Intek hiring, retention practices fill talent pipeline

A sharp focus on training is paying off for Intek Plastics Inc.

Mechanical aptitude assessments, employee-driven promotions and pay raises, and an emerging leader program are just some of the hiring and workforce development practices undertaken at the Hastings, Minn.-based profile extruder to lure and keep new talent.

The company specializes in custom profiles for construction, fenestration, hydroponics, lighting and refrigeration applications. Intek's coextrusion capabilities enable it to extrude four dissimilar materials into one multidurometer profile for different combinations of impact resistance, color, stiffness and weatherability. Think about the bumpers that go around checkout counters of major retailers, weatherstrips for walk-in freezers, product trays, and LED lighting covers and structures.

With estimated annual sales of $60 million, Intek ranks No. 61 among pipe, profile and tubing extruders in North America, according to Plastics News' latest ranking.

Founded in 1961, Intek first was focused on extruding weatherstripping, jambliners, polycarbonate roller tracks and glazing beads for the window and door market. When the housing bubble popped and the Great Recession followed, Intek lost work and workers — but not direction. Company officials diversified into lighting, refrigeration and hydroponics and increased efforts to build back its workforce and retain it.

"We haven't had a layoff since 2008; we learned our lesson," Nate Becker, one of Intek's two training and development specialists, said in a phone interview.

Intek doesn't have much absenteeism or turnover either.

"When I started doing this job four years ago, we were in double digits for turnover," Becker said. "Now when we run the hard numbers, the absentee and turnover percentages, which are month-to-month calculations, have consistently been around or below 2 percent."

Becker said this tracks well below the national overall average of turnover in manufacturing, which is currently at 47.2 percent so far in 2023.

Intek has been taking more steps to vet prospective hires, offering free tuition and adding apprenticeships. There's also a program that allows employees to level up to higher-paying positions every few months.

Intek's successful hiring and retention practices earned it the 2023 Excellence in Manufacturing Training Award from the Southfield, Mich.-based manufacturing association SME.

The ongoing workforce crisis in manufacturing motivated SME to document, celebrate and share best practices with others looking to make talent development a core strategic pillar, according to Jeannine Kunz, SME's chief workforce development officer.

The award recognizes the value of investing in the workforce, which Intek Plastics has done for the last decade, Kunz said in a news release.

"Intek is a company that has overcome significant challenges and adversity in its business climate and production volumes and has come out stronger, better staffed and ready for growth, with a robust recruitment and training system in place to support expansion," Kunz said.

After the Great Recession, production and market challenges crept up. In 2013, Intek consolidated two plants into one. Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic followed by a severe winter undermined company recovery efforts.

The stress of maintaining staffing levels was compounded by Intek's need for extrusion operation employees with a unique skill set that takes a substantial amount of time to develop. The company prioritized their retention, according to Intek CEO Jill Hesselroth.

"Over the last seven years, we've pivoted toward a culture based on servant leadership," Hesselroth said. "In practice, that means every single employee — whether they're a leader, mid-management or on the shop floor — is expected to help one another in order to be successful in their work."

Hesselroth said the success of its servant-leader model depends on strategic planning and execution; hiring employees who share company values; providing opportunities for employee development; continuing education, including English as a second language; and a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Becker is part of a human resources team making it all happen, along with Sonya Prange, Intek's vice president of human resources and service operations, and Chris Von Helmst, the other training and development specialist. The trio leads efforts to keep some 234 positions filled for the company to run 24 production lines around the clock, from Sunday night through Friday night.

Job candidates take a mechanical aptitude assessment because many company roles require an inclination for it, Prange said.

"We put together good processes and tools to help us evaluate that at the time of interview, so we know right away what their aptitude is toward it — their capacity to learn it, so to speak," Prange explained.

Job candidates who are a good fit for Intek, but not necessarily its extrusion division right away, also get a lot of consideration.

"We have wonderful people apply and maybe running an extruder isn't their thing," Becker said. "We try to offer them a different position. Maybe they can learn what [extrusion] is later and then move into it. We try to promote from within all the time. Everyone's journey starts somewhere."

One popular retention program is a leveling system that allows employees to regularly seek performance assessments and raises — every two months for machine operators.

"After their probation, they can put in for an assessment, where we assess that they are at the point where they should be skillswise. They can increase a level and there's a raise attached to it," Becker said. "That puts a person's destiny in their own hands. How much do you want to put into it? How far do you want to go?"

There are 10 levels to machine operator, while other classifications have three to five levels.

"Last year we averaged nine to 11 level-ups per month from our workforce. That was pretty awesome to see. A lot of people really grabbed the bull and ran with it," Becker said.

Three machine operators are now supervisors, and an engineering intern who started five years ago is the head of the engineering department.

"I started in 2000, when I was 22, and had no idea what plastic is or what manufacturing was," Becker said. "Intek allowed me to work my way through and learn everything. Now I get to be the guy who gets the next generation ready."

Intek has a long-standing tuition reimbursement for any courses that pertain to what the employee or company does.

"You can get a degree in computers or even extrusion. There's a college north of Minneapolis that offers an extrusion program," Becker said. "However, we have this selling point: Why spend tens of thousands of dollars to learn this when we will educate you for free and pay you for it? We're one of the only places in Minnesota that has a formalized program for this line of work."

Machine operator training is a hybrid of classroom, online and hands-on work.

Intek also has an apprenticeship program for toolmakers and will launch two more this year for maintenance and die technicians.

In addition, the company offers English as a second language (ESL) classes for new hires who speak Spanish at home or one of the three dialects of Karen, which is spoken mostly in southeast Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Thailand. In the last 20 years, more than 17,000 Karen refugees — many escaping a military regime that burned their villages -— have resettled in the St. Paul area, making it one of the largest Karen communities in America.

"I feel lazy when I work with them," Becker said. "They're the most wonderful, polite, hard-working people I have ever met."

Intek's biggest hurdle has been the lack of language translation options. Karen's dialects aren't on Google Translate or any software.

"Going forward, when we add another person to the training team, we want them to be fluent in Karen," Becker said. "Intek has been ahead of the curve in figuring out how to grow our own people."