Hi everyone
I am currently studying Level 5 CIPD and doing some research into the HR problems that manufacturing organisations are currently facing. If you work in the manufacturing sector, what are the 3 biggest problems you are currently facing?
Hi Megan - Yes it’s skilled workers. There’s been a bigger focus on benefits for them but also a heavily increased notice period so it leaves sufficient time for finding a replacement (which is hard!) but also passing on the very valuable knowledge.
1. Recruitment and retention of shopfloor staff. Recent decades have seen a cultural shift in the perception of such manufacturing jobs in the UK. Whereas, once, they were seen as the backbone of the working class, now they are looked down on as low-skilled labour - a job to be done by the poorly-educated and desperate (despite the fact that some of our best people could earn upwards of £50k with overtime). This hasn't been helped by competition with foreign-based companies or influxes of "cheap" foreign labour, by the weakening of the trades union movement or by the growth in automation (which has reduced the number of people required, but increased the skills requirements).
2. Poor Management/Workforce relations. With the decline in the TU movement, the interface between management and workforce has been lost and now it is almost universally antagonistic with any change seen as inevitably seeking to "screw" the workers and line the pockets of managers. For HR, this point has probably been the most positive as HR in manufacturing is increasingly focused on improving this relationship as a strategic contributor to success.
3. Skills requirements & bureaucracy. A lot of manufacturing relies upon certain industry certifications to obtain contracts and tenders, evidence for which is highly bureaucratic in nature and doesn't support a constantly-changing workforce whose approach to paperwork tends to be... irregular. I don't object to the bureaucracy, per se. It's there to try to ensure a certain minimum level of good practice, after all. But the frequency with which the goalposts get moved and the difficulty involved in staying up-to-speed when typically working to very tight margins to begin with is a significant contributor to businesses failing in this industry, in my opinion.
