EffCorp

Franklin Vignettes

5 years ago

The largest employer in Franklin, EffCorp, was getting larger — and CEO Janna Boutros was determined to bring ZenSense seamlessly, and happily, into the corporate fold.

It was no slam-dunk. Relocating the Boston robotics/AI firm to Franklin was requiring plenty of carrots. Green office space in the trendy Roque district. Industry-best health and wellness plans. Financing for a new wing of the Vorschheim, which already housed the best modern art collection in the States excepting New York.

To pull it off, Janna had needed all her wiles and finesse.

And she’d need still more to appease Hank Potts.

“Hundred percent reciprocity,” he said now, standing in her office in a canvas bib. “Factory workers deserve the same perks these Harvard eggheads are getting.”

Janna looked over the top of her glasses. “Eggheads? These are your new coworkers.”

The union leader shrugged. “It’s a term of endearment.”

During the ZenSense negotiations, she’d known this would be a problem — jealousy from the existing workforce, which was by and large blue collar. Her primary goal in these first years of stewardship was to transition EffCorp from the manufacturing titan it’d been into a modern organization capable of creating, and keeping, jobs into the next century.

The task was fraught with pitfalls. Economic, logistical, cultural. Any change Janna made might boomerang back and blindside her.

Now she said, “We have a plan for transforming factory operations. We’re retraining. We’re offering education grants and career counsel—”

“How about building more cable?” Hank cut in.

In its heyday, EffCorp had produced forty percent of the world’s coaxial supply.

“We build more cable, we’ll have to build warehouses to store it in, too,” Janna said. “Because our customers sure aren’t buying it.”

She and Hank Potts looked at each other. Janna liked Hank. There’d been plenty of pushback among the union rank-and-file about hiring a female Muslim CEO, but when she’d addressed them on the factory floor or at the old Anderson Metals site, she’d never heard an off word. That, she knew, came from the leadership.

“Look,” she said. “ZenSense isn’t the competition. We *need* them to transform your people’s jobs into enduring, high leverage positions.”

Hank stuck his hands in his bib pockets.

She continued, “And they need you to make all their…” She crossed her eyes and waved her hands awkwardly. “…high-tech gadgets relevant to actual customers. To the 95 percent of the country that buys all the stuff.”

Hank chuckled at her pantomime. “Okay, Mrs. Boutros. I hear ya.”

They shook hands.

At the door, Hank turned. “I’m giving it a year, fifteen months at the outside. Then we’re gonna expect some dividends out of this deal.”

Janna smiled. Of course — it was the bane of every CEO’s existence.

Expectations.

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