AGCO, Vermeer, Kondex, and Duramark Talk Recruiting and Retention Successes and Strategies

AEM's Julie Davis joined togetherwith member company representativesAusten Schueler, Talent Acquisition Manager for Vermeer, Ella Bowling, Aftersales Training Business Development Manager for AGCOCorporation, Kelly Peterson, Organizational Development Leader for KondexCorporation, and Stacy Hiquet, VP of HRand Training Development forDuraMarkTechnologies, to talk about their recent recruitment and retention success.Other companies may be able toimplement similar strategies to address their workforce woes, based on the wealth of information providedduring AEM's recent member education webinar: What's Working in Recruitment and Onboarding.

AEM:What are you doing to build your talent pipeline, and can you providesome examples of successes related to your efforts?

Peterson: At Kondex, we have participatedin something called Project Grillfor many years, which is through our local Chamberof Commerce. Local high schools'partner with manufacturers in their areas, where the students work to design, build, and sell a gill alongside these manufacturers. It gives students the opportunity to learn how to read prints, how to build something with their hands, how to work on a budget, and even how to sell their final product. They get to tour these local manufacturers and spend time at our own facility here at Kondex, and they get to see the global impact that our facility in a small rural area in Wisconsin has.

Want more information on best practices, tools, programs, and resources to help attract and retainthe right talent? VisitAEM's Workforce Solutions Toolkit.

AEM: What have you done to change your recruitment strategy that seems to bemoving the needle for you?

Hiquet:We had to get very creativeover the last few years in terms of recruiting and hiring talent. Gone are the years wherewe could put a sign out in the frontof our building and have an open house and get a hundred candidates.

For us at Duramark, post-incarceration programs have been one tactic that has been very successfulfor us. We started with a partnership with our local county jail and have expanded our efforts beyond that in recent years; one of the things that you'llfind with these programs is that most of these folks just need a second chance. They have their own counselors, and those counselors have already vetted them out in terms of work ethicand risk. A lot of the folks we have brought on board have been extremely loyal to us, because we gave them the opportunity to change their livesfor the better.

The second area that we'veseen success in is individuals with what we call seen and unseen disabilities. We'veworked with many people in the autism community because some of our work is oftentimes repetitive and monotonous, and they tend to enjoy this type of work. We are able toconnect with this talent poolthrough partnerships with our local Best Buddiesprogramand Easterseals.

Schueler:Ifwe get to the root of the issue,a huge part of many company's problems with recruitmentis change management. Something that'sbeen emphasizeda great deal at Vermeerlately is getting through to our leadership that there is not a deep pool of talent that wants to work for anymanufacturer at a discounted rate.

We have been digging into nontraditional talent pools, as Stacy mentioned, and another nontraditional talent pool we have been working with are those who have no prior knowledge of the shop floor. Today, for any of our production team members we do baseline skill assessments, and what their capability to learn new skills is. It'slike a career assessment in many ways to determinewhat is the best fit for them, we want to steer them towards something that they may enjoy that they do not know about. We invest in their education and training, with no costto employees, and pay them for their trainingas well. We have a comprehensive technical training program for all ofour technical disciplines, and developmental programs for new career individuals who are lacking experience, which has drawn in a lot of new talent.

AEM: How has onboarding to your company changed to adapt to the equipment manufacturing industry'slabor shortage, and how has this affected retention for you?

Peterson:Although getting employees into our facility is important, it'salso extremely important to integrate them into our team and get them to stay with us for a long time. To show that we are excited to have them on board, we send out physical welcome cards to all, which are signed physically by many current employees. It shows them that we want them to be a part of our team.

On our new hires first or second day, they have lunch with their supervisor and their trainer. They get to have one-on-one lunch with the people who will be impactingtheir future career, build a trusting relationship, and make them feel valued.

We also break up our orientation into several different days throughout our new employeesfirst month. We focus on safety, the culture of our organization, and our values and beliefs during these orientation meetings. A lot of our new employees do not know our mission, and do not know about our company's global impact. After they participatein onboarding and learn more about us, they can proudly tell the people that they know what Kondexdoes and feel good that their work is making a difference in the world.

Beyond that, I meet with all ofour new associated at three different intervals. There usually15-30-minuteone-on-one meetings, at two weeks, two months, and six months. I have specific questions to ask them, but I also open it up to general discussion and I have found out a lot from these conversations. I get to hear about the good things that we are doing, and I also get to hear about things that employees would like more support on - these touch base meetings have helped so much with retention because it allows the employees to make their voices heard.

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