at Nucor plants everyone wears green hard-hats except maintenance personnel who wear
yellow so that they can be easily spotted.
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This approach appears transferable and the motivational effects contagious. Iverson recalls
when Nucor purchased a plant and immediately sold the limousine and eliminated executive
parking spaces in favor of a first-come, first-serve system. Iverson greeted employees on their
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Nucor Corp. and the U.S. Steel Industry / 18
way into the plant and recalls one employee who parked in what was the boss's reserved spot and
commented that the simple changes in the parking system made him feel much better about the
company he worked for.
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Compensation & Bonus System Leadership by example can only induce so much behavior;
one of the more visible aspects of Nucor's culture is it's compensation system, particularly the
prominent bonus system. "Gonna make some money today?" is a common greeting on the plant
floor, and discussion of company financials is as common in the lunchroom as basketball scores.
The bonus system is highly structured, consisting of no special or discretionary bonuses. The
company is divided based on the production teams of 25-50 individuals who are responsible for a
complete task (such as a cold rolled steel fabrication line, for example). The group includes
everyone on that line from scrap handlers, furnace operators, mold and roller operators, even
finish packagers. Managers get together and, based on the equipment being used, set a standard
for production. This standard is known to everyone in advance and doesn't change unless the
company makes a significant investment in capital equipment. ...