According to the October 2021 Wisconsin Manufacturing Report, 99% of Wisconsin manufacturers with 50 or more employees are having difficulty finding qualified candidates for open positions. The resulting competition for employees can be fierce.
Chris Czarnik, CEO of Career Research Group, says formerly tried-and-true recruitment efforts don’t really work anymore. “For employers, it was like selling ice water in the middle of the desert,” Czarnik said. “They could recruit without much effort. Now, they are competing with scores of other companies for the same employees, and they are somehow shocked that they’re not having success.”
Albert Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” The same could be said of many companies’ response to this historically tight labor market. Instead of doing the same things and hoping for better results, companies must look at their situation differently and consider innovative solutions to their workforce challenges.
According to George Bureau, vice president of consulting for WMEP Manufacturing Solutions (WMEP), success lies in a multipronged approach of recruitment, retention and redeployment of the talent needed for organizations to grow and thrive.
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, whose workforce has recently grown by about 20%, focuses on employee satisfaction and employee referrals to address its talent needs. It increased wages and benefits, which helped with retention, but it also tapped into existing employee networks. Each Monday, Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachim Shivaram has lunch with new hires to get to know them better. Shivaram increasingly relies on his current employees to help spread the word about the favorable work environment. “Word of mouth is our biggest and best tool,” he said.
As recruitment becomes increasingly expensive and difficult, successful companies also are focusing on shoring up their retention efforts. Retention is driven by employees’ total experience, including work environment, compensation and benefits, perceived growth opportunities, and importantly, the capabilities of their immediate supervisor. Debra Pratt, HR manager at Manitowoc Tool & Manufacturing, said investing in supervisory skills “provided us valuable real-world skills to sustainably grow our organization and set us apart in the labor market as an employer of choice.”
As workforces turn over, documenting processes and developing job skills has a measurable impact on job performance and retention as well. WMEP clients such as Componex are developing improved job instructions to more effectively transfer knowledge and speed onboarding of new employees, resulting in increased productivity and improved retention, saving the company significant money.
And last but not least, companies are investing in automation to improve productivity and free up human resources that can be redeployed elsewhere. TYRI Americas turned to automation solutions to help with its workforce challenges. According to TYRI Americas President Ken Turzinski, “WMEP’s Automation Assessment helped TYRI prioritize our capital investment in automation … The first phases have helped us address our workforce challenges while significantly improving productivity.” TYRI reports hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and other savings tied to its automation solutions.
Company: WMEP Manufacturing Solutions
Innovation: Creative workforce solutions
Website: www.wmep.org
