Johnson and Johnson maintains other progressive benefits policies as well, including medical, dental, and life insurance and a generous 401(k) retirement plan. By making such generous attempts to help employees balance their work and family lives, Ralph Larsen is demonstrating that Johnson & Johnson employees truly are the companys most valuable asset.经典案例九：Hallmark Cards来源：新天地白领商务英语 浏览：2113次 Facing Business Challenges at Hallmark CardsSending the Right Message to Employees One of Hallmarks sympathy cards reads Please remember that winters darkness emerges into spring. Given the troubles at Hallmark Cards, its just the kind of message that Human Resources vice president Ralph Christenson wants to send to employees. From the early- to mid-1990s the privately held greeting card firm saw its market share slip from well over 50 percent to about 45 percent, as new players in the market made cards that were more attractive and up to date. Even though Hallmark sales remained strong at about $4 billion annually, many profit measures slipped dramatically. Its hard to say just how bad things were because Hallmark profits are kept secret, even from the 20,000 employees who own part of the company. But it wasnt good news when-Hallmarks profit-sharing contributions slipped from 10 percent of salaries to about 5 percent. Newly arrived in the Human Relations department, Christenson needed to find ways of keeping company employees happy. After all, the companys core mission is to communicate affection, love, and friendship through the warm messages that employees dream up. Hallmark started out in 1910 as a family-run business, and the Hall familys leadership continues today. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, the company has always attracted talented and creative people through its friendly and family-oriented atmosphere. Because Hallmark products are based on enhancing relationships, it stands to reason that the company would focus on keeping employees happy. For example, back in the 1950s, the Hall family set up one of the first profit-sharing arrangements for employees. Today, employees own about one-third of the company. In addition, the tuition-reimbursement program pays 100 percent of education expenses for fulltime staff. Other initiatives focus on child care and alternative work arrangements such as work sharing and job sharing. And the companys policies are flexible to meet employees special needs, such as allowing time off to care for aging parents. Overall, the company has always done such a good job helping its employees that Hallmark consistently ranks among the best companies to work for in the United States. But in the mid-1990s Hallmark faced declining market share and shrinking profit. Consultants suggested major cost-cutting efforts, including a merger of the administrative, marketing, and product-development functions for the various card brands. To save money, Hallmark threw out its old organization and the ways that employees had beep doing their jobs. With the new focus on finances, employees were concerned that their family-oriented benefits would disappear. Moreover, many employees feared that their jobs would be changed dramatically or eliminated altogether. The organization was in turmoil. Christenson had come to Hallmark because he believed the company cared deeply about its employees as people. Because of managements recent sharp focus on corporate profits, Christenson worried that Hallmark wouldnt be able to keep up its long tradition of caring for employees and their families. For the company to see its way through the current crisis, he had to inspire the employees who create and produce Hallmark products. Christenson needed new ways to strengthen the family-oriented programs and shore up morale.If you were Ralph Christenson, what motivational techniques would you employ to keep Hallmark operating at peak levels? During times of massive organizational change, what would you recommend to reassure employees and help them deal with stress? How could you improve the companys communication with employees. What steps would you recommend for maintaining Hallmarks traditional focus on employee needs?Meeting Business Challenges at Hallmark CardsAs the new vice president of Human Relations, Ralph Christenson was facing restructuring and disruption at Hallmark. Rumors of layoffs or massive job change and loss of benefits echoed along the corridors of Hallmarks Kansas City headquarters. Employees worried that profit sharing might be cut and that other important benefits such as child-care help, tuition reimbursement, and work sharing would be lost. Always known for its family-oriented atmosphere, the company had consistently ranked among the best places to work in America. But now employees faith in Hallmark wavered, and Christenson needed to reassure company employees that things would work out. Although Hallmark Cards was a healthy company, management knew the underlying cost structure was too high. Moreover, the time it took to deliver new products to market was as much as three years, far too long when customer tastes can change rapidly and the competition can react more quickly. So with the help of outside consultants, Hallmarks management developed several strategies to reduce costs and introduce products with greater speed. During this time of change, preserving employee jobs and improving morale were Christensons primary concerns. So he developed a creative solution for containing costs by looking beyond what people were originally hired to do. To retain employees displaced by the merger of three divisions, Christenson developed a program for retraining factory workers to l1andle office jobs. Yet another group of factory employees helped paint an operating plant while receiving their standard wages. When factory work is slow, employees can even choose to volunteer for community work while drawing their usual paychecks. And no employee with more than two years with the company can be let go without a case review by company executives. So with Christensons help, Hallmark was able to perpetuate its special caring for employees and its history of no layoffs. Then to speed up the time it takes to develop and introduce new card products, Christenson helped Hallmark create cross-functional teams. Before these changes, Hallmark artists, designers, printers, and financial staff were working as much as a city block apart even though some of them were working on the same card design. With the new team concept, these employees have been brought together into one room to create, develop, cost-justify, and produce new cards. This approach cut the overall time to market from three years to about one year and helped Hallmark compete more effectively in the rapidly changing greeting card business. Employees quickly adapted to the idea of working together in teams, and they embraced the opportunity to learn more about the companys overall operations. Next, Christenson addressed employee benefits. Although workers were generally happy with the existing benefits package, Christenson wanted to offer even more solutions to keep Hallmark employees satisfied. He needed to build a two-way communication channel that allowed him to hear employee concerns firsthand; he set up a series of feedback sessions in which employees could tell him what was on their mind. As a result, Christenson reorganized the human relations department to focus on a number of themes important to employees.经典案例十三：Starbucks来源：新天地英语 浏览：4201次 13 Product and pricing decisions ON THE JOB: FACING A BUSINESS CHALLENGE AT STARBUCKS Brewing Up Success Nationwide Have you had your coffee yet today? If so, did you open a can of Folgers and brew it yourself, or did you hand $2 to a barista and ask for a single tall skinny mocha no whip with extra cocoa? More and more coffee drinkers are getting their daily dose of java from Starbucks Coffee Company. Founded in 1971, Starbucks originally sold its trademark dark-roasted coffee beans in a few Seattle stores. But everything changed when current chairman and CEO Howard Schultz took over in 1987. Schultz envisioned selling gourmet coffee beverages in hip neighborhood coffee bars like the ones he saw on every corner while vacationing in Italy. He wanted Starbucks to be a meeting place where people could exchange ideas and escape from everyday hassles. And from day one he wanted to go national.Schultz focused on building a competitive advantage through a loyal, well-trained labor force that delivers consistently superior products and service. He also fostered a company commitment to employer responsibility, environmental stewardship, passion for coffee, and integrity in customer relations. His efforts paid off. In a decade, Starbucks grew to over 1,100 stores in 22 states and 3 foreign countries. In the United States, Starbucks literally changed the defi1ition of a good cup of coffee. Loyal customers are described as religious about the product. In fact, Starbucks is so highly regarded that the company is leveraging its reputation with brand extensions. Bottled coffee beverages, ice cream, music CDs, and a coffee-laced beer now bear the Starbucks logo and are available on grocery store shelves. In addition, the company receives hundreds of joint venture proposals for new products every week.But even though the success of Schultzs vision has led to unprecedented opportunities, it has also created new challenges. Rapid expansion has led some consumers to view Starbucks as a corporate villain that rides into town, throws down a lump of cash to get the best locations, and then drives the local cafes out of business. Locals fear that a Starbucks on the corner means the loss of a communitys unique character. Brand extensions also raise new concerns; Although initial products have proven successful, they run the risk of diluting Starbucks core identity as a premium coffee company. The company also faces the challenge of keeping quality consistent as the company continues to grow. Starbucks sets customers expectations high, and it must continue to meet those expectations to stay ahead of new competitors that enter the market almost daily.These concerns weighed heavily on the minds of Schultzs marketing team as Starbucks celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday. Team members were developing a new marketing strategy that they hoped would establish Starbucks image and assure its future success nationwide. If you were on that team, what would you do to maintain Starbucks leadership position? How would you evaluate the potential of new products? How would you define your target markets? What image would you want consumers to have of Starbucks, and how would you maintain that image as the company continues to grow? On the Job: Meeting Business Challenges at Starbucks Starbucks entered its twenty-sixth year as the uncontested leader of the gourmet coffee market. The company had already experienced incredible growth, with sales approaching $700 million in 1996, and Schultz had plans to continue expanding, opening almost 900 new stores over the next several years. But the coming years would undoubtedly prove challenging. Competitors like The Second Cup, Seattles Best Coffee, and Barnies had expansion plans of their own. And many companies imitated Schultzs formula for success with the hope of beating Starbucks at its own game. The Starbucks marketing team had to be savvy