By Rachael Pfenninger, director of strategic execution, AMBA
For US mold manufacturers, access to skilled labor continues to be both an impediment to profitability and a constraint on capacity, making it a major roadblock to long-term growth and operational sustainability.
To better understand how mold builders are tackling this particular challenge and provide best practices to other industry professionals, the American Mold Builders Association (AMBA) Emerging Leaders Network has led an effort to survey its membership on key questions related to employee recruitment and retention efforts. With the insights provided by its resulting whitepaper, Recruitment and Retention: Takeaways for US Mold Manufacturers, executives and management teams can better understand how others are achieving success and the ways in which they can improve their own efforts.
Takeaways from the Industry’s Emerging Leadership
Those who identified themselves as emerging leaders were asked a series of questions, including how they discovered their current company/role and which inherent qualities and/or skills made them a good fit for their current role/company. Below are a few of the summarized suggestions.
- Lean on Friends, Family and Referral Programs: Several responses cited the benefits of working for families or friends with whom they already had a relationship; employee referral programs also can help leverage positive employee experiences.
- Leverage External Relationships: Several member companies have attracted employees from external suppliers, customers and/or community organizations and educational institutions. Don’t overlook those who already have a relationship with the company.
- Develop Social Media Channels to Share Expertise and Culture: Culture played a big role in this survey’s open response data; in many cases, respondents indicated finding a company or expressing interest in employment after seeing positive cultural elements via organic social media efforts.
- Utilize Personality Assessments and Provide Continued Access to Training: Several employees referenced feeling they were a good fit for their current role; personality assessments can help employers understand if a candidate will fit the role and company culture well. For employees seeking growth, providing continued emotional intelligence training can drive their continued growth and success.
- Evaluate Technical Skills and Provide a Clear Leadership Path: “Go-getting” candidates may not have needed technical skills, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the aptitude. Provide a clear career path and evaluate interest in similar tasks or topics to determine if a candidate could be worthy of role-specific training.
From the Executive Perspective – Recruitment Challenges and Strategies
Although executives did identify recruiting challenges, such as offering competitive wages and benefits, sourcing skilled employees and needing to educate future workforce members, others have found recruiting success.
Successful tactics included hiring an on-staff recruiter, building an apprenticeship program, generating career center and/or community-oriented relationships, use of online recruitment and social media platforms (particularly www.indeed.com and LinkedIn, respectively) and more.
AMBA Offers Learning Opportunity to Membership
Using the insights and topic preferences provided by respondents in its Recruitment and Retention Whitepaper, AMBA has designed its newest Emerging Leaders-sponsored opportunity, the virtual Shop Floor Webinar Series. This series of one-hour, supplier-led sessions is designed to provide AMBA’s emerging leadership and operations staff with tips and trends related to topics impacting manufacturing, such as the use of AI on the shop floor, lights-out machining, automation and continuous improvement initiatives.
To learn more about upcoming virtual and in-person learning opportunities for AMBA Emerging Leaders, visit www.amba.org. For more information about the benchmarking efforts (including free, members-only whitepaper downloads), visit the AMBA Publications page.