Product details

This case is part of the Trade and Industry Department SME case series funded by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Trade and Industry Department SME Development Fund. As one of the world''s leading manufacturers of houseware products and cleaning products, Hayco produced over five million brushes a month in its Shenzhen plant in 2003. When setting up its new factory in Shenzhen in the mid 1990s, Hayco had to decide how best to manage the issue of staff welfare for its growing number of factory workers. Senior management firmly believed that providing for the well-being of the company''s staff would be crucial to ensuring low staff turnover and good workplace morale, and therefore provided a ''Hayco Home-away-from-home'' for the workers. Having said that, the labour market has generally always been in favour of employers, and in the mid 1990s many factories were providing just the bare minimum of facilities and benefits for workers (in fact in many factories, the working conditions were downright appalling). In such an environment, why did Hayco invest money and effort in building the ''HaycoHome-away-from -home''? What ''message'' or ''management philosophy'' was conveyed by these benefits?