According to pallet industry leaders interviewed by Pallet Enterprise, the hardest staffing challenge is recruiting and hiring the right employees in the first place instead of keeping top talent in the long run. Once people work through the ranks of a company, they are more likely to stay, and it is easier for companies to keep these longer serving employees.
Finding the Right Candidates for Production Jobs
When it comes to hiring the right candidates for production, the common theme seems to be that pallet industry jobs involve a lot of hard work, and that candidates aren’t necessarily ready or willing to embrace the challenge.
Howe Wallace, CEO of PalletOne, reflected on the challenges facing new employees in the pallet industry. “Chances are, these are people who have not successfully had a job, and they may not be used to working hard or showing up for work every day,” Howe observed. “If you recognize that and look at them as diamonds in the rough, we believe we can get them to step up.”
For PalletOne, the first weeks are critical. “If we can get them through the first 90 days then we have a good chance of keeping them,” Wallace elaborated. “We turn a lot in the first 90 days. It is hard work, getting through with no bruised fingers or sore muscles.”
This is a point of view echoed by Kathleen Dietrich, operations manager of Commercial Lumber and Pallet Company and vice president of Priority Pallet. “Hand nailing is hard work,” Dietrich stated. She observed that the turnover of new hires has been worse in the last year than it has been in the past. If they can stick with it until they are fully productive, they become some of the highest paid employees in the plant under the company’s piece work system.
One avenue that has been highly successful for PalletOne, Commercial Lumber and other companies is in using referrals from employees to recommend new hires. PalletOne welcomes recommendations from its staff. The company has found that people take the responsibility of recommending a job candidate very seriously. Referrals tend to be strong candidates, and the nominating team members take an interest in their success. Commercial Lumber takes a similar approach. When positions are available, it posts them at both locations. The success rate for referrals is higher. This may be because employees recommending new employees can help them better understand the challenges of the physical work, understanding the time it takes to get up to speed, and the benefits of being a long term employee.
One successful strategy for recruitment used by PalletOne in this regard is to always stay in the hiring mode. “We try to resist going into the ‘Not Currently Taking Applications’ mode,” Wallace explained. “We want to make it easy for good people to find a job when they need one.”
Of course, Wallace observed, having happy employees makes them more likely to recommend the company to friends and relatives looking for an opportunity. Having a reputation as an employer of choice definitely aids the recruitment process.
Ultimately, recruitment success seems to hinge on hiring good candidates who are prepared for the challenges and who understand that with time and effort they will be successful in their new roles.
Getting New Hires to Stick
For PalletOne, one key emphasis is how the existing employees accept newcomers. Several years ago, Wallace explained there used to be an attitude that a new employee had to prove himself before he was accepted by the group. “Now the approach is more welcoming,” he said “We are not going to get better if we don’t welcome new people.” PalletOne encourages team members to walk in the shoes of the new person.
Looking at warehousing, another industry with demanding entry level physical labor requirements, one formal initiative that is gaining in popularity is through having a documented new hire process covering the first 90 days. Such a handbook provides a series of checklists covering the first three months, spelling out the learning outcomes and goals for a day-by-day basis for the first week, and then week by week for the rest of the first three months. It involves such focus areas as safety and equipment training objectives, introductions with key managers and employees, and phased productivity goals.
Supervisory meeting and handbook signoff take place daily for the first week and then weekly meetings thereafter. This ensures focused communication between the new team member and the supervisor at each step of progress. In my experience, this approach works very well, if actually followed through and not allowed to slip in the face of day-to-day pressures.
Retention Tips
Retention seems to be a less vexing problem than keeping new employees. Pat Sherry, who recently retired from NEPA Pallet, said that the hourly workforce averaged 10 years of service, while management staff averaged over 15 years. For NEPA, as elsewhere, good pay and benefits were an important part of the equation.
As most experts in employee retention stress, however, compensation is just a starting point. Pallet companies take a number of steps to keep employees involved and happy at their work, such as being flexible to employee needs to the degree possible, building teamwork, goal setting, effective communication, as well as acknowledging that people have different aspirations.
Establishing a groundwork of mutual respect is important. Commercial Lumber practices the three Rs: Respect yourself, respect others and respect the company. “We are very interested in seeing everyone treated equally, regardless of position,” Dietrich said. Employee contributions are celebrated at safety meetings and other company functions.
When it comes to aspirations, some are happy to work in production, while others look for promotion, Sherry noted. “If they wanted to move up, then we would work with them,” he explained.
PalletOne also pays attention to the fundamentals, as well as striving to create an environment of learning and team building. “We have a goal of being the best blue collar employer in our market,” Wallace stated. PalletOne wants to be that company that employees will recommend when they hear from friends who are frustrated at the place they work. Once people get comfortable and confident, he finds that they are less likely to leave.
Communication is another important consideration, made more difficult as companies grow in size. “You can only spread yourself so thin,” Dietrich observed about the need to communicate clearly in larger operations, “so it is important to pass on that mindset (to frontline management). They need to know how to represent the company.”
One innovative approach to communication used by Howe Wallace is that he writes a daily blog (http://blog.palletone.com) to all of PalletOne’s 1,000+ employees, touching on topics such as perseverance and teamwork.
Likewise, an important component of communication is listening to your people. Experts recommend asking questions about the work that help build employee focus and engagement, with an eye to continuous improvement. For example: “Production on your machine was better yesterday than it has been for months. What were the things that happened differently that allowed you to achieve it?”
Relatedly, empowerment is another effective strategy to increase job satisfaction and innovation. A number of factors go into empowerment such as listening to their ideas and valuing their contributions. Empowerment can also be achieved by creating work teams with some degree of autonomy in meeting prescribed goals.
Considerations for Recruiting and Retaining Managers and Sales Professionals
When it comes to professional staff, some of the same principles hold true. For recruitment, James Olsen of Reality Training recommends looking for new sales people internally or externally through referrals. Perhaps you have a natural sales person who is driving a forklift, or there is a salesman selling to your company, or a current customer of your company who would be a good fit.
The idea is that there is already a mutual understanding about capabilities which would increase the chance of success. Of course classified ads are an option, but James stresses the importance of not sugar coating the first year experience, which can be very daunting for a commission salesperson.
Other ideas for finding management candidates include college internship programs and job fairs.
At PalletOne, there is a philosophy of having adequate bench strength for hourly employees and management alike. The company’s approach is to have extra management talent in the pipeline such as recent college graduates that will be placed in a plant and trained.
Al Holland, Wallace’s mentor and former owner of Ridge Pallet, stressed the importance of having enough people, so that you do not have to pass on an opportunity because of a lack of talent to tackle it.
As for retaining professional staff, Dietrich stresses the importance of having great support and teamwork. “We have an awesome support staff, all working in one fluid motion, a great group of people working in the same direction.”
While capturing a winning culture of retention seems a bit like catching lightning in a bottle, attention to doing the right things can go a long way toward better hiring and retention prospects.
