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Happiness Secrets, Sleepless Nights and Rethinking Recognition: IndustryWeek's Weekly Reads

March 17, 2023
Employee buyouts at GM, union contract ratification at Caterpillar and a list of the most profitable manufacturers also attracted the attention of the IW community in the past week.

It was all about employees during the past week at IndustryWeek.com. Our manufacturing community was consuming content about the secret to employee happiness, the challenge of recognition programs, and efforts underway at GM to pare back the size of its workforce. 

Those weren't the only topics attracting attention, however. Sit back and review our list of the top content over the past seven days, with one Editor's Choice selection tossed in. 

Caterpillar Ratifies UAW Contract that Eliminates Two-Tier Wages, Prohibits Plant Closures: The 6-year contract covers 7,000 Caterpillar Inc. employees in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

The Secret to Happier Employees: Trust gets better results than control. Control is costly to enforce not only monetarily, but it rents valuable headspace.

IW U.S. 500 Manufacturing Companies: Most Profitable Companies (Slideshow): Pharmaceutical and medical device companies, especially those involved in COVID-19 testing, dominated the profit-margin metric with the 2022 list.

Top 10 Most Corrupt Countries of 2022: Since 2017, 95% of countries have made little to no progress fighting corruption, according to the CPI.

Manufacturing Growth Strategy Planning: 5 Things to Get Right First: Companies that hew closely to lean practices will avoid costly mistakes.

Is the Best Award No Award? Recognition can motivate, or it can create resentment and undermine teamwork.

GM Offers US Employees Buyouts to Cut Costs: In January, GM announced it would attempt to cut operating costs by $2 billion before 2025.

There Are Better Ways to Build a Domestic PPE Supply Chain: Focusing on innovation and supplier relationships will help the US prepare for the next global health emergency.

New Manufacturing Acquisitions, Investments and Facilities: Our compilation of the newest manufacturing business announcements features Siemens Mobility's new $220 million facility, Avery Dennison's completed acquisition of Thermopatch and more.

Dead Ends and Sleepless Nights: AI, ML Experts Share Hard-Won Learnings: Top challenges with adopting artificial intelligence, machine learning include lack of skilled personnel and insufficient understanding of algorithms.

Editor's Choice

Production Pulse: Ford Electrical Systems Engineer Discusses EV Battery Investments (Video): Charles Poon sat down with IndustryWeek's Robert Schoenberger to discuss the automaker's plans to build a $3.5 billion plant in Michigan for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) electric vehicle batteries.

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