The Enterprise Leasing company of St. Louis Inc is based in St. Louis. Missouri. It deals with services such as renting of cars and car leasing. In addition, the Enterprise Leasing company of St. Louis runs a subsidiary company known as Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company. The head offices are situated at Clayton, Missouri in United States.Besides the business of rental cars, Enterprise is also engaged in the management of commercial fleets, rental operations of commercial trucks and in used cars. The company was started in the year 1957 with the name Executive Leasing Company but later on the founder, Mr. Andrew C. Taylor, renamed it Enterprise in commemoration of the USS Enterprise aircraft he served in the World War II. Enterprise became a subsidiary of the Enterprise Holdings, Inc. In the years 2009 as a result of the getting hold of Vanguard Automotive Group (parent company of both the Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental). In the Years 2007, the resulting company was listed 21st in the Forbes’ Largest Private Companies in the United States of America. The Enterprise Rent-A-Car St Louis Group Administrative Office is also situated at 29 Hunter Avenue, St Louis Mo 63124. The Enterprise Rent-A- Car deals with the following services namely: Daily Rental, Long Distance Rentals, Commercial Accounts, Local Rentals, Long Term Rental, One-way Rentals, Online Reservations, Rental Insurance, Short Term Rental, Weekly Rental, Nationwide Reservations, Weekend Rental and Worldwide Reservations. Some of the products that the Enterprise Rent-A-Car St Louis offers include Minivans, Convertible and Sport Utility. It is the largest rental car company in the United States having local markets exceeding 5,400 which represents ninety five percent of all the transactions. It also has around thirty percent of airport locations i.e. 419 in the US. The Detroit News has reported that Enterprise buys 7% of all the automobiles that are sold in the United States of America. Enterprise Rent a car specializes in car rentals to those consumers that need replacement cars due to mechanical repair, accidents, theft or specific occasions (e.g. trip or short business)(enterprise Leasing Company). It's expansion process that began in the year 1990 has now entered United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland. As at the year 1994, Enterprise had been recognized by the J.D. Power and Associates as the one with the highest when it comes to customer satisfaction compared to the other companies that serve the airports. In the year 2007, the company was named the ninth on the Business Weekunder the top 25 companies that are included in the customer list.
Mission statement The mission of Enterprise Leasing Company is to do exceptional service in providing each customer the services they need e.g. automobile transportation to customers. Their goal is to strive to earn customers' long-term loyalty by working to deliver more than promised, being honest and fair and going the extra mile to provide exception personalized service that creates a pleasing business experience (Mission statement). Employer motivation is also another mission for this company. Under the Enterprise Leasing Company, the St. Louis Administrative Group has around four hundred employees. Most employees were laid off in the year 2008 due to the recession. As a result, the company rubbed off almost one thousand job positions. Despite the fact that most of the customers are extremely happy when it comes with the meeting of their needs by the Enterprise leasing Company, many workers are unsatisfied with the way the company seems to care less about their welfare. This can be reflected in the payment of the management trainee because it is one of the lowest (an average of $34,000) (Layoff kings). As a result, most employees have often felt that the company is more concerned about making a good impression to the customers and making immense profits that facilitates it's expansion. Nevertheless, their needs as employees have not been given the seriousness it deserves since if not for them (employees), the company would not have made the significant strides it has made in the past few decades. Thus, the company should try and ensure that the employees feel the effect of positive growth the company realizes.Problem Area Due to the recession that struck in the year 2008, many Americans lost their jobs since many companies used the layoffs as a measure to keep their businesses onboard. Nonetheless, many of the companies overdid it, and as for those who were easy on it, there still existed some alternatives to the frantic rush of layoffs. Close home to the Enterprise Leasing Company, the auto industry cut around 200,000 jobs. The St. Louis Administrative Group eliminated 1000 jobs, meaning that many workers were left jobless. This was contrary to one of it's founding principles i.e. the no-layoff policy. The human resource management had a role to play here even though it seems that it did not deal with the situation as the employees expected it to do. Though downsizing might be on the strategies for cutting cost, more often it does not achieve it's intended goal. Studies have shown that reducing the employees by for example, 7.7 will only reduce the labor costs by 1.1 (HR and downsizing). This is because the compensatory guidelines that the law requires companies to follow after the layoffs. The Enterprise Leasing Company therefore, did not gain much from these layoffs. In turn, it was left with a lot of overtime pay for those employees that remained. This therefore, beats the logic of carrying out layoffs in the first place. Worse again is the negative secondary consequences that this practice leaves in the organizational culture and the employees. This may it resultantly offset the cost savings. The remaining employs will for example, have no faith or trust in the company. Consequently, the feelings of responsibility by employees when dealing with matters relating to the business will melt away. If provided a perfect opportunity to misappropriate business resources, they will gladly do that since they know that they can be laid off at any time. In the downsizing decision, the human resource managers are advised to weigh the many factors that are of importance. The first one should be the identification of the specific challenges that the practice seeks to solve. Resources at disposal to carry out the exercise should also be evaluated. Long term effect such as the changing of the company’s founding culture should also be guarded against erosion. Indicators on the ground shows that many of the workers are not impressed with these layoffs that took place. This poses a risk of losing loyal and competent employees. This might have a severe effect on the company in the long run. The aftermaths of layoffs are increased stress, poor morale, and guilty feeling for those employees who retain their positions since they do not feel good when their colleagues are sent parking. If the rebound to economic growth occurs within a year since the layoffs, the costs of carrying out the layoffs will far much outweigh the benefits reaped due the layoffs. On specific employee reports that before coming to work for Enterprise, he never expected his experience to be as unpleasant as it has been since he started working for the company. His loyalty to the company has hardly produced any benefits.Recommendations Before considering a reduction in force (RIF) program, the human resource is advised to give consideration to alternative methods of reaching the company goals. RIF should undoubtedly be the last resort. This is because downsizing rarely meets the intended objectives. The effect on the productivity of the remaining employees is always felt tremendously as they mourn the loss of their colleagues. Thus, the human resource managers are advised to come up with measures whose implementation will instill increased confidence in the company and the employees. The Human resource should also maintain a good contact with the employees who have been terminated since they may need to rehire them in the future maybe as consultants or employees. Some of the best alter natives to RIF include 1) short range adjustment; 2) Midrange adjustment; and 3) long range adjustment. Companies such as Walmart and Volkswagen have gained a lot of benefits from using these alternatives. The short term adjustment will deal with problems relating to low revenue forecast that have lasted from three to six months. For example, decline of sales may be a gesture expenditure adjustment to ensure a healthy balance sheet. They may engage in a hiring freeze. Funny enough, some employees will continue hiring even while trimming the hired employees at the same time. This does not make sense. Mandatory vacations and bonus pay reduction can become short range adjustments at the same time. In the midrange, extension of salary reduction can become an alternative for layoffs. Voluntary leaves with no or reduced pay by the employees can help in the time of economic meltdown by companies. Employee leasing i.e. the lending of employees to other local companies or vendors for a specific period of time can be another good alternative. However before carrying out the adjustments, the management should convey to the employees the exercise is geared towards prevention of layoffs such fostering the buy-ins and loyalties of the employees Alternatives to Layoffs.
Conclusion It is extremely critical that there should also be reduction efforts for non-employee related expenses by the time the RIF are being implemented. The expenses may include the renegotiation of supplier contracts and the usage of alternative suppliers who are a bit cheaper.
References
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- McIntyre, Douglas. "The Layoff Kings: The 25 Companies Responsible for 700,000 Lost Jobs - DailyFinance." Saving. Spending. Investing. Planning. Everything you need for a lifetime of financial decisions. -- DailyFinance. N.p., 18 Aug. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
- Wikipedia. "Enterprise rent-A-Car." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
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- "Enterprise Rent-A-Car Mission Statement." About Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Canada Committed to Customer Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
