Leadership Development Raises The Leadership Level of Managers and Supervisors

Hytrol, founded in 1947, has been a cornerstone of the Jonesboro, Arkansas, community for over 72 years. Hytrol is a world leader in the design and manufacturing of material handling systems for a variety of industries. Valuing people and investing in their growth has been a core value of the company. Tom Loberg, the company founder, once said he thought Hytrol employed “the best people in the world.” Hytrol works every day to live up to that legacy. Coming off a couple record financial growth years, Hytrol is reinvesting into their facilities and their people.

Due to the recent growth, several leaders who were very knowledgeable in Hytrol products and processes were promoted to leadership roles. However, many of these leaders had not had previous leadership experiences.  Additionally, Hytrol’s legacy has been built in part on high engagement of its team members and desired to continue that legacy through improving the teamwork of its leadership.

Hytrol leadership reached out to AEDC-Manufacturing Solutions, part of the MEP National Network™, to see how they could support their leadership and team building needs. AEDC-MS recommended they start with establishing a measurable baseline of the current employee engagement level through a survey of all team members. After administering the survey, they facilitated impact planning sessions to help key leaders leverage the engagement survey data in a strategic way. Next, AEDC-MS delivered The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team training for nearly 45 members of the leadership team. The process included a team rating of each of the five cohesive team behaviors: 1. Trust, 2. Healthy Conflict, 3. Commitment, 4. Accountability, and 5. Collective Results. During the workshop, the participants did a deep dive into each one of the behaviors and developed an action plan to improve in critical behaviors. Finally, the leaders participated in The Leadership Challenge. This experience used 360 degree feedback to give the participants a measurable  baseline of their leadership behaviors on five key practices: 1. Modeling the Way, 2. Inspiring a Shared Vision, 3. Challenging the Process, 4. Enabling Others to Act, and 5. Encouraging the Heart. The workshop was very similar to the team training, in that the participants did a deep dive into each of the five practices of exemplary leadership and developed an action plan to improve in critical behaviors. AEDC-MS is currently working with the Hytrol Engineering leadership team to assist this critical area of the business improve their leadership abilities and team member engagement.