Marvin Windows will not be laying off workers nor closing factories. However, Marvin employees will not be receiving a year-end bonus for the third consecutive year and only the sixth time in 55 years, with future prospects also dim.

“I always have hope, but I think we’re in for a very long recovery period,” said Susan Marvin, company president. [...]

Still, the manufacturer based in Warroad, Minn., is drawing a line in the sand on layoffs, unlike its competitors. Andersen Windows recently announced plans to lay off 250 workers in its home base in Bayport, Minn., two years after more than 500 layoffs.

[...]

“If you treat your employees right, they’ll treat you well,” Marvin said. “We have a very loyal work force and very loyal customers.”

Read the full article here.

Susan Marvin went into 2010 expecting it to be much like 2009: weak and difficult.

So when the president of the Minnesota manufacturing company Marvin Windows and Doors started to see orders pick up a bit in March, she was pleased but not overly confident.

“I would have to say there was a very tentative optimism,” she said.

So far, the growth in orders has continued. That’s allowed Marvin, whose company makes windows and patio doors for upscale customers, to increase hours for her manufacturing employees and reverse some of the pay cuts she instituted for her salaried employees. …

The article also reinforces the significance of the company’s no-layoffs strategy:

“Clearly we had more employees than we had work,” Marvin said.

But to Marvin, the cost to morale and productivity that would come from laying off workers was not worth the financial gain. Instead, she had employees spend time doing additional training and looking for ways to run the plant cheaper and more efficiently.

With orders up, Marvin said some of the company’s plants are back to 40-hour weeks, while others have gone up to 35 hours. Salaried employees also will soon see a 2 percent increase in their reduced pay, she said.

By avoiding layoffs, Marvin thinks her company was in a better competitive position to ramp up production when business began to improve.

Read the full story at MSNBC.com.

From the report:

Not surprisingly, many expect turnout for this year’s Builders’ show to be weak.

“A lot of builders had really hard times in 2009,” said John Kirchner, spokesman for Marvin Windows, an exhibitor at the show. “We’re anticipating turnout to be lighter this year than last year.” [...]

In the past, builders might have sent three to five employees to the show; many now are sending one or two, “and they are much more serious,” Kirchner said. Before, there was more of a social aspect to attending the show; “right now, they’re focused on the business. They’re going to the show looking for solutions and looking for partners.”

Read the full story here, and be sure to follow Marvin Windows on Twitter for more updates from the International Builders Show all this week.

We’ve made a commitment to keeping our employees on the payroll, and that is maybe not the easiest way but it is, I think, the right thing to do.

Listen to the full three-minute interview on WBZ’s Web site.