Rlchard Pettlnger

SEMCO: FULL PARTICIPATION, OPENNESS AND THE LIFE/WORK RELATIONSHIP IN THE MANAGEMENT OF STRESS

When Ricardo Semler took over the Brazilian company Semco from his father, it was a traditional company in every respect with a pyramid structure and a rule for every contingency. Today, factory workers sometimes set their own production quotas and even come in during their own time to meet them – without overtime pay. They help redesign the products they make and formulate the marketing plans. Their managers run the business units with extraordinary freedom, determining business strategy without interference from those at the top. Workers and managers set their own salaries; though everyone else knows what these are since all financial information at Semco is open to all. Workers have unlimited access to the company ’s books and accounts. To show how serious it is about this, Semco, with the labor unions that represent the workers, developed a course to teach everyone, whatever their job or level of education to date, to read balance sheets and cash flow statements.

The company does not have receptionists, or any other jobs that could possibly be construed as demeaning such as secretaries or personal assistants. The company does not believe in cluttering the payroll with what it refers to as ‘‘ungratifying, dead-end jobs.’’

STRESS MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE 89
Everyone at Semco, including top managers, fetches guests, stands over photocopiers, sends faxes, types letters, and uses the phone. The company states that it has:
‘‘stripped away the unnecessary perks and privileges that feed the ego but hurt the balance sheet and distract everyone from the crucial corporate tasks of making, selling, billing, and collecting. ’’
Ricardo Semler goes on:
‘‘One sales manager sits in the reception area reading the news- paper hour after hour, not even making a pretence of looking busy. Most modern managers would not tolerate it. But when a Semco pump on an oil tanker on the other side of the world fails and millions of gallons of oil are about to spill into the sea, he springs into action. He knows everything there is to know about our pumps and how to fix them. ’’
Ricardo Semler states:
‘‘That’s when he earns his salary. No one cares if he doesn ’t look busy the rest of the time. ’’
The rewards in involving everyone in these ways have been substantial. The company has turned itself around from being moribund and threatened with bankruptcy, to a position of relative long-term security, chiefly by refusing to squander what it describes as its greatest asset and resource, its people.

Ricardo Semler describes it thus:

‘‘Semco has grown six-fold despite withering domestic reces- sions, staggering inflation, and chaotic Brazilian national economic policy. Productivity has increased nearly seven-fold. Pro fits have risen five-fold. And we have had periods of up to 14 months in which not one worker has left us. We have a backlog of more than 2000 job applications, hundreds from people who say that they would take any job just to be at Semco. In a poll of recent