How to Overcome Challenges faced by HR in Manufacturing Industries

Manufacturing industries are constantly trying to come up with strategies to retain their top-skilled employees. Retaining employees with the best skills is important as they work towards the growth of the industry. In order to retain your employees, the first thing we need to analyze is the hiring process. But many industries face certain challenges when it comes to the process of hiring and retaining employees after hiring them. Before we go into the challenges, let us first try to understand what talent management is.

How do we define talent management? Talent management is the process by which organizations recruit, train and retain talented employees in the workforce. The aim of talent management is also to increase the productivity of the organization in terms of revenue, customer satisfaction, budget, time and capital. But hiring good talent is not a big deal, ensuring that they remain in the organization is an important aspect of talent management.

Talent management is not always an easy task. Especially in the manufacturing industries with employees from diverse backgrounds, it is going to be difficult. But again, it is not impossible. Let us explore some of the challenges faced by the manufacturing industries in talent management:

Ineffective strategies for recruitment

The first step towards talent management is recruitment. Before recruiting one needs to analyze what kind of skills are required for the industry. Often, industries do not meticulously plan these things out. Before hiring someone, it is important that one prepares the list of skills required for the job and prepare a job description. There is a certain sense of ambiguity when it comes to the recruiting process. People often do not know where to start.

Where does one source these talented people? Obviously, the answer is job portals and social media websites. Then you go through their resumes and call them for an interview. According to a study conducted by Deloitte, by the time we come to 2025, there are going to be at least 2 million unfilled positions in the manufacturing industry. Half the time, employees decline an offer just because of the amount of time taken in the hiring process. Nobody likes to wait for that long.

Lack of Technology

According to a study conducted by Deloitte titled The Future of Manufacturing, talent needs to be partnered with advanced technologies in order to increase competitiveness in the market. In order to streamline the process of talent management, it is best that industries use performance management software for effective talent management and employee engagement.

Using a performance management software can do wonders because it automates the whole performance process and saves a lot of time and resources. You can get instant access to your employees’ information and communicate with them on a regular basis and make informed decisions for their development. However, most manufacturing industries are ambivalent towards adopting technology and hinders their talent management and business processes.

Inadequate leadership and team development

According to a report by McKinsey and Company in the year 2017, there are only fewer manufacturing industries that take the initiative to transform their company’s culture to improve performance. But to bring in that kind of culture, one needs to transform the ways in which they lead. Effective talent management is contingent upon strong leadership.

I distinctly remember watching an Indian movie in which there is a textile company. The workers are mostly women belonging to the lower strata of society. With societal limitations and the lack of proper conditions in the workplace, they would often come to work only because they cannot do anything else to survive. Their manager is the least bothered about them until one day, a woman decides to transform everything in her workplace starting by creating the right conditions for these women.

This is not just pertinent to gender. This is pertinent to every industry. Employees work day and night to increase the productivity of the business. But managers are not half as invested in their careers. Employees tend to get demotivated when they realize that nothing is being done by their leaders for developing their careers. There is not the remotest guidance from their leaders in developing their talent. Therefore, leaders need to come together to develop their team.

Lack of employee self-development

Managing your employees means you need to take care of them from top to bottom. For employees to be motivated, industries need to make them realize that their work is being valued. Employees need to have a sense of satisfaction in their jobs. But if industries keep treating them like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, they are soon going to leave the industry.

Employees would not want to work if their job is dormant with no scope for improvement whatsoever. It is only fair that employees want to develop their skills and professional abilities and take new challenging responsibilities. But industries often assign them those same mundane tasks where they are not learning anything at all. Moreover, they feel like their talent is being wasted because it is not being utilized in the right manner.

When industries do not give that scope for employee development, then it is going to result in employee attrition. Then it becomes harder for the company to hire new talent and go through the same tedious process. When their best employees leave, it is going to become harder for them to find replacements. A lack of developmental strategies can bring down their entire enterprise.

Closing comments...

Your entire workforce is contingent upon the kind of talent management strategies that you adopt. Although it might be difficult at times, you can prevent a lot of these problems just by trying to fix the smallest problems that occur, whether be it recruitment or managing your leaders. Therefore, it is important that leaders and the management work together to develop and retain their employees. Then your employees will be happy and satisfied. Good luck!

Dhanya is an expert in HR products and Performance Management Software. She is a Digital Marketing Executive at Synergita. Through her engaging content, she promotes different strategies for employee performance management.