If you’re in the pallet industry, it’s no surprise that blue collar workers are in high demand in the U.S. today, making it very competitive to attract and retain the best employees for pallet companies. Depending on where your business is located, you’re likely not only competing against other pallet businesses for laborers, but also with manufacturers in other industries who are also seeking competent and reliable workers willing to do physically demanding work.
The Blue-Collar Worker Shortage
According to a report from The Conference Board, many companies are now finding it harder to find blue-collar workers than white-collar. And the blue-collar worker shortage is only expected to get worse as time passes. By 2028, as many as 2.4 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. may be unfilled, according to a 2018 report by The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte.
What Blue-Collar Workers Want
Not surprisingly, research has shown that blue-collar workers want many of the same things as white-collar workers. And one of the things that they want, beyond a decent wage and benefits, is the flexibility to work and still have a good work-life balance.
Believe it or not, some very simple, low-cost changes to your human resources practices can make a world of difference in providing your employees with the flexibility they want. These changes don’t necessarily cost a whole lot from the financial standpoint. They do require setting aside traditional ways of thinking, and some additional thought and planning to make them work.
5 Low-Cost Ways to Give Workers More Flexibility
Here are five changes to consider to provide workers more flexibility and a better work-life balance. Try implementing these changes or using these ideas as a basis for your own creative solutions. To gauge how receptive your workers would be to such changes, hold a meeting to discuss the changes and get their feedback to determine if they’d be worthwhile to implement at your company. Also, if you don’t already offer basics like health care and paid time off, these are good places to start.
1) Staggered Start and Stop Times – Try offering workers some flexibility in their start and stop times, especially employees who typically get their work done. Maybe start small with one or two employees through a pilot program to see how it works before taking it companywide. These workers may begin their day a little earlier or later than everyone else, but they’ll still get the same amount of work done in a day, and possibly even more, because they’ll be happier. A small change in their schedule may make a huge difference to them if it lets them be there to see their child off to school or pick up them at daycare on time.
2) PTO by the Hour – Life is busy and there are lots of things that come up, especially when employees have families and children, that may require them to leave a little early, come in a little late, or take a longer lunch break. Instead of requiring them to blow a day of vacation, when they really only need an hour or two, why not consider offering them the opportunity to take any accrued time off they have in smaller increments, as little as one hour or even a half-hour at the time. Some employers report that this is good for their manufacturing operations because it reduces the number of unplanned absences by employees, who may call in sick for the whole day when they only need a few hours off.
3) Shift Swapping – According to the Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operation (IMPO) website, shift swapping has the potential to work just as well in manufacturing, as it does in retail. Basically, the idea is that employees can swap their full shifts of half shifts with other employees who are skilled to do their jobs. Managerial approval is typically required before the swap can actually take place.
4) Family Leave – If your company doesn’t already have a family leave policy in place, consider creating one to allow employees the opportunity to take extra time off, either paid or unpaid, to take care of family members like sick children, elderly parents, or spouses recovering from surgery or illness. Let’s face it, no one wants to be put in a position of having to choose between their work and their family, so why not create a policy that keeps your employees from having to make such heart-wrenching decisions?
5) PTO for Sale – To allow employees to take more time off in a year than the vacation time they’ve accrued, you can create a policy that lets them purchase additional vacation days. This can help employees in varying circumstances, who need more time off in a particular year for things like getting married and going on honeymoons, attending to sick children or family members, or longer vacations to visit distant family.
Once you’ve put new solutions like this in place, they’ll not only help you to retain your current workers, but you can use these benefits to attract new workers to your company as well.
