Episode Details

Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast, the Thanksgiving week edition. Yes, it is Thanksgiving week in the United States, and doing something special today, I thought we'd talk about the THANKS process.

This concept is what I talk about in the programs that I do. It's about creating a culture of appreciation in the workplace, so you can keep your top talent from becoming someone else's.

Engagement is essential in manufacturing because it is difficult to find people who want to come into manufacturing and stay in manufacturing. We also want to create the type of culture that makes people want to stay with us. By looking at the six steps of the THANKS process. by the end of our time together, hopefully, you'll have some ideas that you can start implementing not only throughout the holidays but all year long.

When we look at the acronym THANKS, the T stands for trust. So what are you doing with your team to establish trust? There are too many times that you're thinking about, oh let's try this new product, let's try this new program, let's do this new engagement initiative. Your employees are thinking, oh no one more thing; they're going to try to bring us in to get more productivity to try to squeeze more effort out of us.

After a couple of weeks, you drop that and go right back to doing something else when it doesn't work. Find one thing that works, find something that works for you and make a commitment to doing that. Listen to your employees, ask them for the things that they want to see. Now, sometimes that can be scary because you're thinking they're going to say, well, I want $10 more an hour, and I want to work, three days a week, Or I want to work remote. You're working manufacturing gotta show up and run the equipment can't be working remotely.

Look for ways to build those relationships by consistency by transparency. Too many times, managers believe that employees are only out for there's. Too often, managers believe that employees are only out to serve their self-interests. But, unfortunately, employees believe that management is also out to say and have their self-interests. When we create the type of culture where both sides can see that we're working together for the benefit of each other, then we can establish trust.

Your employees aren't necessarily going to like everything you tell them. But, when they know that you're coming from a place of transparency, you're coming from a place of their good. You're looking out for the organization and what you're trying to create there. Then, over time, things will start to change. Your culture took a long time to build. It is certainly not going to change overnight. That's the thing with building trust. It takes a long time to establish, and it can evaporate with an eye roll.

Think of some of the things you're doing that can establish that trust. For example, how have you built trust with some of your top team members?

The H in thanks is how you help your employees. How do you help them be better tomorrow than they are today? This means investing in your team members. Too often, managers will say, if I spend all that money on training, those employees will take all that investment and go somewhere else. So let me ask you, what if you don't invest in them and they stay? No employee ever quit because of too much training. As we're having millennials and gen Z in the workplace and gen alpha following them, these people are looking for professional and personal investment. That's just that skills training in the plant, as far as what they're going to use, it's personal development. So looking at that employee holistically, what can you do for them that will make them better in every aspect of their life.

I spoke at an HR conference, and I asked the question now, how do you invest in your employees? A woman raised her hand, and she said that they give every employee 1500 dollars a year to inves