Manufacturing Your Edge: Getting Ahead With Talent Management

Manufacturing chiefs have lots of concerns—a slowing economy, fast-rising labor costs and disrupted markets among them—but nothing else matches the challenges they continue to face in recruiting, attracting, retaining, managing, compensating and developing people.

Amid discussions of everything else, from the slowdown of the electric-vehicle revolution to the proliferation of so-called “nuclear” jury verdicts in product liability suits, the executives gathered at the recent Chief Executive Manufacturing Leadership Summit in Detroit sought and heard advice about dealing with their precious human capital.

“We lead with people management because we think that’s the distinguisher for us,” Ronald Hall Jr., CEO of Bridgewater Interiors, a maker of automotive seats based in Detroit, told attendees. “If we put people first, we’ll continue to succeed, and we look for ways to do that differently and better over time.”

Putting People First

Here’s how a people-first strategy helped Bridgewater Interiors’s Ron Hall lead the company through and beyond its challenges:

Invest more in them. Simply pouring more resources into recruiting wasn’t cutting it. “So, we brought in coaches to talk to supervisors and leaders of high-level teams, [plus] send people who are two levels below plant manager to seminars and conferences,” said Hall.

Throttle back. Getting comfortable with the reality that typical manufacturing employees aren’t going to be as productive as they were before the jumble caused by the pandemic was key: “People just won’t go as hard or as long for you anymore without a whole lot of additional incentives.”

Remind employees what they have. Bridgewater had long offered tuition reimbursement and generous 401(k) benefits and didn’t cancel them even during Covid. “But newer employees didn’t even know we had that,” said Hall. “We had to do better at communicating things that already existed.”

Embrace customer personnel. “Without relationships” with customers, “big breakthroughs don’t happen. Try to understand the nuances of their business [and] bring value to them by sharing what you’re seeing across the landscape. Try to understand what they care about and what targets they’re trying to hit this year, or their company’s new strategy or plan for the next five years.”

Recruit for the modern era. “As a B2B company, we didn’t really see a need to have a significant platform online,” Hall said. “But we found that was where would-be employees were looking to understand who we are and what we’re about and [decide] whether they were going to answer our call for applications.”

Communicate today’s reality. “Factory floors aren’t dirty and grungy the way they were,” Hall said. “It’s a different world now, and we don’t tell that story.” Bridgewater is trying to appeal “to PhDs and manufacturing engineers but also [to] carpenters, millwrights, electricians and people who enable us to put things together and make them go.”

How to Sell Manufacturing

American manufacturers attest they’ll have 3.8 million jobs they need to fill over the next decade, thanks to boomer retirements, a shortfall in relevant skills and one more important problem: Factory jobs don’t attract young people.

Carolyn Lee, president and executive director of the Manufacturing Institute, proposed these ways manufacturing chiefs can boost the appeal of their jobs to new generations:

Stress culture. Good pay and benefits are table stakes. “Flexibility and culture can help you with recruitment,” Lee said. “You need to be able to change misconceptions about what manufacturing is today so they’ll go and look.”

Dig deep locally. Become ambassadors for your jobs in your community. “Sponsoring the Little League team and Girl Scouts are workforce-development opportunities, so don’t just do funds and logos and team shirts. Spend a few minutes talking about what you do and why you do it, about the cutting-edge technology you have and why [manufacturing] is life-changing work.”

Paint them into the picture. Young workers “care about what they do,” Lee said, so “it helps to show them how they fit into the world. Their understanding of how the product and they fit into the system is important.”

Prioritize groups. Women, for instance, are “the largest talent opportunity” for manufacturers. Demonstrate “representation of women all the way through [management] so at entry level, women can see the opportunity to move forward.” Vets and excons also represent deep employment pools.

Emphasize development. “Talk about the growth potential and upskilling opportunities you have, how you as a company will invest in them so they can pursue their best path,” she said. “That is crucial for retention.”

Offer flex scheduling. “Maybe people can switch shifts via app, or set schedules a month at a time so individuals have certainty. Maybe offer a ‘mommy shift’ that starts after the school day begins and ends before the school day ends.”