The 40 employees at the USF Holland trucking terminal in Bethlehem got a nice surprise last month: six months after it appeared the terminal would close, management decided to keep it open after all.What was unusual about the announcement was the reason why. Profit played a part, but USF President and Chief Executive Bob Zimmerman said there were other reasons: the good attitude of the employees and the customers.
"Our customers have remained loyal to the USF Holland brand," Zimmerman wrote in a letter to customers last month. And "our employees have remained resilient and committed to serving our customers during difficult times."
It was a welcome letter for the terminal, which specializes in LTL, or less than truckload, shipment. The vote of confidence came about, employees say, in spite of a loss of salespeople and managers who jumped ship when word came of the imminent closure of the terminal a week before Christmas 2005.
Mark Maxwell, a driver and shop steward for Teamsters Local 294, said employees worked hard to make sure customers knew that the company was not going to leave them without a way to ship products. Truckers made sure to act like ambassadors, giving out USF T-shirts, note pads or ball caps and playing up the company in the face of bad news.
In the end, he said, "it was easier for the company to keep us open," he said. Full story here
No comments:
Post a Comment