The Manufacturers' Guide to Finding and Retaining Talent

Your shop had to become more adaptive and responsive in operations during the pandemic. Take a similar approach to hiring and developing your people. The principles that apply to lean manufacturing and continuous improvement in production processes also apply to recruiting, managing and assessing your employees' performance.

What Is Systems Thinking?

Systems thinking focuses on how different parts interrelate and how systems interact through various connections and feedback. Systems thinking helps you see connections holistically through:

• Feedback loops
• Direct and indirect relationships
• Interactions and influences
• Systems within systems

Barry Richmond, a leader in systems thinking and system dynamics, emphasized that people embracing systems thinking will position themselves so they can see both the forest and the trees – and keep an eye on each. What does this look like? Let's consider a common example: when a manufacturer experiences a higher attrition rate in one department than others. You might naturally assign blame to the hiring process or failure of the talent pipeline. You might look at what's different about the front-line oversight or working conditions. But there could be many other factors that influence the negative outcomes, such as:

• Inadequate feedback loops. Is clarity lacking between what the training programs are capable of and what the recruiting efforts should be looking for?
• Informal onboarding process. Are too many shortcuts taken, missing opportunities to engage new employees early in their career journeys?
• Vague goals during interviews. Is the definition of what makes a good employee vague, leading to the interview process failing to identify good matches?
• Bland job postings. Are job postings not compelling enough to attract the raw talents that the training program can transform?

A Systems Thinking Approach Must Be Holistic

The reality is that people working within systems frequently miss the signals these systems rely upon. They may not be as apparent as one machine's impact in a production line. Look at how people and systems communicate with each other. What signals does training send to recruiting – and vice versa?

More questions to consider:

• Is there a systematic approach to filling a staff position?
• Does the training program establish a common understanding for what kinds of mindsets and skill sets make for a good match?
• Does the onboarding process, which really begins during recruiting, leverage the training program to ensure that new hires are actively engaged from the start?
• What data is collected and reviewed from recruiting and onboarding?

Continuous Improvement in Five Key Areas

If a culture of continuous improvement exists in your company's operational side, it should be easier to break down the silos and look at your employee development as a system as well. Just as you collect data on the operational side, you can identify feedback loops and system structures, and begin collecting data to improve your employee development system. There are five interdependent functional areas to consider:

1. Training
2. Recruiting
3. Onboarding
4. Performance management
5. Retention

For example, a well-structured training program will allow you to generate development pathways. If you give your people – both new recruits and seasoned staff – clearly articulated development pathways and career ladders, they'll have a common understanding, which ties into performance management and retention. This will drive demand and expectations in many areas, such as:

• Frequent and consistent systematic performance feedback
• Support for front-line managers in terms of motivating employees and mitigating issues
• Structured training that drives improvement

If dozens of job seekers viewed your most recent job listing but few applied, it means either your listing wasn’t attractive to them or you didn’t reach a broad enough audience.

Every job posting and interview is a chance to tell prospective employees why they should want to work at your company. Every step from the way you post open positions to how you conduct exit interviews presents an opportunity to cultivate your company’s reputation as a great place to work – a place that attracts and retains employees. With a shrinking talent pool and more competition for skilled workers, how your company is perceived by job seekers is more important than ever.

Tips to Successfully Attract Employees

Cast a wider net

Diversity, equity and inclusion play a critical role in attracting and retaining employees. Diversity takes many forms – race, ability, age, gender, nationality, socioeconomic status and more. The case for increasing diversity in every industry is clear. As McKinsey has written extensively, "Companies in the top quartile of gender and ethnic diversity were 25% and 36% more likely to financially outperform those in the bottom quartile, respectively." Moreover, the pandemic has disproportionately displaced workers of color, and connecting displaced workers to higher paying job opportunities in advanced manufacturing is a win for the worker, for the company, for our economy and for our society overall.

Sell your company to potential employees

Potential employees need to know why your company is a great place to work. Don't simply list position requirements on a job posting. Instead, describe your company's culture. Describe why a potential job seeker will find meaningful employment with your firm while becoming part of an engaged and mission-driven team. Conduct an objective assessment of how your company is described on websites such as Firsthand, Glassdoor and LinkedIn. It is important to update and refine how your company appears to applicants.

Talk about career paths with potential hires

When writing job descriptions and spreading awareness of career opportunities, companies must articulate the potential for career advancement. Candidates are more engaged when they see their career path provides room for growth and consistent improvement.

Make recruiting a priority

Even when companies are not searching for new employees, hiring managers should always keep an eye out for new recruits. This should be an ongoing process for companies looking to attract prospective candidates.

Raise awareness of the manufacturing industry

The major talent gap in the industry exists because most college students and young professionals are unaware of attractive career paths in manufacturing. Many college graduates don't realize the opportunities that exist and what today's manufacturing jobs pay.

To overcome the shortage of qualified workers, companies should promote manufacturing career opportunities throughout their community. Manufacturing Day, the first Friday in October, is a great way to showcase the reality of modern manufacturing careers by opening doors to students, parents, teachers and community leaders – to give a glimpse at what today's manufacturing really looks like and inspire the next generation of skilled workers.

Ask yourself if those credentials are really needed. Many of today’s excellent job training programs teach career based skills such as CNC machining in as little as 16 weeks. Higher education institutions offer programs for career paths in marketing, analytics, IT and cybersecurity with similar timeframes. If employees can learn these skills in the equivalent of a college semester, why limit your prospect pool from the start with an education requirement?

Similarly, requiring related experience can be extremely limiting in today’s job environment. Instead, look for transferable skills and what can be taught in-house.

Rethink the Rules for Workplace Structures, Incentives and Perks

Research shows people are not just looking for a job – they want a career. Companies that offer training and professional development during work time send a clear message that they value their employees' futures.

Research also shows that employees value flexibility. Consider offering remote opportunities when possible and options like four-day work weeks. Offer shorter work days that accommodate your employees' child care – a common employment hurdle for many parents.

Employees value incentives and perks that help subsidize their personal expenses such as transportation, food and tools. Consider providing:

• Breakfast for an early shift. It makes it easier for people to get to work on time, offsets expenses and provides nutrition to start the day.
• Laptops, phones and any tools required to do the job. Provide whatever employees need – work boots, safety equipment, etc.
• Help with transportation expenses. Provide mileage reimbursement for employees in rideshare programs or informal carpools. Pay for bus passes. Provide incentives for workers that carpool.
• Partner with a child care provider.

Employee turnover is a reality for every business. However, intentional employee training and development practices help minimize the impact of turnover. At the same time, these practices help make your company more profitable and your managers less stressed.

Why is this so important? Numerous studies document the cost of employee turnover – as much as 50-150% of base salary, depending on the level of the position in the organization! Consider this:

• Replacing an hourly employee with an annual salary of $40,000 costs approximately $20,000 on average
• Replacing a salaried employee with 4-5 years of experience, such as an Accountant or Quality Engineer earning an annual salary of $80,000 costs about $80,000
• Replacing a manager or leader with an annual salary of $150,000 costs about $225,000 or more!

Employee Development Starts on Day 1

The first 90 days are the most vulnerable period of the employer/employee relationship. Effective onboarding of new employees helps create an engaged workforce from day one. Give your onboarding program a structure that provides useful milestones, mentoring and maybe even wage progression. Once you have hired people, it’s important to work hard to keep them.

To create a successful onboarding program or enhance your existing program, examine how new employees are trained when they join the company. Identify 5-7 new hires who have at least 6-9 months experience with you. Ask them to identify things that were the most difficult to learn. Ask for ideas about how to make the training less complex so they could achieve higher productivity levels sooner.

Create a mentoring program. Mentoring is a proven approach that enhances learning and development for both mentees and mentors. Make sure each new employee is teamed up with a more experienced person in the same department – someone who is a strong supporter of the organizational culture.

Have a Career Development Plan in Place

Investing in your workers' professional and personal growth demonstrates that you genuinely care about their future. From certification programs to associate degrees, there are many affordable options for providing educational opportunities for your employees.

An employer of choice is a company that candidates seek out for employment opportunities.

The defining characteristics of an employer of choice are:

• Strong leadership
• Competitive pay
• Engaged workers
• A company culture that employees believe in and are excited to be part of

Creating a positive workplace culture that successfully attracts and retains talented people will not happen by chance. The best employers truly believe that employees ARE their number one asset – without exception. Local workers choose to work there over other options.

How do you know if you are an employer of choice? Your employees tell you through their loyalty, high retention rates, and especially when they encourage others to work for your company.

You are competing with many industries and companies to fill entry-level positions. How are you positioning yourself? How does your entry-level pay compare to other industries? How often do you measure employee morale or satisfaction?

Here are five best practices for becoming an employer of choice (you'll recognize many of these tips from other sections in this guide).

Conduct Cultural and Engagement Assessments

Gathering the information to build a great company culture involves collecting both quantitative and qualitative data.

You can use a third-party survey to collect quantitative data. Survey topics can give you a wider company perspective – for example, whether people are held accountable for low performance. Surveys can also give you insight into your employees' personal views – for example, whether they find personal meaning and fulfillment in their work.

Here are five key principles to meeting your employees' personal needs, according to Development Dimensions International:

• Esteem: Focusing on facts, respect and support will help employees with their sense of self-worth, enabling them to be motivated, confident, innovative and committed to their work.
• Empathy: Acknowledging people’s feelings of success, failure, pride and frustration defuses negative emotions and encourages positive emotions.
• Involve: Show you value your people by asking for their input. Greater commitment and success is likely when ideas belong to the people who carry them out.
• Share: People work best with leaders they trust. Leaders should appropriately disclose thoughts, feelings or rationales.
• Support: Providing coaching, training, guidance and mentoring builds people’s sense of ownership and confidence.