With 36 per cent of vacancies deemed hard to fill and record employee turnover predicted for this year, attracting and retaining talent should be high on the agenda for any leader in the manufacturing sector.
To meet employment goals and develop a dream team, consider improving employee experience. Defined by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) as “the result of all the interactions an employee has with their employer”, employee experience includes self-agency at work. Do staff members feel they have control over their working life?
Traditional manufacturing leadership is often associated with a command-and-control style, where bosses give orders and workplaces are rigid and hierarchical. Today’s employees prefer a more personable approach, with a recent study revealing that nearly half of office workers believe leaders should focus more on wellbeing, and prioritise skills such as listening and communication.
In manufacturing, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing people as another resource to be managed and allocated. Avoid this dehumanising mindset, certain to alienate and demotivate staff. Instead, boost employee experience by empowering your team to organize their own time at work.
Self-service software
To maximise agency, choose a time and attendance software solution that allows employees to control their own shifts and overtime. Staff can request holidays and rostering changes, view and adjust their personal data, and see payslips and weekly shifts, all through a single access point.
Clever use of software opens up the channels of communication between employer and employee, allowing workers to advertise their availability and managers to make shift decisions that work well for the personal schedules of all involved.
Leaders should consider allowing their team to trade shifts between themselves, building a culture of trust. With a strong software system, managers can put in place constraints meaning that only those with similar skills can swap. This way, the correct balance is struck between freedom to adjust working patterns and ensuring that all shifts are filled by appropriately qualified employees.
Safety first
Leadership flexibility cannot come at the expense of safety, with employee visibility vital for injury prevention and to keep sites secure. In an industry which, despite only accounting for 10 per cent of the UK workforce, is responsible for 20 per cent of UK workplace injuries, a smoothly operating and closely managed plant floor must be maintained.
Access control hardware maintains trackability of the workforce. A clocking in solution sees employees entering manufacturing sites using facial recognition, fingerprint and/or proximity authentication (using a secondary device like a fob, card or their phone).
Staff autonomy is boosted by allowing teams to speedily and efficiently enter their workplace, without having to report to other members of staff. Through integration of clocking in hardware with time and attendance software, people managers can allow shift-swapping and flexible working without losing their oversight of team members on site.
Leaders put power into employees' hands with self-service time management and clocking in. Investing in this technology can help avoid your team feeling like a cog in the relentless machine of company operations. Instead, staff are more likely to be highly motivated and to champion your organisation.
As skills shortages abound, increased autonomy for staff is a change leaders can make to gain a competitive advantage in the job market. The right technological solution ensures this culture of self-agency is built on a bedrock of security best practice.