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Improving literacy

Company offers on-site literacy program to employees.

By Inc. staff | 
 

APRIL 1991

"Who wants to be the first person to raise his hand and say he can't read?" asks Roland S. Boreham Jr., chairman and CEO of Baldor Electric Co., headquartered in Fort Smith, Ark. So to coax workers in Baldor's Columbus, Miss., plant into an on-site literacy program, Boreham used video testimonials from six employees who had the courage to participate in the program and tell others how it helped them learn to read. Boreham used an employee interviewer and one VHS video camera to shoot the testimonials.

About 25% of the 350 workers in Columbus enrolled in the program. "The messages really hit home," says Boreham, who expects fewer mistakes on the company's electrical-motor assembly lines because more employees can read manuals, job specifications, and invoices.

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