Finding good workers isn't always about technical skills

Business boils down to people. Men and women are employed making things that are bought by people. Pretty simple. But now there's another people angle facing the plastics industry, and all of manufacturing.

Yes, the skilled worker shortage — how to hire people and retain them — got a workout at the Plastics News Executive Forum.

Two headhunters spoke at the Executive Forum: Dennis Gros and Russ Reindeau. They mainly talked about hiring sales people and executives. You will read our coverage of these two gurus.

But what about the operators, mold-changers, tool makers, the people that make the products?

For that factory-floor view, the best human resources experts are leaders at the finalists for Plastics News' Processor of the Year Award. They spoke at a breakfast panel to close out the Executive Forum, which was held in Lake Las Vegas, Nev., earlier this month.

Employee relations is one of the award criteria. Any company that makes it to the finalists' circle has excellent employees and low turnover.

The executives of Stihl Inc., which won the Processor of the Year Award, and the other finalists, Evco Plastics Inc., Prism Plastics Inc. and Nicolet Plastics Inc., emphasize training and smart hiring.

But here's the interesting thing: When they hire, they don't look only at work experience and vocational “skills.”

“Hire for attitude, train for knowledge,” said Evco President Dale Evans.

He said it can be hard to change the mindset of technical plastics people who have worked at other companies, so Evco no longer focuses on that. Instead, the company puts new employees through training, and gives then opportunities to seek more.

Besides, as Evans said: “The technical skills are always changing, always evolving.”

The same message came from Rodney Bricker, vice president of Prism Plastics. The company looks for good people and they do extensive training.

“Character, attitude first, and then technical,” he said.

Evco runs factories in the United States, China and Mexico. Each plant is clean and climate controlled. Evans said he treats people the same in all three countries. “We have really good retention with that, really around the world,” he said. “Our technical staff is practically zero turnover.”

Nicolet, located up in the hinterlands of Wisconsin, has created a detailed skills matrix encouraging employees to learn new tasks. Nicolet has a very cross-trained workforce, and they run the factory floor.

“We want somebody that comes that can move at least two increments up,” said Bob Macintosh, president, CEO and owner.

Stihl has an impressive, nationally recognized apprenticeship program. (Yes, or rather, Ja, they're German owned, but they've Americanized it and are willing to share.) The average age of a Stihl apprentice is 31.

So now Stihl is moving down to the high school level. So are some other plastics companies around the country. It makes sense.

Benjamin Hoffmann, Stihl's manager of polymer technologies, notes that high schools and middle schools no longer have what used to be called “industrial arts” classes. (Warning: Saying the term “industrial arts” will date you and make you feel old.)

“Shop classes were replaced with the computer labs, but that only goes so far. You need people who can change a mold in a molding machine, and start up a job,” Hoffmann said.

So while the “skills gap” grabs the headlines, it sounds like we really have a “people-who-want-to-keep-learning-and-changing” gap. Maybe a “work ethic” gap as well.

Maureen Steinwall, owner of custom molder Steinwall Inc., is an expert on how to train, motivate, and just plain treat people. She is going into the Plastics Hall of Fame at NPE 2015.

President Obama recently made waves by proposing free community college. Manufacturing is desperate for young skilled workers. Steinwall has an interesting take on free community college: That a two-year college program is now a kind of de facto high school degree.

“I don't think community college, the way that Obama is spinning it, is anything other than trying to fix a very societal problem, which is, we don't have educated kids coming out of high school,” she said.

“This is a really broken record. The high schools have failed miserably, that so many of the people have gone back to community college, to get the education they should have gotten in high school. I sit on a lot of community boards, or have, and that is the biggest pet peeve of community colleges, is that they have to re-educate the high school graduate. Because they come to them not prepared for college education. They don't know how to spell. They don't know how to calculate basic math. The high schools have graduated people that don't have basic competencies.

“I think community college is saying look, I am not going to educate these kids with a high school diploma that can't do basic anything. I think it's a failure of the high schools. If you don't have some basic skills, you are unemployable.”

A sad sign of the times.

“Is this a legitimate taxpayer expense? If you believe that basic education is a societal right, it is now shifted into the community colleges and the technical colleges,” Steinwall said.

Bregar is an Ohio-based Plastics News senior reporter.