'It's very important to us to bring in the right people'

Things are going well for injection molder Plastic Components Inc. Very well.

“2016 is going to be a very, very strong year for us,” owner and President Tom Duffey said recently by phone. “We plan to keep growing and keep the team focused on looking down the road.”

The No. 14 company on Plastics News' Best Plastics to Work ranking grew its sales 23 percent in 2015 over 2014, bringing its total to about $26.4 million. Through February 2016, Germantown, Wis.-based PCI achieved record sales in each of the past eight months and has no plans to slow down.

“All of which means I'm not retiring,” Duffey said, laughing.

PCI has added equipment, staff and space in the past year.

The company built a $2.2 million, 23,000-square-foot expansion for one of its plants between Memorial Day and Christmas, bringing it up to 38,000 square feet. It spent another $1.2 million on four new Toyo all-electric presses and support equipment, bringing the total number of presses at the 24/7, lights-out facility to 14, with clamping forces of 55-90 tons. The building, which just opened five years ago, now can accommodate 40 machines, and PCI has reached the maximum possible footprint on that 2-acre parcel, he said.

The company has another 46 fully automated manufacturing cells running around the clock at a second Germantown site. Those presses range in size from 35-400 tons.

The average injection molder with 60 presses would need a staff of more than 200, Duffey estimates. But because PCI is so automated, it employs 70. So, even as it continues to grow — it has added five workers in the past year — it can afford to be selective about its hires. And it is.

“We're very careful about who we bring into our universe,” Duffey said. “We make sure we bring in people who not only want to be part of a growing business, but who have the disposition to work in this kind of dynamic environment.

“It's a challenge many people can't meet. It's very important to us to bring in the right people in the first place.”

One of Duffey's favorite recruiting grounds is Ferris State University across Lake Michigan in Big Rapids, Mich. The company has hired five Ferris graduates in the past five years and made an offer to a sixth to start in May.

“We want to be a destination for these kids coming out of Ferris,” he said.

Duffey takes hiring very seriously.

“Our job is to create the kind of environment where the right kind of people are motivated to be here, where our employees are team members who want to get up and come to work because they feel good about it,” he said.

Well, that and: “If you give them enough cool toys to work with, they're going to want to come to work.”

Since this is PCI's third year on the Best Places to Work ranking, its efforts to keep its staff happy appear to be working. Its benefits package no doubt helps.

PCI has continued to offer the same health insurance benefits every year without increasing the cost to employees, which is unusual these days.

The firm also pays the enrollment charge and first three months of membership fees at a local fitness center. Then, through their health insurance plan, employees can get $20 off each monthly charge as long as they visit the fitness center 12 times a month.

PCI also likes to engage employees through “fun stuff,” Duffey said, like its annual chili cook-off, after-work gatherings at local sporting events, multiple cookouts during the summer and pancake breakfasts in the winter.

In addition to three Best Places to Work awards, PCI also won PN's 2014 Sustained Excellence Award, and was PN's Processor of the Year in 2008. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also recognized PCI as one of its Top Workplaces in 2015, ranking it No. 13 out of 75 in the small-business category.

Find an overview of the selection process and links to other Best Places to Work here.