Love at First Sight

For years now, we've been hearing about corporate executives who made fortunes for themselves while driving their companies into bankruptcy, costing employees their jobs and sometimes their life savings. Not so at Malden Mills, and CEO Aaron Feuerstein became a national hero by deciding to paid $25 million to save his worker lives. So, let’s find out what is his management function that made him become the “mesnch” of Malden Mills.

At that time, Aaron needed to make quick decision and chose the best way to save his business. Like many others businesses during the aftermath, he could find a cheaper labor source at the South. However, his moral didn’t let him to starve his 3 thousands workers. He had a plan that to pay full salary for his employees during the rebuild time. His objective was to save his business and also his staffs who had been with him for years. I believed that it was a smart move that he can keep his loyalty customers because most of his costumers come from employees’ relationship.

Secondly, during the crisis time, he chose keeping his workers instead of recruiting new employees. He managed to keep his resources the same. His decision saved a lot of time and also money. Training or recruiting new staffs is time-consuming and costly. Aaron style of management is really different from others. He doesn’t sit in a big and comfy chair in a huge room full of luxury decoration. Everyone at the plant knew him. He managed in a very caring, personal way, wandering around the factory and greeting his workers. Everyone  -was not surprised when he decided not to cast his workers off onto their unemployment insurance and personal resources when the fire happened a couple years.

“I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar. I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3,000 people on the streets and deliver a deathblow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen. Maybe on paper our company is worthless to Wall Street, but I can tell you it's worth more”, Aaron told Press Magazine. Motivating staffs is a function that I trust that he is the most brilliant one.  He extended credit to struggling local businesses, sponsored English classes for immigrant employees, and offered training for textile workers. He took special care of his own workers, making sure they had a safe and comfortable work environment and paying higher wages than most of his competitors. Even union leaders praised him, calling him ‘a man of his word’ and ‘extremely compassionate’. One union official said, ‘He believes in the process of collective bargaining and he believes that if you pay people a fair amount of money, and give them good benefits to take care of their families, they will produce for you.