A Successful Business Starts By Engaging With Their Employees

The recent revelations about Australian manufacturing’s insolvency problems during 2023 were not totally surprising, given the cycle of interest rate rises since COVID and some of the supply chain and currency challenges that Australian manufacturers have been dealing with. However, while much of the environment for manufacturing is beyond business owners’ influence, one of the factors we can bring into the positive side of the ledger is the quality of people in the business.

In manufacturing, everyone has access to pretty much the same equipment, similar materials, and finance structures. These do not change much from business to business. But employees can mean the difference in product quality, service, innovation, and agility.

Develop the Person, Grow the Business

You might get lucky and employ someone who knows exactly what they are doing in your factory, at full productivity, on day one. But probably not. If you want the best out of your people, you will have to develop them.

Managers and owners usually talk about ‘human capital’ and ‘human resources’ and that you have to invest in these resources in order to get a return.

I understand these concepts. But at our manufacturing business in Sydney, we start the story from the employee’s perspective: What do they want? Where do they want to go? Where do they want to be in five years? What skills or education do they need to meet their own goals?

This does not mean we dispense with all of the measurements that make up monthly, quarterly and annual reporting. Everyone at Harrison Manufacturing, including myself, is assessed against goals, objectives and KPIs, in relation to individuals, teams, and business units. 

But we start with the individual, on the historically-proven and measurable basis that an engaged and motivated employee who feels listened to by management and aligned with the organisation’s goals, will perform better and stay longer.

A Human Centred Approach

I have the internal results, and the research from other industries, that proves to us that a human-centred approach to people is a financially successful way to operate. I also believe that having engaged, self-developing people is an important attribute when you are building a culture, and especially when you are making something that you have to sell. There are plenty of examples of what happens when manufacturing workers in a toxic culture become disengaged and jaded about what they are making, and what subsequently happens to the product quality and the satisfaction of the customer. 

So, we do not leave this to one-off encounters and informal pats on the back. We use systems and methodologies, including ‘internal business partners’, communication systems, values-alignment measures, a structured Staff Training and Development Framework and regular reporting of goals and objectives in which managers are required to deliver on how well the employee is tracking with their goals. 

Work a Mile In Your Shoes

We have job rotation programs and internal work experience – called ‘Work a Mile In Your Shoes’ – where a person from one business unit can see what it is like to work in another unit. And we back it all up with regular Town Halls, where business unit managers shares the organisation’s financial statements and employees can ask anything. 

We make ourselves listen, as evidenced by our ‘Ideas Hopper’. This is an electronic database, with a simple Macro form, where team members put their great ideas for doing things better. And if their ideas are taken up by our R&D division or included in our product development pathways, or if it ends up with a patentable new product via our SPARC (Strategic Projects and Advanced Research Centre) arm, the team member gets a royalty stream from the idea. The goal is to make people feel a part of something positive.

Dalias is a great example of how this works. He started with us as a storeman, then blender, and over the course of time became a shift supervisor and is now being developed as a manager. Dalias as part of the walk a mile program joins the R&D team, and he is becoming so engaged in this fascinating aspect of manufacturing that if he wishes, he will be further supported in his Goals & Objectives to further develop his knowledge via academic courses. Who knows, in time he may become our Production Trials Manager, which joins his production knowledge and leadership with the R&D skills he has been learning.

Another employee – Jose – started as a storeman and became a blender before telling us that he had always wanted to be a fitter and turner. We put him through TAFE and an apprenticeship, and he now works in the engineering and maintenance team. We have helped him with his passion, and we have been rewarded many times over with a great employee who really supports our company.

People Are The Company And The Company Is People

The human-centred approach gives us sky-high engagement levels, long-term staff, high productivity and a happy workforce. And it starts with the question I ask myself every time I deal with staff: ‘how would I want to be treated?’ 

The answer is I would like to be treated with dignity and as if I have value, and I would like to feel listened-to. Not that hard, really, and it makes for an inviting and collegial workplace. The fact that we can see the results on the bottom line is a bonus.