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Commitment means doing our best to meet expectations over the long run.
The company that bears our founder's name continues to demonstrate many of the same characteristics that it did in its early days. In particular, its commitment to customers, employees and communities remains as constant today as it was then.
Commitment to customers
John Deere demonstrates its commitment to customers by offering more than quality products. Through its employees and dealers, the company strives to build strong relationships with customers, understand their challenges, and provide the products and services that will make them successful.
Company initiatives, such as customer focus programs in John Deere's Agricultural and Commercial & Consumer Equipment Divisions, constantly assess customer needs to ensure that the company delivers the products and services that customers want. Employees and dealers strive to make it easy for customers to do business with John Deere.
Commitment to employees
Great people make John Deere a great company. For this reason, the company works to ensure that all employees have opportunities to develop their potential while providing goods and services that benefit society.
Fulfilling the company's strategies depends on aligned, high-performance teamwork. John Deere is working to establish a culture that focuses on results and common goals as it strives to grow a great business enriched by the aligned efforts of a worldwide workforce of more than 52,000 employees. Job designs, reward systems, and performance feedback and development processes are all constructed to support teamwork.
Diversity is important to the company's growth plans. A diverse workforce encourages the creativity and innovation critical to growth and helps build a stimulating work environment.
John Deere wants to maximize diversity, capitalizing on employee differences while enabling all to realize their highest potential and contribute to the enterprise and to society as a whole.
The company also is intent on maintaining close working relationships with wage employees. In addition to job training, wage employees learn about Deere's financial and operating metrics and, in most cases, share in the company's success when productivity targets are met.
John Deere's career-development process identifies paths that can build the skills, experience, knowledge, and competencies needed for career development and advancement. When job openings occur, an extensive employee-résumé system enables hiring managers to search for individuals with the right skills and experience. Training and education enable employees to reach their potential in every discipline from the factory floor to the corporate headquarters.
Commitment to communities
The company's primary philanthropic arm is the John Deere Foundation, which donated $11.2 million in 2007 in the areas of education, human services, arts and culture, community development, and its newest initiative, Solutions for World Hunger. Notable contributions included a $1 million donation to Purdue University's Neil Armstrong Engineering Building to develop a permanent exhibit encouraging the study of math and science. The company also renewed a three-year, $3 million grant to KickStart, a non-profit organization helping lift African farmers out of poverty.
Elsewhere, the John Deere Foundation of Canada focused 2007 giving on hospitals and health organizations, a hospice and Habitat for Humanity. In Europe, the John Deere Goodwill Fund continued its partnership with the International Garden in Mannheim, Germany, where recent immigrants are encouraged to work with local citizens in planting and growing flowers and vegetables in an urban setting. Fundaçãoo John Deere in Brazil supports social services, multiple forms of health services for employees, arts and culture, and sports.
Learn more about commitment throughout the years at John Deere.
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