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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Lauttamus Communications & Security Improves Hiring and Onboarding Processes Using Standardized Job Descriptions

With the help of: West Virginia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WVMEP)

About

Lauttamus Communications & Security  of Weirton, West Virginia, provides communication and security services to a variety of industries. Lauttamus Communications & Security engineers, designs, and builds solutions for medical aircom, allowing helicopters to communicate with hospital control panels in times of emergency, 2-way radio to mobile phone communications for the oil and gas industry, and many others. Lauttamus Communications & Security also designs and builds required hardware for 911 centers. In addition to being very growth-oriented, Lauttamus Communications & Security is also the largest spectrum owner outside of major cellular carriers.

The Challenge

To minimize the impact of workforce challenges and attract the talent necessary to sustain long-term success, Lauttamus Communications & Security decided to leverage one of its rules for success - treat the business like you own it - to better understand job requirements in each department from those responsible for completing the work. Building on past leadership training and development successes, and ongoing conversations about continuous improvement, Lauttamus Communications & Security reached out to the WVU Industrial Extension, part of the MEP National Network™, for assistance developing job descriptions. 
The Industrial Extension has played an important role in the continued growth of Lauttamus Communications & Security. As a company that is constantly evolving, we face many different challenges and opportunities every day. The Industrial Extension has not only helped us look at these challenges and opportunities differently but has also showed us how to standardize and document our processes in a way that ensures success well into the future.
— Paul Lauttamus, Owner

MEP's Role

The project kicked off by reviewing where Lauttamus Communications & Security felt they were experiencing the biggest workforce challenges, including quality of work, on-time delivery and employee turnover. This allowed for a cost-effective path forward where the WVU Industrial Extension would focus on areas that provided immediate relief while also providing training to educate the Lauttamus Communications & Security team on proper research and development required for creating job descriptions on their own.

The WVU Industrial Extension first used a process map created as part of another project to validate the tasks required. Once the tasks were validated, the WVU Industrial Extension interviewed process stakeholders to identify essential responsibilities, activities, qualifications, and skills required for success. The information gathered from interviews was compiled to generate standardized, written job descriptions that included principle accountabilities, objectives for the position, general competencies including skills, knowledge, and minimum qualifications for the role, and other miscellaneous job requirements. 

Created January 5, 2024