GA Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) Georgia Tech

Creating a Better Place to Work in a Post-Pandemic World

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As the world begins to recover and return to a “new” normal, people are reassessing what is important and valuable to them. They now have different opportunities and more career choices to consider, with the U.S. Department of Labor reporting a record 9.3 million job openings as of the latest tally.* Additionally, according to a recent report by job site Monster.com, 95 percent of workers are now considering changing jobs, and 92 percent are even willing to switch industries to find the right position.*

So how do employers respond to this talent turnover tsunami, create a better place to work, and become (and remain) the employer of choice? They are having to carefully examine their workforce recruitment and retention strategies to be successful moving forward.

Here are four things you can do to create a plan for your manufacturing plant that will attract and retain employees:

  1. Find employable candidates: Engage in alternative workforce development pipelines, including Second Chance programs, Work Based Learning, and Apprenticeships. Leverage your relationships with local high schools, technical colleges, or universities for rising talent that you can mentor. Decide if you should incorporate co-ops or paid internships into your company, allowing you to groom talent for future long-term employment. Look to veterans leaving the military with applicable leadership and collaborative skills that will translate well at your company. The Georgia Tech Veterans Resource Center is a great place to access personnel seeking employment. Also, embrace flexibility. Companies that adopt a hybrid work model and hire a mix of permanent and contract talent can enjoy the benefits of improved staff morale, better performance, and access to a deeper and more diverse candidate pool.**
  2. Get these employees off to a good start: Developing a talent pipeline is not a short-term project. It takes vision and commitment. Meet with your team on how to best present your organization and the employment opportunities you are providing. Be transparent with potential candidates so they know exactly what the job entails. Then commit to a structured training plan for a certain period of time with new hires. Have consistent check-ins or debriefs within your process to make sure they are comfortable in their new roles. Are they confused, frustrated, happy? This can be as easy as creating a buddy system with routine, informal meetings to keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening.
  3. Keep them from leaving: Creating a culture of organizational excellence is a multi-step process that must be continually refined. Listen to employees needs and act on that feedback in a timely manner. You can provide career counseling, mentorship opportunities, and conduct employee surveys. Creating a community that is less a job and more a team trying to achieve the same goal together will help you proactively control potential turnover. The key is to engage with your employees on a regular basis because yesterday’s needs won’t necessarily be today’s. Read our blog post titled Own the Skills Gap: Workforce Readiness Starts with You for three examples of companies who have been successful in nurturing employees and building a company of choice.
  4. Create a long term plan for staffing: Nearly 1 in 3 professionals (31 percent) say they had a shift in perspective due to the pandemic and prefer to work for an organization that better aligns with their personal values.** Most successful companies have development plans for executives, managers, and engineers, but the companies with the highest employee engagement have personal development plans for every person in the organization. Examples include:
    • Placing your most valuable people in the most rewarding jobs. This makes them happy and uses them effectively.
    • Look to use technology and automation to add productivity enhancements to keep your business running, which can also create a new career path for someone to manage this technology.
    • Recognition makes people feel valued. Keep top performers engaged and fill the gaps to reduce workforce burnout by reallocating talent in creative and strategic ways.
    • Create “stay” interviews to engage with employees and provide insights on career goals and advancement.

By investing in your current workforce and creating a culture of organizational excellence, you can attract the new talent you are seeking and retain employees that are the best fit for your long-term company goals.

By: Raine Hyde, Marketing Strategist, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

*MSN.com – https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/great-resignation-gains-steam-as-return-to-work-plans-take-effect/ar-AALApUG?li=BBnb7Kz
**Middle Georgia CEO – Robert Half Research Points To Strong Job Optimism Among U.S. Workers

Five Tips for Effectively Managing Change at Your Manufacturing Plant

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Five Tips for Effectively Managing Change at Your Manufacturing Plant

Whether it’s the ongoing advancement in technology, the ever-evolving world of data, a company reorganization, or other unexpected curveballs (such as a global pandemic), manufacturers are constantly faced with change and the challenge to adapt. But just as change is a part of any manufacturing business, so is resistance to change – especially change that people don’t understand, agree with, or see any benefit from. However, it is possible to lead a change initiative at your facility while still keeping your team focused and productive. The key to accomplishing this lies within your ability to communicate with and show empathy to those who your change will impact the most. Not sure how or where to start? Follow our five tips below for achieving your change management goals in a more collaborative and effective way at your organization:

1. Understand what you are trying to accomplish and why. The first, most important question in a change initiative is: Why are we changing? It’s important to have a clear and compelling reason for why your team, coworkers, or boss should abandon what they know for something new. You should be able to explain what the reason is behind this change and how it will improve your organization in some tangible way. Don’t get too hung up on your plan for implementation until you are clear on what the overall goal is and why other people on your team should be just as enthusiastic about it as you are.

2. Start with a conversation, not a policy. So you’ve pitched your change proposal and instead of cheers and whistles, you are met with rejection. While your kneejerk reaction may be to become defensive, the best thing you can do at this point is to empathize with your audience and try to understand why they feel this way. There are several reasons as to why someone might reject change:

  • They may have had a bad experience in the past with a similar situation
  • You may not be explaining it in a way that they can understand
  • It may not even be a good idea to begin with

The trick is to expect this kind of reaction and hold these discussions early on to better understand what kind of impact this change will have on your team. Don’t set anything in stone right away – this will be a process where communicating and experimenting to find what works best will be the optimal approach.

3. Be open minded to other ideas and suggestions from your team. During the early stage of a change initiative, it’s important to confirm that the issue you are trying to solve is valid and that your team recognizes the issue as well. Once they agree that an issue does exist, then you can include them in on the potential solution. After all, what better way is there to solve your issue than to talk to the people who are actually dealing with the problem on a daily basis to see if they have any ideas worth implementing?

4. Experiment towards your goal. The path to implementing your change successfully is anything but linear, so it’s best to approach this process with an “experiment your way forward, instead of deciding your way forward” mentality. This method is called the Improvement Kata, which is a four-step pattern of establishing target conditions and then taking measured steps and learning from each experiment to inform the next one:

STEP 1: Understand the DIRECTION or CHALLENGE.

STEP 2: Grasp the CURRENT CONDITION.

STEP 3: Establish the next TARGET CONDITION.

STEP 4: EXPERIMENT toward the Target Condition.

This steady march towards your goal may not be in a straight line, but it will provide you with an opportunity to learn from each obstacle you encounter along the way, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments that will hopefully get you that much closer to achieving your goal.

5. Follow up. Once you’ve executed your change, don’t declare victory just yet. Go to where the change was implemented and follow up with those who were involved to learn whether the change was effective in addressing the original goal. Be ready to take whatever feedback you get in stride. To be a good leader throughout this process, you must be able to show both confidence and humility and recognize that you don’t always have the answers to everything. So if the change did not work, try to understand why, and start working on the next experiment. However, if the change was successful, celebrate and start standardizing the result by using what you learned to plan new improvements.

By keeping these tips in mind and remembering to maintain open communication at every stage of the process, you can help ensure that your change management efforts are a shared learning experience rather than something to be inflicted upon others.

If you would like to discuss your change management goals more in-depth, visit https://gamep.org/regional-locations/ to contact your local Region Manager.

By: Megan Johnson, Marketing Specialist, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Your Workplace Safety Process – Summer Check-in

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Your Workplace Safety Process – Summer Check-inThis June is the 25th Anniversary of National Safety Month, a National Safety Council (NSC) program.  It’s a time to focus on keeping ourselves and others safe from home to work and back again, each and every day.

In 2019, the United States saw the highest numbers of workplace deaths since 2007 – over 5300+ documented – and in 2020, that number grew dramatically as many essential workers were sickened by or died from COVID-19 while completing their daily jobs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is the agency tasked with ensuring the right of every American to a workplace free of safety and health hazards, is also celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. This mission is as important now as it was five decades ago.

Here is a four-week sample plan providing you with tips to help your team strategize for summer workplace safety:

Week 1 – Prevent Incidents Before They Start

Summer months are notorious for an increase in workplace injuries – resulting from heat illnesses, increased roadwork and traffic, construction activity, and on-boarding of newer, less experienced workers. Use this time to survey the safety scene in your facility and review any new or changing risks to employees. This is especially important as companies adjust to workforce or workplace outputs that may have been altered due to COVID-19. Heat-related illnesses can occur on factory floors just as they can for outdoor construction laborers. It’s important to keep your facility well-ventilated and cool during the summer months. Use these tips to plan ahead and keep your team safe.

June is also the start of hurricane season. For employers in southern and coastal Georgia, given the recent damage sustained during Hurricanes Michael and Dorian, preparing now for expected storms and their disruptions to your workplace is critical. OSHA has numerous resources available for employers, including their Hurricane Preparedness and Response page, which has useful tools to identify and address the exposures and risks for severe weather.

Week 2 – Address Ongoing COVID-19 Safety Concerns

As communities and workplaces navigate the pressure to fully re-open and re-staff, concerns and hurdles both physical and emotional remain. Companies with increased or serious risk of exposure to coronavirus must understand their obligations for providing a safe and healthy workplace. The recently released Department of Labor’s National Emphasis Program for COVID-19 is a tool for OSHA to target their resources (both outreach/training and enforcement) towards industries and activities that are highly hazardous. These enforcement efforts ultimately mean that a company who finds themselves on the “Target Industry List” are more likely to receive an OSHA inspection.

The Georgia Tech Safety, Health, Environmental Services (SHES) group is equipped to assist small- to medium-sized manufacturers with understanding both their responsibilities regarding protocols and policies around COVID-19 and the national emphasis program through their Consultation Program and trainings.

Week 3 – It’s Vital to Feel Safe on the Job

Employees who feel protected and valued by their employers can keep their focus where it needs to be – working safely. Thorough job hazard assessments, clear and timely communication, and a process to report safety or health concerns without fear of retaliation are all important components of an effective safety and health management program. Manufacturing activities known to create increased workplace risks include forklift operation, automated machines, and sanitation procedures in the food and beverage industries, so much so that OSHA has established enforcement of Emphasis Programs for these industries to again target resources where they are most warranted.

The mental and emotional health of employees has suffered intensely in the last year as job insecurity, personal illness and loss, and ongoing concern around the possibility of workplace violence have all been additional factors added to employees’ daily lives. Finding ways to connect employees with supportive resources to address job stress and build resilience or address fatigue is critical to keeping staff healthy and safe.

Week 4 – Advance Your Safety Journey

Observing National Safety Month provides an opportunity for all stakeholders in a company, from the C-suite to floor associates, to pause and reflect on the safety and health of their organization and to recommit to continuous improvement and performance. Ensuring your team has access to appropriate and current training resources, or participating in networking and collaboration opportunities with other companies seeking to proactively identify and reduce hazardous workplace exposures, is good business practice.

The need for improving safety outcomes in the workplace never stops, so keep advancing the commitment in your facility and consider participating in the Safety + Sound Week (August 9-15, 2021), which is an annual nationwide event recognizing the success of workplace health and safety programs, and an opportunity to share best practices and strategies with others in your network.

Where do I Start?

If you are a small- to medium-sized manufacturer that is interested in a no-cost (and confidential) assessment of your safety and health programs and/or your physical worksite, the Georgia Safety and Health Consultation Program is available to assist you. Our highly-trained safety and health consultants can provide guidance on OSHA regulations and strategies for controlling common hazards, including COVID-19, to keep your business in compliance and your employees safe (Small-medium is defined as businesses having 250 or less employees at the site and 500 or less total U.S. corporate employees).

By: Hilarie Warren, MPH, CIH, Director – Georgia Tech OSHA Training Institute Education Center; Principle Research Scientist – Safety, Health & Environmental Services

Five Tips for Building an Effective Energy Behavior Change Campaign

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Five Tips for Building an Effective Energy Behavior Change Campaign

When we talk about energy, the focus is usually on technology and technical solutions. However, energy behavior is gaining more attention as a “hot topic” in energy innovation. Until recently, in my experience as an ISO 50001 auditor of energy management systems, I found that in many organizations consideration of the role of energy behavior in energy savings efforts has been confined to “Turn off the lights when you leave” stickers on light switches or “Close the door” signage, and the like.

What has been lacking is a focused and structured approach to achieving and sustaining energy behavior change. But it appears this is beginning to change as organizations look for new low-cost energy opportunities in the face of increasingly constrained capital budgets; as more case studies are published on the application of social marketing and psychology to achieving sustainable behavior; and as organizations adopt and benefit from implementation of the ISO 50001 standard for energy management systems.

There are a number of resources that can help organizations build and implement behavior change programs. Some of the organizations that have published useful case studies on this topic include the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) and The Carbon Trust, among others.

Published by The Carbon Trust and modified based on my own experiences, the “Five Top Tips for Building an Effective Behavior Change Campaign” that can help organization get started on developing a behavior change program are:

  1. Understand where energy is being consumed: Evaluate energy consumption across your organization and identify where behavior is a factor. Where the highest potential exists for energy savings may surprise you.
  2. Prioritize the behaviors you want to change: Determine where you can realistically have the greatest impact. Potential energy savings should be balanced against the probability of achieving change.
  3. Define the outcomes that you want to achieve: Decide specifically what goals or targets you are trying to achieve, so you can plan for how to monitor performance and feedback on the results.
  4. Research what motivates or hampers good energy behavior in your organization: Use your understanding of your own organizational culture to help build your program. Find out what is important to your employees and how they think, behave and interact with the facilities, technology and others around them.
  5. Secure top management support: Top management commitment and support is critical. They hold the resources. They can facilitate or block what it is you are trying to do. And, there is no substitute for leadership by example!

There appears to be enormous potential for energy savings from behavioral change. ACEEE recently estimated that the U.S. could cut energy consumption by 25% without hurting its economy. We know that technological advances will always provide important new solutions to reduce consumption within our highly energy-dependent society. But human behavior also matters in managing energy and achieving continual improvement in energy performance.

By: Holly Grell-Lawe, Project Manager (retired) Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

The Do’s And Don’ts of Preparing A New Facility For The First Audit

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The Do’s And Don’ts of Preparing A New Facility For The First Audit

Starting a new facility is an enormous undertaking.  There are thousands of things that must be accomplished, from hiring and training new staff to ordering and installing equipment.  This scenario is a perfect example of “Too much to do and not enough time to do it!”.  There’s always significant pressure to get up and running to start the return on the company’s enormous investment.  To further complicate the situation, most customers require one or more audits of the site’s Food Safety Quality (FSQ) System before the first sellable product can be produced on the line.  These qualifying assessments range from a casual, on-site visit by the customer to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) audit.

Meeting the ever-increasing standards of something as daunting as a full-blown GFSI audit can be an intimidating prospect, and success can only be achieved through strategic planning.  There is so much to be done to get the plant running before looming deadlines, which often leaves little time to prepare for initial audits.  This is a race against the clock, but success is possible through alignment, engagement, planning, and prioritization.

Get Everyone on the Same Page

The biggest pitfall of any quality leader is trying to execute all the audit preparations themselves or only relying on members of the Quality Department.  The key to avoiding this is to engage management and distribute audit preparation activities across different departments.  Before this can happen, a strategy, or Audit Preparation Plan, must be developed and agreed upon by all applicable stakeholders.   Upper management must be involved and aligned on the resources needed.  This process starts with an internal assessment of the audit requirements to understand where the gaps are and determine the best solutions.  Create a sensible timeline and have routine follow-up meetings to discuss progress and assign resources.  Make adjustments to the plan where needed and ensure that there is proper accountability for those responsible.

Another mistake is ignoring employees outside of upper management.  Understand who is going to be executing these programs and involve them from the start.  Sometimes the creation of effective systems isn’t as big a challenge as creating sustainable ones.  The best way to ensure that FSQ Systems will continue to operate smoothly comes from engaging the employees that carry out the day-to-day operations.  Gain buy-in from empowering them to take part in how quality tasks are monitored.  Simply asking advice about how worksheets should look or where to store tools can go a long way.  They are the ones that are going to take these newly-created programs and make them into a reality.

Dealing with Delays

If there is control over the audit date, ensure there is sufficient time for all the preparations.  Despite best efforts, sometimes things don’t go according to plan.  Meet with the management team and see if there are ways to makeup the time or shuffle resources.  It might be unavoidable that an unforeseen delay occurs and a deadline can’t be met.

If there hasn’t been enough time for the proper preparations, consider approaching the customer and asking for more time.  It doesn’t set a good precedent to continually push back an audit date, but it might be necessary.  This setback is usually a better choice than failing an audit or compromising the safety of your product.

This decision is just one more risk assessment to be done.  Consider all the variables and decide if a delay causes more damage than an unsatisfactory audit score.  Be transparent about progress to the management team, corporate officers, and applicable customers.  A little warning will make a possible delay more palatable.

Borrow with Pride

It’s imperative to leverage every asset.  Often, new plants have established sister plants with mature FSQ Systems already in place.  Borrowing templates, verbiage, and existing systems are all extremely smart ways to save time when developing these programs for a new site.  Remember that borrowed items must be carefully reviewed and tailored for that facility.  The type of product, workforce, equipment, customer and regulatory requirements must all be taken into consideration.  The best advice for starting a new facility is to never start from scratch unless that’s the only option.

There are a tremendous amount of resources out there.  University extension specialists are a wonderful support option for understanding and complying with applicable governmental regulations.  Trade and professional organizations are a well of knowledge and experience that can be tapped.  There are also experienced consultants that can aid in almost any step in this process.  Their services include creating HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points) and food safety plans, aiding with practice audits, training staff, and setting up specific programs.  Interns or temporary staff can also contribute to creating new programs.

Vendors like pest control companies, chemical suppliers and outside laboratories can be a surprising source of aid.  They are often a well of knowledge and have already prepared training, sometimes documentation that can be easily converted to meet the plant’s needs.  They have a vested interest in the plant’s success and will often go to great lengths to offer support.  It never hurts to ask.

Simplicity is the Key to Success

Quality leaders are often perfectionists, driven by the need to meet every requirement to the letter.  One of the biggest pitfalls that a new plant can fall into is over-complicating their FSQ Systems.  The harsh reality is that there isn’t always going to be enough time to do everything in the beginning.  Some items on the list might have to be delayed due to time constraints or unavailable resources.

Producing safe food in a workplace that is safe for every employee is always the starting point. Everything else can be prioritized from there.  Making a list of all the key tasks and required documentation and prioritizing it is the best way to ensure that the vital systems are in place.  For example, having a statistical process control system in place isn’t going to be as vital to operations as a fully implemented Food Safety HACCP Plan.  Determining the time and resources each task will take also needs to be considered in this prioritization planning.  Ensure that input is gathered from other departments and members of management.

These first few months will set the tone for a site’s developing food safety culture.  It’s important to be meticulous but not too rigid.  The best FSQ Systems evolve over time but always start with a solid base that is created by prioritizing what is truly important.  What has worked at one location might not work at another.  If the deadlines are looming too close, don’t be afraid to recruit aid in the form of colleagues, universities, vendors or consultants.  After the initial audit is complete, ensure that any corrective actions are established for any nonconformances identified.  Share the results, not only with those that aided in audit preparations but all associates at the site.  Celebrate the wins and learn from the losses together to build a stronger team for the future.

By: Wendy White, Industry Manager, Food Safety and Quality, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership