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Meeting Expectations Flexibility is the key to worker retention at Salford Group By Scott Garvey When the band Loverboy released its song “[Everybody’s] Working for the Weekend” in 1981, it may have been more prophetic than anyone realized. 1981 is generally accepted as the first birth year of the millennial generation. And, like the Gen Xers before them, they’re much more concerned about establishing a comfortable work-life balance than the earlier baby boomer generation. The Gen Xers have been described as a cohort that works to live, rather than lives to work. That’s the basis of one of the biggest challenges facing today’s HR managers. They need to wrangle a workforce of people who have very different priorities and goals. But numerous studies suggest they don’t need to throw out every strategy that has worked for the baby boomers as the Gen Xers and Millennials gradually come to dominate the nation’s workforce. Instead, they’ll need to think on their feet and adapt quickly to changing workforce attitudes. George Peters, senior operations manager at Salford in Southern Ontario, believes flexibility has been the key to keeping boots on the company’s factory floors. “We definitely want to keep doing what we have been doing,” he says, “but if we find the culture changes or it becomes difficult to keep the employees motivated or engaged, we’ll have to adjust.” One of the broad cultural changes that has added a challenge to the manufacturing sector is the fact many blue-collar professions are no longer in vogue. “It’s social,” agrees Geof Gray, Salford’s president. “[Manufacturing] is not seen as a great career, although a lot of times trades make more money than other career choices. It’s a cultural thing. There’s been a big shift in the last twenty years away from manufacturing training in high schools. But that is a
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Implement Success | Summer 2019
whole trade thing; there aren’t enough people going into trades.”
colleges and universities and co-op programs.”
Salford is making efforts to try to reshape that perception and to show young adults that working in a manufacturing trade could actually be a rewarding experience.
“We’ve done what we can, having the high schools come through, working with them and making sure we keep promoting [trades],” says Gray.
“I think it comes down to making employees feel that they’re part of the organization on decision making. Making sure that they have a voice and that they’re heard.”
In the past, the focus on recruiting at the high school and college level has paid dividends, and Peters considers it well worth continuing the effort. “Some of our best employees started fresh out of school one or two decades ago and they’re still here,” he says. “Now they’re in supervisory positions.”
— George Peters, Senior Operations Manager, Salford
But finding staff is one thing, keeping them is quite another. Millennials in particular have become known for their willingness to quickly jump ship if a job doesn’t meet their expectations or satisfy them.
“The high schools here have work experience programs, and we’ve brought in students from those programs,” explains Beverley Taylor, Salford’s HR manager. “Quite often, once they graduate, they choose to stay on.”
So far, finding the right approach to employee retention has been a matter of trial and error, says Peters. The company has experimented with a number of initiatives in an effort to meet generational expectations. The first and most obvious move is to be wage competitive.
“We’ve been attending more job fairs for helping with recruitment,” adds Peters. “We’re involved with some of the local
“There has been a lot of wage pressure around here—and pretty much North America wide,” Peters says. “It’s
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