ed to become a group leader. The human resources department along with the help of the management personnel chooses who will become group leaders at TMMI. When the plant first opened, group leaders were hired by the experience they previously had acquired. The reasoning behind this was so they would know more about the position and would not have to have as much training, since the assembly line needed so much technical training. Group leaders that had jobs of similar rank in other companies were prime candidates for the positions. This way the company culture and line of command had to be instilled in them instead of all of the knowledge and reasoning used by a group leader. Now that TMMI is getting its feet planted firmly in the production aspect, they hire group leaders from the employees that hold the positions of team members and team leaders. The workers just move “up the ladder” in the hierarchy of employees at Toyota of Indiana. Personalities and how well they work with others are just a couple of qualities looked for in a prospective group leader. The Japanese ways of business and the team members and team leaders already know the goals of TMMI, which is one reason that TMMI wants to allow employees the opportunity for advancement. The supervisory training program used at TMMI should take two years to complete. Since there is no deadline being enforced by management to complete the training, many in the program are behind schedule; whereas, just a few are actually ahead of where they need to be in order to fulfill the training in the two-year time frame. Since the TMMI plant started production in December of 1998, no one has completed the training program, but there should be employees who are close to finishing the course in December of this year. Management needs to stress the importance of this training so group leaders will finish the courses in a timely fashion. If the managers do not accept t...
