Leggett & Platt

Much of Leggett & Platt's recent past has been characterized by change. We've changed our primary financial objective to Total Shareholder Return. We've changed our mix of businesses by divesting some of them. We've even changed our willingness to utilize external resources, when for example it comes to assessing opportunities for future growth. Leggett & Platt is a company with a rich, nearly 130-year history, and we honor that past while continually looking to the future.

Our people hold the key to our long-term success. While information, skills, and products may become commodities, people - with their creativity, curiosity, and initiative - cannot. All of Leggett & Platt's talent management practices are geared toward building a workforce and management team able to react to and capitalize upon changes the Company will face.

Where we focus our talent management efforts -

Increasing Engagement -
by focusing on factors that motivate employees to excel

Performance Management -
setting and meeting high performance goals

Developing People -
by offering formal learning opportunities

Succession Planning -
identifying future leaders and being intentional about their development

Recruiting 'A Players' -
ensuring that we hire and promote the very best talent

The types of potential growth opportunities we now consider are more expansive than they once were - encompassing new end markets, foreign geographies, and our position in the value chain - yet we are treading carefully. Sustaining our strength long-term requires that we capture the right opportunities at the right time.

To identify those opportunities, we are tapping multiple sources of intelligence - consulting firms, strategic studies, independent researchers, consumer intelligence - in addition to our own market insight and technical expertise.

Some of the things we are doing -

Studying emerging global demand trends within our core businesses to understand how we might participate as the middle class grows over the next two decades in China, India, and Brazil.

Utilizing consumer research to develop adjustable bed features that meet changing consumer lifestyles and tastes.

Working with university research groups to develop products that help prevent soil erosion in areas prone to water runoff.

Our challenge is to capture the opportunities in this dynamic environment that match up well with Leggett & Platt's capabilities.

The growing "green" movement encourages waste reduction to prevent over-burdening and polluting our natural resources. As a manufacturer competing in the global marketplace, Leggett & Platt aggressively eliminates waste to reduce costs and provide more value to our customers.

How do we help?

We pull the majority of our most-used raw material - steel - from the scrap heap. We also make use of scrap urethane foam, paper, and other recyclables.

Many Leggett & Platt businesses have found reusable materials to be their most cost-effective source of raw material. By using these materials, the company diverts over a million tons of trash from landfills each year.

We help waste recycling centers improve efficiency and productivity with our automated wire-tying machines (and wire) used in their waste-bundling systems.

We develop products that reduce the weight of automobiles, thus helping the industry's efforts to improve fuel efficiency.

Our Geo Components business provides a variety of environmental applications, from filtration systems that improve water quality to geotextiles that extend the life of roads. We produce silt fence that allows water to drain from construction areas while preventing dirt and debris from reaching natural water sources. Since 2008, we have produced enough silt fencing to circle the earth.

On May 22, 2011, a massive EF5 tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri, home to hundreds of Leggett & Platt employees, and just a few miles from our Carthage, Missouri, headquarters.

Three members of our Leggett & Platt family lost their lives in the storm, and the homes of nearly 100 of our employees were either completely destroyed or had significant damage.

As stories and photos of the devastation spread around the world, help streamed in from all corners.

At our facilities across the U.S., workers gave time and money to ship truckloads of supplies. Employee-partners throughout the world donated over $60,000 to help fellow employees they may have never met, and the company has pledged $1 million in aid to the area.

The help from Leggett & Platt employees, combined with significant contributions from many of our long-time customers, suppliers, and shareholders, has been invaluable to the recovery effort.

Needs existed beyond tornado relief this past year; some of our products were used to reduce or avert potential damage in several areas.

During the 2011 flood season, several miles of our RIBS products were quickly installed in communities along the Mississippi River as a barricade against encroaching flood waters.