Help! I Need Somebody!

November 9, 2022

Despite AICC’s best efforts and despite your best efforts, finding and retaining people remain the biggest challenges facing members as 2022 draws to a close. This has been a recurring theme for how many years now?

AICC has been providing you tools that are helping: Packaging University, with its 100 courses on a variety of topics; leadership groups; webinars; seminars; podcasts; white papers; and more. AICC’s focus on education seems to be correct—education is a critical component of professional development.

According to LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2022, professional development of team members was the most mentioned among respondents as the top area to invest in to improve company culture (59%). Flexible work support, No. 2 among respondents, is the opportunity that members have to meet the needs of those seeking a new work experience or keeping the folks that they’ve got.

EmployBridge’s 16th annual Voice of the Blue Collar Worker, a poll with 19,000 participants, supports this. It cited work schedule (21%), followed by consistent pay increases (14%) and good company culture (11%) as the top three reasons for workers to work where they do.

Flexible work schedules help to create the work-life balance that studies repeatedly show is the primary emerging driver for worker satisfaction.

These are high-level generalities suggested by data. What is the underlying driver? A dramatic change in attitude by Gen Zers and millennials compared with members of previous generations. These two groups will make up the majority of workers in our plants and offices in the next few years. AICC members need to be out in front of this important cohort to ensure the future of their manufacturing operations.

We’ve long known the difficulties we face with getting young people to consider working in a manufacturing environment. But a great deal of data out there can help point us in the right direction to be ready to meet the opportunity to position ourselves to be attractive and sought-after employers.

Again, AICC can be a partner for you by bringing data closer to your mindshare. We’ve been endeavoring to do this through webinars, seminars, and the Education Xperience. We’ll keep providing data and information relevant to your needs.

I would also suggest you seek out the young people and the emerging leaders in your organizations—and AICC’s dynamic Emerging Leader group—for their ideas and insights into making your operation more attractive to their peers. They are a resource close at hand and one that knows your culture and respects it.

You’ve got them—they may help you get more like them!