What a Way to Run a Company
Can you trust the British worker? One industrialist has no doubt that you can, and to prove it he has abolished clocking-in. He simply trusts his workers to turn up on time. But he has introduced a list of other ideas as well - ideas that many bosses would think were plain crazy. For instance, when his employees are off on holiday, he actually pays them more. He has abolished all piece-work schemes - he expects a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and he seems to get it. Also, if a worker doesn't turn up one day, his sick pay depends not on the management but on his mates deciding whether or not he was 'skiving'.
The company is no small back-street business, but a large, well-known household name, working in an industry that has suffered massively from foreign imports, but is capable of fighting back.
The Risk Business looks at the Hotpoint washing machine plant in North Wales, one of the factories controlled by Chaim Schreiber , and contrasts the results of his management style with that of Hoover's in South Wales. Presented by Kieran Prendiville and Judith Hann
Film editor TONY WILLIAMS Producer ALAN L'OBSON
Editor MICHAEL BLAKSTAD