The U.S. manufacturing industry is growing quickly. Unfortunately, many companies can’t find the talent they need to reach their ambitions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the industry has about half a million job openings. Furthermore, one survey shows that 65% of manufacturing firms struggle to recruit and retain workers, calling it their top business challenge.
A lot of factors contribute to this problem, so it isn’t something you can solve quickly. However, there are some things you can do right now to attract more Gen Z and millennial candidates.
It starts with accepting your company’s brand as an important part of your talent strategy.
What Today’s Manufacturing Talent Actually Wants
Let’s start by identifying what today’s manufacturing talent actually wants to see when they explore employment opportunities.
A good paycheck isn’t going to cut it for many young workers. In addition to getting paid, they expect jobs that offer purpose, sustainability, and growth.
You might scoff at that idea. Why isn’t compensation enough? When you take a closer look at what potential applicants want, though, you see that making the required changes could also help your business build a more reliable workforce for years to come.
By providing clear advancement paths, you show employees that you care about their futures — and you create skilled workers who can fill more advanced roles.
By building a positive workplace culture, you show employees that you care about their physical and emotional wellbeing — and you could benefit from lower insurance premiums, fewer workplace injuries, and clearer lines of communication that help your company adapt to emerging trends.
Why Your Employer Brand May Be Invisible
You might think that your company already uses branding. After all, your ads let consumers know about your products and priorities.
It’s important to recognize that advertising isn’t the same thing as branding, especially when you’re trying to target an audience of potential employees. Branding needs to tell a consistent story across all touchpoints so future employees know about your company’s core values and projects.
In many cases, companies don’t know they need to communicate with potential hires. You can start to correct that problem by:
- Adding employee testimonials to your website
- Posting employee interviews to social media channels
- Getting active on sites like LinkedIn
Humanizing the Factory Floor
The factory floor can seem like a place where people stay focused on work for hours at a time. While that’s true to some extent, your employees never stop being humans. You can humanize the factory floor to show manufacturing job candidates that your company fosters a vibrant culture.
Humanizing the factor floor can involve:
- Publicizing team success stories
- Posting interviews with real videos
- Showing behind-the-scenes footage of employees interacting at work
Post content to LinkedIn, Instagram, and similar channels to reach a wider audience.
The ROI of a Strong Employer Brand
Investing in a strong employer brand could actually help you save money and time. By improving your brand identity, you can fill empty positions faster, improve retention, and access more passive job seekers.
These factors will matter a lot the next time you need to meet a challenging milestone. Instead of worrying that you will fall short of manufacturing expectations and lose a client, you can bring new people with the right levels of experience and get the job done.
Similarly, better retention means that you won’t lose as many employees at critical times.
Strong employer branding doesn’t need to cost much money, but it can make your manufacturing firm more successful.
Partnering to Elevate Your Brand
You only reap the benefits of employer branding when you do it well. As someone who owns or manages a manufacturing business, you might not have much experience building coherent branding narratives. That’s fine, though, because MRINetwork has ample experience in this area.
Just as importantly, we have experience working with diverse areas of the manufacturing industry. Some of our partners work in areas like:
- Apparel knitting
- Paper manufacturing
- Printing
- Footwear
- Iron and steel
- Ventilation, heating, and air conditioning
- Communications equipment
No matter what your company makes, we’ve probably helped someone in a similar position.
Make Manufacturing a First Choice—Not a Last Resort
It’s a good time to work in manufacturing. As artificial intelligence learns to perform many of the tasks typically completed by white-collar employees, blue-collar jobs look like they offer stable financial futures.
Will your company attract top talent? Reach out to an office near you to learn more about how our team can provide an image makeover that gets the attention of skilled workers.
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