Naples, Fla. — Executives from companies on the Plastics News 2020 Best Places to Work list recently shared some of the secrets to their success.
This sharing of best practices took place at the Executive Forum, held Feb. 25-26 in Naples. It came from a panel made up of officials from Jamplast Distribution, Chase Plastic Services Inc., Dymotek Corp. and Plastic Components Inc.
"It starts with community service and engagement," said Michael Molling, chief financial officer at PCI, an injection molder based in Germantown, Wis. "In manufacturing, we're not used to talking about branding, but we do have a brand to bring to our customers."
Community service and engagement "are becoming a business mandate. Customers ask for it," he added.
Millennial-age employees often ask why a company does what it does, said Norm Forest, CEO at Ellington, Conn.-based injection molder Dymotek. As a result, he added, "it's important to communicate your message — good, bad or ugly."
Dymotek's involvement in the Best Places selection process, conducted by Best Companies Group, has provided Dymotek with "a lot of great details of where our gaps are," Forest said.
Chase Plastic, a resin distributor based in Clarkston, Mich., enters the Best Places competition every other year, President Kevin Chase said.
"It takes us a year to go through the [Best Places] data," Chase explained. "We tie it to our core values, and then we have to execute."
Chase Plastic recently has improved its pay and benefits in order to compete with Detroit-area automotive firms, Chase added.
Work flexibility is important to employees in 2020, said Michael Bernich, president of Jamplast, a resin distributor in Ellisville, Mo., near St. Louis. "We define what our culture is by the people employed at our company," he added. "We hire, train and re-retrain based on that.
"Life happens, so if you need to work from home, we can work around schedules," Bernich said. "We've been paid back tenfold by giving people that time."