Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

mixed blessings

Please know that I realize times are hard out there right now. I am the only major employer in the 5 county area hiring right now, and for every position I have to fill I have 35-40 applicants. The last 4 1/2 years have been spent building a major maunfacturing operation from nothing, and growing a related existing operation. When we started the new operation it was me (a VP of Operations), a Dept Manager, and 2 hand-picked operators. We would run one machine, move with the product to the next step in the operation, etc. Since I had designed the central machine to the new process, it was a good opportunity to see firsthand how I had done. 4 of us has now grown to 240.

The first expansion in the summer of 2006 was not too bad, I was able to hire several people just coming out of the military. The timing was good. The second expansion, in Jan/Feb 2007, was something else all together. The economy had not turned sour yet and I had a hard time finding good people. Retention from that round was only 60%. Thid expansion was a little better but not very large.

In the fourth expansion in the summer of 2008 the operation doubled in size in 3 months. The reason for the title of this post is that, the same week we announced that expansion a major industry in an adjacent town completed it's shuttering of operations. The average age of the new hires in that group was 47. Retention from that round- 100% after 18 months. In the fifth expansion, March/April of 2009, I tried hiring a mix of mature workers and younger applicants, hoping the young ones would learn to work from the older ones. Retention rate? 100% of those 35 or older, 20% (1 out of 5) for the young group.

Now we're in the sixth growth phase. In the last 2 weeks I've hired 9, with 6 more to go. Another manufacturing plant is shutting down 12 miles from here. I am blessed to have a rich pool of mature, dependable workers to choose from. But knowing I can't help them all breaks my heart. 140 people suddenly unemployed, average seniority at the facility was 14 years. I'm not done yet, but the average age of those hired thus far is over 50. The ones hired are extremely grateful, being anxious about finding work at their age. I am grateful to have employees who want to work, and show up 99 days out of 100. But knowing for every 1 hired 4 or 5 remain unemployed is tough