Events Around Town: Onboarding That Works
In July, we had the privilege of attending “Onboarding That Works” sponsored by The Manufacturers Alliance. This event was designed to highlight and promote best practices with respect to the onboarding of new employees. Members of the Business Development team, Matt Knutson, Dana Boettcher and Dave Rohlf, attended. Topics covered included: 1) how to get new employees to bring their best efforts to work everyday, 2) how to speed up their learning curve, 3) how to provide the right message, the right tools and timely follow-up so that valuable new talent starts contributing as soon as possible. Presenters from Kurt…
Adding “Cultural Fit” into Your Hiring Practice
A healthy selection process is a lot like good gardening. Companies that fail to pay attention to and critically assess the cultural fit of job candidates are missing a fabulous opportunity to plant healthy seeds and thus shape the future of their “organizational garden.” They are also apt to inadvertently sew seeds that will not grow well in their soil. Worse yet, they may allow “weeds” to slip in. The result is a lot of unnecessary work and waste. A most successful workplace was a major plant start-up in southeastern North Carolina. A multi-national organization was building an electro-mechanical, metal fabrication…
Evaluating Cultural Fit
Savvy hiring officials are looking for more than great job skills, qualifications, education, and experience. They wish to employ applicants that are the best “cultural fit” for their organizations. They seek candidates whose past behaviors reflect belief systems, values and attitudes that are consistent with what they will experience in their new surroundings. They believe that determining cultural fit up front will improve learning curves, workplace harmony, morale, teamwork, efficiency, and the tenure of valuable talent. Several best practices have emerged as effective tools in evaluating cultural fit that forward-looking organizations would do well to take heed of. First, the…
Manufacturers Are Hiring!
According to a poll conducted this summer by Twin Cities Business, 38% of business leaders from around Minnesota are planning to hire. Hiring is up 10% and this is currently one of the best hiring outlooks since Q2 2012. The precision and medtech manufacturing industry in the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin is definitely ready to increase their workforces. In fact, the Twin Cities Business’ survey also found that a top concern for business leaders was finding qualified candidates to fill positions in engineering, machining and technical. Many of these high-skilled positions are found in manufacturing. As a job seeker…
Finding the Next Generation of Manufacturing Leaders
With Minnesota experiencing a 4.6% unemployment rate, according to Twin Cities Business, the labor market is tight. As a manufacturer with high demand for products and a workforce edging closer and closer to retirement age, you are not only concerned about finding employees to keep the day-to-day operations going, but also employees who can be future leaders and keep the company moving forward. The Manufacturing Leadership Community recently cited that attracting Millennials into manufacturing is critical to developing a pipeline of future leaders. By 2025 Millennials (born early 1980s through early 2000s) will make up 75% of the workforce. What…
Why Taking Vacation is Important
With August in full swing, summer in Minnesota will soon be coming to a close. If you haven’t taken a few days off or just one (or even a half day!) to enjoy your favorite summer activity, there is still time! Did you know taking vacation time can actually improve your productivity at work? Forbes reported that more than 40% of American workers do not use all of their allotted vacation time. This is despite studies finding that taking vacation improves worker productivity, health and overall workplace morale leading to increased employee retention. Unfortunately, workers are leaving time on the…