Anything but
Business as Usual Identifying and recruiting the top talent is top on the agenda for every industry and organization. When the competition is public and private universities, Google, Microsoft, other construction trades, and gap years, how can the sheet metal industry stand out? Especially when many people don’t even know what a sheet metal worker does? SMART and SMACNA labor-management cooperation trusts and committees across North America have been working to address this challenge by reaching out into their communities, especially into high schools and community colleges, and creating marketing materials that reach students in the spaces where they inhabit—mostly online—but also to ensure that gatekeepers such as parents and school counselors buy into the idea that a sheet metal apprenticeship will be value added to the young people they care about. In a recent visit to Wisconsin, the SMACNA-SMART Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force saw firsthand what it means to reject business as usual and be willing to create and invest in new solutions that address the current reality. Three examples are SMACCA Milwaukee’s and Local 601’s participation in a youth apprenticeship program that is part of Wisconsin’s School-to-Work initiative; a partnership between the Milwaukee chapter and Local 18 to refurbish a long disused sheet metal classroom in a local high school and start classes for those students; and the Choose Bigger marketing campaign, which started in Wisconsin but is spreading across the country. (See stories that start on pages 4 and 10.) Wisconsin is not the only place making strides with recruiting. By combining their efforts instead of fighting at the bargaining table or in arbitration, Local 24 and SMRCA of Miami Valley have created new recruitment marketing strategies and social media initiatives. The seed for these ideas came out of the 2018 Partners in Progress Conference, and both management and labor members are looking forward to the upcoming conference to help them build upon their current successes. (See story on page 12.) Cleveland’s recruiting efforts to reach into the schools started even earlier, and Local 33’s JATC—along with local contractors—are finding that it has helped them tap deeper in the pool of qualified applicants, including those who were previously underrepresented in the industry, such as women and minorities. (See story on page 14.) Realizing that not all local areas have the resources to create their own recruitment and marketing programs from scratch, the Best Practices Task Force has brought in specialists to identify effective ways to reach Millennials and post-
Millennials (or Generation Z) and has created resources that can be customized—for FREE—to fit local requirements. School Counselor Toolkits include posters, handouts, and flyers. (See the ad on page 9.) The task force is also rolling out a series of social media campaigns that specifically target students who are looking for the types of careers that our industry offers. (Check out a webinar on the campaign in the private section of the Partners in Progress web site). The first campaign is “My Job Is My Gym”, which raises awareness of the physical nature of work in the industry as a benefit to active individuals. Order t-shirts for your apprentices and journeymen to help them get the word out to their families and friends. (Visit bit.ly/SMARTRecruit for an order form.) Any member who posts a photo or selfie to their social media channel of someone wearing the shirt—and tags the post with #MJMG—qualifies for two monthly top prizes ($100 at Amazon). Many more ideas for using cooperation to strengthen our industry—from expanding into new markets to identifying market recovery opportunities and ways to keep the workforce strong will be shared at the Partners in Progress Conference, Feb. 25-26, 2020, at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Register now for the conference at pinp.org/conferences/pinp20/ to get early-bird pricing. Consider bringing along someone who has never attended or a future leader in your organization. Look for #pinp20 in social media posts and tag your own posts related to the conference. Get started now on building or strengthening your collaborative labor-management relationship and earn up to $3,000 for use towards future marketing by participating in the Strive to Succeed Challenge. All that is required is to complete a simple set of tasks before, during, and after the conference. We will maintain a leaderboard that shows how each area is progressing and recognize the efforts of participating areas. ▪ Partners in Progress » October 2019 » 3
