“Toyota plant resumes making V-8 engines,” read the headline. But what really caught my eye was the pull quote immediately below. “Employees use 3-month break to improve processes.”

On August 8, in an unprecedented move, Toyota Motor Corp. suspended all V-8 engine production at its plant in Huntsville, AL, due to weakening demand. The engines are used to power Toyota’s Sequoia sport utility vehicles and Tundra pickups. Sales of these vehicles have plummeted in recent months in response to spiking gasoline prices.

Instead of simply sending its full-time workers home, though, Toyota, in accordance with company policy, kept them on the payroll. Not only that, it kept them hard at work, improving both the plant and themselves.

“It was the first time for [the company] to go through this nonproduction process," says Toyota general manager Mark Brazeal, as reported in The Huntsville Times. But “we looked at it as an opportunity…. The overall theme has been to improve our organization."

According to The Times, the plant adopted a “three-pillar approach” to filling the 500 idled workers' time—implementing daily kaizan, continuous improvement activities, focusing more on training and development, and encouraging self-reliance activities.

In all, employees invested some 45,000 labor hours in general skills and shop-floor training. Morale reportedly remains high.

Compare this to the way things are done at the Big Three, as well as countless other companies in the United States. Everyone go home and watch TV. We’ll give you a call, if and when we need you.

Study after study has shown that wages are only part of what attracts and retains good workers. Far more important is the feeling that they have a stake in the place where they are employed, that the company regards them as an integral part of their joint future, that it is willing to invest in them and sees them as a resource and not just an expense.

Imagine how those 500 Toyota workers feel now that they’re back on the job. Imagine how those GM workers are feeling right now in Janesville, WI.

 

There’s a good reason many Americans are reluctant to choose a career manufacturing—not to mention why GM and the rest of the Big Three continue to lose market share to the Japanese.