Proven Value for Manufacturers to Develop Staff from Within: Part II
When you define career development as the ongoing acquisition or refinement of skills and knowledge, it includes job mastery and professional development that exceeds the scope of the employee’s job description. With this mindset, it is difficult not to see the advantages, which an employee career development plan can provide. Plus, if you want to answer your firm’s shortage of talent by developing your employees, you’re headed in the right direction. Last week we established why employee development is essential. Today and next week MPS Technical, a staffing agency with more than 20 years assisting the manufacturing industry with finding…
Why Should Manufacturers Help Develop Their Staff? Part I
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” ` Theodore Roosevelt How do you treat your employees? Manufacturers recognize that finding great talent is hard and keeping it can be even harder. The answer, of course, is building a skilled, flexible, and engaged workforce. But people soon grow dissatisfied if they are ill-treated in their jobs. Worse, a sense of despair and a fog of stress permeate your firm with negativity which affects all operations and leads to a loss of revenue as high turnover and conflict become the norm. In 2012, the Gallup…
Candidates with Disabilities Help Manufacturers Dissolve the Workforce Gap
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) began breaking down the barriers in American Society in 1994, but the disabled workforce became integrated years later under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity ACT created by President Obama. Perhaps workers with disabilities may be just the employees you need to fill your manufacturing workforce shortage. Realistically, not all jobs are right for those who are physically-challenged, but there are many positions – such as assembly worker, test assistants, order builders, or technicians – that can be well-suited for these individuals. In fact, many mid-level management or supervisory positions, including safety, compliance or custodial…
Answering the Challenges Businesses Face: Part Three
Good communication skills are a critical component of productivity in business. It is why every job listing—even those in precision manufacturing–include good communication skills as necessary criteria. However, manufacturing firms have encountered a recent decline in communication skills as a reality in candidates and the marketplace. Whether from the deluge of technology and its predilections for abbreviations and symbolism or less demanding outcomes in the educational system, communication skills are not what they were a decade ago. Communication is a two-way process. Communication skills can be defined as the ability to convey verbal, nonverbal and written information from a sender…
Using Temps to Keep Production Going
Precision manufacturers face the same issue every summer – keeping up production in spite of absent staff due to summer vacations. No one wants to have the headache of coping with unmet product demand, so smart manufacturers have learned to reduce the risk of slowing down by using a contingent workforce. The contingent solution, of course, is not to off-shore production, but rather to seek those people in your region who can do the job short term. Looking locally for qualified contingent workers enables precision manufacturers to smoothly and seamlessly fill in those temporary vacancies and keep production humming along.…
Answering the Challenges Businesses Face: Part Two
Picture Monday morning and Joe Employee fails to show up for work…again. Moreover, he doesn’t call to explain his absence. Worst, you just blew a major customer’s trust since “missing Joe” put a significant crimp in production. Why do chronic “no shows” and “no calls” occur? The variety of reasons range from legitimate to loco. But you can manage that spectrum if you are prepared. First, prepare a comprehensive policy that is provided in writing to every employee which covers every form of absenteeism: time-off requests, sick time, family emergencies, unexpected incidents or lateness (like a car accident), military activities,…