Layoffs are a familiar reality for many companies, but one family-owned Missouri business has avoided them for 75 consecutive years.
The Gund Company, a St. Louis-based manufacturer and fabricator of engineered materials, credits a distinct management philosophy with retaining all 1,300 of its employees, according to a new report.
The company’s approach has attracted the attention of business leaders nationwide, with CEOs visiting its headquarters to learn how it operates, The Wall Street Journal reported.
CEO Steve Gund told the outlet that one of the company’s central principles is putting employees’ needs ahead of short-term profits.
Steve, The Gund Company’s third-generation chief executive, said he wants to share that philosophy with other businesses, particularly family-run firms.
“It sounds touchy-feely, but it’s profitable,” said the 55-year-old CEO.
The company also avoids overstaffing and gives employees regular opportunities to raise concerns about their work.
Workers are encouraged to write their worries on red cards posted across the factory floor, allowing company leaders to identify and address problems quickly, the report said.
The Gund Company, a St. Louis-based manufacturer and fabricator of engineered materials, has not carried out a single layoff in 75 years
Steve Gund (right) is The Gund Company’s third-generation CEO. His brother, Rich Gund (left), serves as chairman and COO, while their father, Paul (front center), joined the business in 1963
Every employee, regardless of position, also has an individual career-development plan, the company told the Journal.
As news of the company’s growth and unusual employment record has spread, executives from other businesses have traveled to St. Louis to observe its methods firsthand.
Don Taylor, CEO of Ohio-based Welty Enterprises, made the trip with his son, Michael Taylor, who is part of the company’s executive team.
The father and son had learned about The Gund Company’s business practices from other leaders, according to the report.
“Hopefully we can mimic some of that,” Don told the publication.
Steve said the company’s success was built gradually rather than achieved overnight. He joined the family business with his brother Rich in the early 1990s.
At the time, the brothers helped produce spare parts for generators and other machinery.
The company generated $2.7 million in annual sales and employed just 20 people, including nine family members.
Steve likened the atmosphere then to a restaurant kitchen, where “a lot of screaming and yelling” was taking place.
He said an adviser eventually told the family that creating a long-term growth plan would be essential to building a successful business.
Don Taylor (right), the CEO of Ohio’s Welty Enterprises, traveled to St Louis with his son Michael Taylor (left), who is also on the company’s executive team, to check out The Gund Company’s ways that they hope to adopt
Other keys to the company’s success are that they do not overstaff, and they encourage workers to voice their concerns daily
Steve also said that his father, Paul Gund, said there wouldn’t be layoffs because that would mean the company’s leadership failed, Steve recalled.
And to push it all a step further, Gund also introduced a stock ownership plan for US staff in 2009.
By 2025, workers owned 30 percent of the company through that program, the report stated.
Steve has also credited the employee-first mentality the company has adopted to another local business owner, Bob Chapman.
Chapman, the CEO of the machine industry company Barry-Wehmiller, inspired Steve back in 2015 when Gund’s board had faced the challenge of returning the business to a 15 percent compounded annual growth rate after slow sales.
But Steve was more interested in helping those who needed it instead of investing all of his efforts into running the business, and Chapman helped him see that.
‘You’re trying to alleviate homelessness by going and working in a soup kitchen or handing out blankets,’ Chapman told him, according to Steve.
Nearly a century after Steve’s grandfather, Ed Gund, pivoted from selling candy to launching the company in 1951, the firm is nearing $400 million in sales and works with well-known companies like Rockwell Automation and General Electric
Chapman added: ‘Why don’t you employ people?’
Steve now abides by a self-made 12-point management system that he says includes a ‘paternal level of care’ for the workplace.
And all of those moves also help employees move up the ranks and prove themselves, including Diedra Jones.
Jones, 33, started as a janitor for the company 16 years ago before becoming a receptionist and then a customer service representative.
At the time, the cleaning job was one of four that she had, and all the while, she was taking care of her child as a single mother, Jones explained.
Eventually, she was nominated by her coworkers for a leadership role that sees her travel the world for Gund presently.
‘My dreams and my aspirations are what no one in my family has ever even thought was on the road map,’ Jones said.
Nearly a century after Steve’s grandfather, Ed Gund, pivoted from selling candy to launching the company in 1951, the firm is nearing $400 million in sales and works with well-known companies like Rockwell Automation and General Electric.
While the company is headquartered in St Louis, it has several manufacturing facilities across the nation, including in New York, Texas, California, Wisconsin, Indiana and more.
