Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/1464021
30 PalletCentral • March-April 2022 palletcentral.com Michael Hair Facility Director McVantage Packaging In my opinion, the most successful businesses have always created a way to ensure employee happiness. Without happiness you will never have retention and without engagement, you will never have happiness. e question is, "How do you ensure all three?" For me, the answer is engagement. For some managers, engagement is difficult. Taking the time to get to know your employees is something a lot of managers would probably not think of doing. But if you don't know what makes him or her happy, it can be close to impossible to make them successful. I'm not saying that you have to know their whole family history, but you need to know what makes them happy. What do they need to be successful? When employees are happy, they are successful, and that leads to high retention. I try and get to know each employee, what their goals are, and what they want for their future. Most of these discussions are done during the interview process so I already have that understanding before they are hired. Of course you cannot make everyone happy 100% of the time, but you can make every effort within reason. In today's economy, retention has become the biggest obstacle to a company's chances of success. Managers have the responsibility to ensure a favorable work environment and to get the buy in of their employees. I have heard other managers talk about recognizing individuals for their performance. I have chosen not to recognize a single member of my team. I recognize our whole team. Each year we put on a anksgiving lunch for all of our employees as well as a cook out for one of the other holidays. ese two simple events have done more for moral than any other idea that we have tried. ey work as a team and are recognized as a team. To conclude, managers need to engage with their employees; these are the people that will make your company successful. Take the time, your retention rate will be much better, your company will be more profitable and your employees will be happy and enjoy coming to work. Tyler Karner Plant Manager Konz Wood Products As a team, I have challenged all levels of our management to spend more time engaging with employees on the production floor. We stress the importance of taking the time to learn and connect with each individual employee. We also changed our approach at developing our on the floor supervisors and have given them more time to learn hands-on in production and develop a relationship with the employees before stepping into a leadership role. is has led to more meaningful interactions between supervisors and employees. Supervisors learn how to read and react to each individual employee in a time of need. We have seen significant changes in the supervisor to employee relationships. Employees have provided us feedback that they find the supervisors to be more approachable and that they feel their voices are heard when they discuss problems. We've noticed less frustration from employees when they run into an issue, because now the supervisors have the skills and knowledge to eliminate employee frustration before it happens. Maintaining a happier stress-free environment has led to more employee referrals within our company. Our referral program has provided us with new hires that start with a higher level of engagement, and they have the resource of an existing employee to help eliminate some of the unknowns in starting with a new company. Focusing our attention on the employees we have today, has led us to better retention rates, happier employees, and provided us with new employees through our best resources (our employees). Pallet Manufacturer, Midwest We added additional employee benefits including STD (short-term disability), more PTO (paid time off ), plus we hold a yearly employee appreciation celebration at which we will honor those with years of service milestones, and honor those who have gone above and beyond over the past year. In We put on a Thanksgiving lunch for all of our employees as well as a cookout for one of the other holidays. These two simple events have done more for moral than any other idea that we have tried. – Michael Hair, McVantage Packaging