In The Business of Caring - Read Why Shiloh Industries, Wellington Mfg. Division Supports UW
The employees of Wellington Mfg. Division have answered the call from United Way this year in a very generous measure. There are a lot of questions currently as to the stability of the automotive market. Our employees are very careful with their discretionary income due to these uncertainties. Nonetheless, when UW members partnered with us at our `05 Campaign Kickoff Meeting last month, our employees clearly understood the continued need of support in our community.
Over the last two years our plant has been hit with a number of layoffs. Our UW donations have reflected these conditions during 2003 and 2004 campaigns where the average donations per employee only reached $8, and $16 respectively. During this year's campaign (2005) we received an overwhelming response as donations exceeded $40 per employee. Maybe even more noteworthy was the fact that our number of employees contributing rose from 13% to 34% this year!
I have to say that we have fun with the campaign in two special ways. First off, we funded a Pledge Raffle where we raffled off vacation days, a TV and other audio electronics to those who participated in this year's campaign. However, it was Penny Wars that took center-stage. Started three years ago, this event is becoming the hallmark of our annual campaign. This is a fun way to get everyone involved and contributing from "pennies" to "twenties."
Here's how it works. The entire plant is divided into 4 competing teams and assigned a team jar. Silver coins and bills are positive points and pennies are negative points. So you see where this is going right? Team members are pouring positive donations into their jar, while sabotaging the opponent's teams jars with pennies or negative points. The winning team gets a company paid pizza party. Derrick Howard's team deserves honorable mention as they have won the event for the last two years! This year there was a bit of an issue with mixing of coins so our Plant Manager, John Leode, settled it by buying pizza for the whole company. He said, "our employees increased their contributions by 266% form last year, let's recognize everyone."
When our campaign closed employees had collected over 33,000 pennies alone. Finally, with our total donations jumping from $2,000 to over $6,000 this year it was obvious that our employees are committed to taking care of their fellow Lorain County citizens in need!
Respectfully,
Jeff Braun
HR Manager
Shiloh Industries, Wellington Manufacturing Division
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