Coworkers, manufacturing needs them, and to grow manufacturing you need more of them. As of late the trade magazines and papers report that they have been in short supply. We have been holding our own here at PlastiCert, but have used short and long term actions to help mitigate, if not alleviate the problem.
Short term, we have been constantly on the lookout for individuals that want a more desirable work environment. As a two time winner of the Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility award from the Families and Work Institute in Washington D.C., and their When Work Works Program, we have taken steps to offer a workplace that both engages and exercises the interests of our coworkers. Cross training and a constantly changing production schedule provide variability to a job that is often described as repetitive and boring.
Some time ago, I spoke to a group of business professionals on using a designed positive workplace culture as a means of attracting new talent, and retaining the employee talent you have. Our past awards and continuing efforts are the cornerstone of our keeping all of our workplace talent in place AND attracting the new talent we need. We feel having an award winning culture will augment our search for talent by bring people to us as they look to make their work and home lives as rewarding as possible.
Longer term we have been engaging the local high school and technical college to raise awareness of manufacturing in general, and of PlastiCert and the opportunities it offers. We emphasize that while our business is technical in nature, there are a myriad of non-technical careers involving the business side of Manufacturing. Areas like purchasing, production planning, customer service, finance etc. are integral to manufacturing success but do not require a technical background.
Being a unique manufacturing entity for the area (one of a handful that perform plastic injection molding and its ancillary mold technologies), we have always needed to train and update our people. As our reach extends further and further, this aspect of managing our in-house knowledgebase will continue to reap rewards