Diversity focus, cultural shift needed to combat labor shortage

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio—When it comes to hiring, the game is changing. The stakes are higher, the competition is more fierce and the expectations on the employer are different.

So just how is manufacturing supposed to survive—and thrive—when the rules are being rewritten?

The answer, though complex in application is simple in theory, according to Sara Tracey, managing director of work force services for the Ohio Manufacturers' Association, who gave the opening keynote presentation at the 2022 International Silicone Conference.

You adapt.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed worker expectations. Many of them, for health reasons, safety reasons or child care concerns, are unable to work eight hours a day, five days a week. They may need to work four, 10-hour shifts or they may require a flexible start time.

Over time, the manufacturing industry has been slow to embrace this kind of change, Tracey said, but it will be critical for the industry's—and your company's—survival.

"If they think they can have more flexibility at a job at Amazon or Target or wherever, they are going to tell you they need more money to give up that flexibility," Tracey said.

To buck the weight of the labor shortage, manufacturers need to rethink who they hire. And that means implementing a plan for diversity, equity and inclusion.

"Manufacturing is older, whiter and male than the work force on average," Tracey said. "So if we continue to recruit older white males, we will never be able to close the skill gap. We need you guys—I'm not saying we don't—but we also need young folks, we need women and we need people of color if we going to survive as an industry.

"We cannot close the labor gap without also building a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy," Tracey said. "Because there are just not enough people that 'traditionally' work in manufacturing."

To ensure that you reach a broader, more diverse applicant pool, you'll have to change the way you seek employees. That means thinking outside the box when posting openings, leaning into new recruiting platforms, and going into communities you've never recruited in before.

Reaching potential employees is only part of the equation. Ensuring you maintain a strong and diverse work force means taking a good, hard look at your company culture and assessing your facilities to ensure that they are designed to meet the needs of every employee—regardless of gender or ability.

For instance, are there women's restrooms on or near your shop floor? If female employees have to go upstairs and to the other side of the building every time they need to use the restroom, that could be problematic.

This, Tracey said, plays to the company's culture. And company culture, ultimately, is why people stay.

"We talked about the need for greater parity, but more than just attracting those people to apply for jobs, we need to make sure that when a Black person, or a woman or a person who has a disability comes onto our shop floor that they are going to be welcome, that they are going to want to stick around for more than that first day," Tracey said.

"Some (turnover can be attributed) to a tough market. People have multiple job offers and they are going to be continuing to look for another 50 cents or another dollar an hour. But, sometimes, it's because the culture sucks."

Finding the right employees will require your company to rethink who it hires and how it hires.

According to a study conducted by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, the U.S. could see as many as 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030.

The problem is rooted in the pandemic, when 1.4 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost, a move that the study indicates set the labor force back by more than a decade. Since that time, manufacturing has brought back 63 percent of those jobs, a record number of jobs remain unfilled.

That is, in part, because of the lack of workers, but it's also related to a skills shortage.

Tracey believes that potential manufacturing employees—those who bring the right skills to the table—are in places that the industry just isn't looking.

"(Potential employees) might be in low-wage jobs, they might be working part time but available for full time," Tracey said. "They might have recently lost a job or left the work force for childcare reasons, and haven't come back in. These are folks who are able to work, want to work, but they are not coming and knocking on your door. So we have to do a better job of finding those folks.

"We need to be thinking about how do we advocate for people of color, for women, for differently abled folks and LGBTQ. That’s another one that the manufacturing industry isn’t typically considered to be good at—welcoming folks who are gender non-conforming, non-binary, trans folks."

Veterans also should be considered, Tracey said. As a whole, the industry understands the value of the skills that veterans bring to the table, but isn't doing enough to reach them.

"We know that veterans have a great set of skills—that work ethic, that discipline. Those are things that the manufacturing industry loves," Tracey said. "But veterans are not being pulled in. We are not doing a great job of attracting them and helping them understand how their skills translate."

Second-chance hiring policies are another excellent starting point for manufacturers seeking to broaden the applicant pool, Tracey said.

Not only do those with criminal records often show great commitments to their jobs, it's easy to bring them into the applicant pool because it mostly requires changes in the hiring process your company has in place. And start, she said, with how you screen applicants.

"A lot of companies have blanket policies on criminal record: We can't hire you. But what we are finding is that people with criminal records are often great employees," Tracey said. "So, we really need to look at our HR policies and ask does it really need to be blanket? Can we change what kind of background checks we roll out?"

If manufacturing is going to rebound, Tracey said, it ultimately is going to require an industry-wide effort to reshape the perception of manufacturing careers. The industry needs to market itself as it is—technological, STEM-driven and reliable.

Because manufacturing, Tracey said, just isn't what it used to be.

"Growing up in Akron, in the rust belt, we have this perception that manufacturing is dark, dirty, dangerous. We saw our dads and our grandfathers lose their jobs. And we all know … that the industry is different," Tracey said.

"We know that it is clean, that it is stable, that there are tons of opportunities. We need to do a better job of representing that the industry is a safe place, it is an inclusive place, it is an economically thriving place."

There may be a perception that manufacturing jobs can provide a strong middle-class lifestyle. But there is more to that story that Tracey believes the industry isn't telling.

Reaching high school students and college students is important, she said. They need to know that they can find a job that will fit their schedule and allow them to continue their education. Moreover, they likely are unaware that many manufacturing firms will provide tuition assistance, which could make college more affordable.

Finances aside, Tracey said, potential employees also need to know that manufacturing is cool.

"We need people to know that they are going to be using touch screens, that they are going to be operating robots, and they will need to have advanced technical and chemistry skills," Tracey said.