Spir-it, Inc. (B): Managing People

When Jack Sindler founded Spir-it, Inc. in 1934, he was the company's sole employee. By 1999, Sindler's firm more than survived its first 55 years. Employment was up to nearly 200, with facilities in two states and work done in three shifts. The product line--which had grown to 20,000 items grouped into 800 distinct product families--supported annual sales of $12.4 million. Richard Oedel, Spir-it's manager and then its owner in the 1980s and the 1990s, faced a number of challenges. These challenges extended beyond managing a product line that had grown increasingly varied, a customer base that had become increasingly diverse and dispersed, and a technological base that had grown to include a greater number of manufacturing processes. Spir-it's workforce had become increasingly international. Most employees spoke English as a second language, so supervisors had to be multilingual to be successful. Orders between the two locations were sometimes garbled, vacation policies were different, and health care and other benefit plans were subject to three different state laws, as were workers compensation and other state-specific programs. Oedel had to develop a human resources policy that effectively met the particular needs of his workforce and also effectively addressed the idiosyncratic situations that arose unexpectedly each day.

• Organizational behavior
• Production
• Managing employees
• Hiring and recruitment
• Diversity and inclusion
• Manufacturing processes
• Business growth
• Logistics