Michelin’s Strategic Partnership with Indigenous Peoples Flashcards
The company’s culture focused on
excellence, innovation, long term employment arrangements and commitment to local communities.
Each new employee, no matter what position in the company, learned how to make a tire
Michelin’s organizational culture is reflected in five core values which guided decision making. These included:
oRespect for customers oRespect for people oRespect for shareholders oRespect for the environment oRespect for the facts
Beginning in the early _______, Michelin Canada began to notice a demographic challenge with potentially serious strategic implications for the company.
2000s
Its employees were aging, and some 70% of Michelin’s workforce was expected to retire over the coming decade.
AT the same time, the flow of new hires from the company’s traditional labour sources was drying up. Declining birthrates combined with a net outflow of skilled workers from Nova Scotia to more economically prosperous regions such as Alberta and the United States meant that the company would have difficulty filling as many as 1000 newly open jobs over the years ahead.
Michelinplants in Nova Scotia were surrounded by Aboriginal communities.
-The Aboriginal population was growing at a rapid rate, although also experiencing higher than average rates of unemployment.
Initial efforts to increase the employment of Aboriginal people at Michelin ran up against a number of longstanding difficulties, many related to ___________________
education and skills
Michelin had introduced a Workplace Skills Inventory (WSI)on which all job applicants required a score of at least ______% in order to be considered for employment
85
Among Aboriginal people, only ___% were passing the test needed to get hired
34
Other difficulties were more subtle but no less important. The plant itself, as described by Valerie Whynot–who was working with the Native Council of Nova Scotiaand the Aboriginal Peoples Training and Employment Commission (APTEC) –appeared forbidding to many Aboriginal applicants.
You have to realize that you drive by the plant, there’s a fence, a gatehouse, and mirrors. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. That’s very intimidating. […]Not only is Michelina non-Aboriginal world, but it’s a world of its own inside those gates and cement walls
Prior work experience was an important hiring criterion, but many Aboriginal people had found it hard to gain such experience
Reason #3 so far
Some of the problems in increasing Aboriginal workforce participation also extended beyond Michelin.
Lack of knowledge about Aboriginal peoples, myths and stereotypes had created resentments that, as one observer described, flared up regularly in local communities
On __________________, a formal partnership agreement was signed between representatives of Michelin North America, The Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, The Union of Nova Scotia Indians, the Government of Canada, and the Province of Nova Scotia
November 23, 2003
Five broad goals were defined, namely to:
In the partnership agreement
- Facilitate constructive cultural relations;
- Enhance linkages to the Aboriginal labour force;
- Promote employment, retention and career development opportunities for Aboriginal people;
- Identify potential business development initiatives designed to meet Aboriginal community priorities, including employment, and Michelin’s needs;
- Develop an action plan indicating both short and long-term strategies
By January 2004, however, Michelin was beginning to hear that its partners were discouraged.
Local Aboriginal people did not understand how to apply for jobs, and continued to find it tough to get into Michelin.
