Spark: How Old-Fashioned Values Drive a Twenty-First-Century Corporation: Lessons from Lincoln Electric's Unique Guaranteed Employment Program

While factories across the Midwest shutter their doors, Cleveland–based manufacturer Lincoln Electric has thrived for more than a century. In addition to being profitable and technologically innovative, through good times and bad, the company has fulfilled its unique promise of “guaranteed continuous employment.” Workers are viewed as assets—not liabilities. Through flexible hours and job assignments, as well as a merit–based bonus system, Lincoln Electric’s employment policies have proven healt…