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Moving into a Manufacturing HR role

Mark

Hello,

I've got the opportunity to work as an HR Advisor in a high volume manufacturing company (retail products) with approx 3000 employees. 

I'd welcome any comments or observations about an HR role in this environment as I haven't worked in manufacturing before. My backgroud has been in telecoms / IT as well as Public sector (Local Govt and |NHS) - both in HR Advisor and Business Partner roles. 

Thanks in advance for your comments. 

Kind regards, 

Mark.  

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  • Congrats on the new role Mark, it's a great opportunity to learn how different environments call for different ways of providing an HR service.
    In traditional manufacturing, the environment is often hand to mouth and short time frames. By hand to mouth I mean that that margins are usually tight so there is a focus on the "now" and how costs can be contained or even "constrained". Many customers of manufacturing companies now function on the basis of "just in time" deliveries - on the other hand the manufacturer cannot afford to carry excess unordered stock in the warehouse to be able to respond immediately with a delivery.... This means that the production process must be "agile" and anything that disrupts it (staff absence, sub-optimal operation of production lines and equipment...) can have a significant financial impact in the very short term.
    Someone once described it to me as "being in "sprint mode all of the time". They also said that in this type of environment decision-making speed is critical and it is often better to take 10 decisions quickly with 3 wrong decisions, than to take 10 correct decisions that are too late for the decision to be useful.
    Ususally the business levers are operational excellence, and cost control so HR needs to find how it can contribute positively towards those levers in the SPECIFIC context of the company.
    Hope these musings help
    Ray
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  • Congrats on the new role Mark, it's a great opportunity to learn how different environments call for different ways of providing an HR service.
    In traditional manufacturing, the environment is often hand to mouth and short time frames. By hand to mouth I mean that that margins are usually tight so there is a focus on the "now" and how costs can be contained or even "constrained". Many customers of manufacturing companies now function on the basis of "just in time" deliveries - on the other hand the manufacturer cannot afford to carry excess unordered stock in the warehouse to be able to respond immediately with a delivery.... This means that the production process must be "agile" and anything that disrupts it (staff absence, sub-optimal operation of production lines and equipment...) can have a significant financial impact in the very short term.
    Someone once described it to me as "being in "sprint mode all of the time". They also said that in this type of environment decision-making speed is critical and it is often better to take 10 decisions quickly with 3 wrong decisions, than to take 10 correct decisions that are too late for the decision to be useful.
    Ususally the business levers are operational excellence, and cost control so HR needs to find how it can contribute positively towards those levers in the SPECIFIC context of the company.
    Hope these musings help
    Ray
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