Tag Archives: Institutional Knowledge

With Halloween just around the corner, we started thinking about nightmares that can occur to manufacturers. Is something bedeviling your productivity leading to more tricks than treats? Is there a ghost in the machine? Here are some of the most common “monsters” that haunt manufacturing managers, and ways to banish them from your operation for good.

Things that go bump in the night (or day). Every manufacturing plant on the planet has experienced an “unexpected shutdown” that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Something broke, wore out, went awry or otherwise seized up, causing production to grind to a halt. These unexpected dark periods, whether they last an hour, a day or longer until the problem is resolved, are extremely costly in lost productivity and revenue, delays in shipments and deliveries, and more.

Banish it! Regular shutdowns for maintenance need to be an essential part of your yearly calendar. Yes, these planned maintenance periods still mean downtime, but the point is, you build them into your schedule and plan accordingly for shift scheduling, delivery and other variables.

Zombies on the line. Unmotivated teams can bedevil companies in any industry. From the Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting, employee morale has taken a tumble since the pandemic. People are just going through the motions out there. Couple that with some spooky stats: According to a Gallup survey, only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work and 74% say they are actively looking for new jobs. Low morale costs companies in just about every way possible — increased absenteeism, dips in quality and efficiency, and rock-bottom motivation levels among them.

Banish it! There are many spells you can cast to break that zombie curse. Invest in training and development for your employees. Hold listening sessions to get ideas for improvements on the job. Walk the floor and talk to your people regularly, something management just doesn’t do enough. Build a promotion pipeline from your front lines. All of these will help increase employee engagement and get their heads back in the game.

Process poltergeists. Are you constantly putting out fires that seem to combust without warning? Human errors, unforeseen backups, supply chain bottlenecks, inventory imbalances (too much or too little), glitches on the line. It can feel like you have a firefighting mentality, and it’s counterproductive to, well, productivity. When you’re in a constant state of troubleshooting, you’re not efficient at doing the job today or laying the groundwork for tomorrow.

Banish it! A solid Management Operating System, which is a structured approach to your operations, will help stop trouble before it starts. This allows you to make adjustments and otherwise pivot so your operations aren’t adversely impacted. The best management operating systems focus on processes, systems, roles and structures to map out how the job gets done, and by whom. To learn about MOS in more detail, watch our short (and dare we say fun) video, Stop the Firefighting Mentality.

“20% of each dollar is wasted in manufacturing due to inefficient processes each year”

Wasting disease. Waste can hide on your shop floor like a monster under the bed. It hides where you least expect it, like time, energy, employee talent, productivity and more. Here’s a figure that will keep you up at night: 20% of each dollar is wasted in manufacturing due to inefficient processes each year, adding up to $8 trillion globally.

Banish it! Waste is such an enormous problem in manufacturing, Toyota (or Henry Ford, depending on who you ask) created a process methodology about it. Lean is all about identifying and eliminating waste in manufacturing operations. The classic Seven Deadly Wastes (we think it’s eight, but let’s not split hairs) include overproduction, waiting, transporting, processing, inventory, motion and defects. (People is our eighth.) Lean is the process to minimize or eliminate those, boosting your bottom line. Read more about it by downloading our eBook, “Lean Six Sigma: Do You Really Know These Methodologies?”

The invisible man (or woman). The loss of institutional knowledge happens when your best workers vanish (retire or quit) and take all their hard-earned, on-the-job know-how with them. It’s the tips, tricks and tactics that aren’t in the employee manual. The loss of this irreplaceable knowledge is a growing issue for manufacturing, because the workforce is aging, and there is a lack of skilled younger workers to take their place.

Banish it! Capture that knowledge before your seasoned pros retire or otherwise leave the workforce. Create mentorship programs pairing older workers with younger ones, ask those older employees to participate in roundtable sessions that can focus on “what’s not in the manual” knowledge, and solicit their advice on how to do the job better.

While this is a lighthearted look at manufacturing problems, these issues are no joke. They can seriously hamper your efficiency, productivity and ultimately, your bottom line. At USC Consulting Group, we’re the experts in helping companies reach operational excellence. If you’d like to learn more, please give us a call.

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It’s a problem plaguing companies across most, if not all, industries: the loss of institutional knowledge when a seasoned vet retires. The person you’ve had on the job for decades gets their gold watch, has a retirement party and walks out of your door for the last time… and takes everything they’ve learned on the job with them. That knowledge is gold to companies, and the loss of it can be devastating. According to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the lack of knowledge transfer when an experienced worker retires can cost individual companies $47 million per year “due to time wasted, missed opportunities, frustration and delayed projects.”

Manufacturing is especially hard hit by this, because its workforce is aging and younger people aren’t coming in to fill in those ranks. IndustryWeek reports that 54% of U.S. manufacturers are finding it difficult to attract skilled workers to get the job done. That’s up from 38% before the pandemic. But, it’s not just a manufacturing issue. By 2030, one in five Americans will be 65 or older. That’s a lot of great employees looking at retirement.

All of that said, the loss of institutional knowledge isn’t just an age issue. It’s also a generational turnover rate issue. Compared to Boomers, younger workers are on the job for a nanosecond before moving on. The average millennial tenure on the job is 2.9 years. For Gen Z, it’s even less: 2.3 years. The “Great Resignation” following the pandemic didn’t help matters, when people who could leave the workforce, did. They still are. In February 2023, 4 million people left their jobs. The one-two punch of older workers retiring and high turnover rate among younger workers has created a knowledge gap crisis.

The solution? Companies need to have rock-solid foundational training that covers key processes in their operations, written on stone tablets if necessary. It requires a shift in a company’s learning curve, and many simply don’t know where to start. That’s where USC comes in.

How USC helps companies shift the learning curve

Those are the stats and facts about the loss of institutional knowledge. We’ve seen it play out on the shop floor in many of the companies we partner with. Companies that didn’t have simple, well-documented processes lost capability, capacity and quality as their experienced workforce left. It resulted in companies playing catch-up in terms of time, money and employee turnover.

This doesn’t just affect the shop floor. Junior and mid-level managers lost mentors and leaders who might have been there to show them the ropes. We’ve seen frustrated, disengaged, underdeveloped employees leave companies as quickly as they’re hired.

It has resulted in USC developing a closed loop Training Management process that documents and maintains standardized operator work instructions, quickly ramps and levels employee knowledge, encourages employee engagement, and promotes leadership development.

The objectives? Here’s what we’re looking to accomplish:

• Document operator level processes and standard work using a closed loop system that facilitates change management and training.
• Implement a training management system to keep track of who is and who is not trained.
• Retain employees through leadership engagement and demonstrating your investment in their performance and development.

Deliverables include all of the above, along with a detailed timeline for standard operating procedures development and training.

Our approach is designed to accelerate and deliver sustainable change while engaging your people and bringing focus, clarity and transparency to organizational effectiveness.

It includes a Rapid Assessment Analytics Phase and an Implementation Phase. Here’s how it works:

Learn and Collaborate

With leadership, we explore key issues and opportunities in order to articulate the vision of the project.

Engage

In this stage, we find the gaps and align with leadership on goals.

Solution Design

With key players, we develop a roadmap and a detailed execution plan. We determine the changes we need to implement and do triage to knock out quick wins to move the project along.

Execute and Sustain

This is where the rubber meets the road. We mobilize stakeholders and implement the solution. It requires ongoing training and coaching, weekly reviews, and a study of ROI and benefits.

As with every project we undertake, our training management approach does NOT include us swooping in and making pronouncements of how things should be. Instead, we engage with your people to create a blueprint that’s unique to your company.

Training Management Project Approach

We aim to drive significant value on two fronts, the “just do it” phase to drive immediate value, and the “change the game” phase to drive sustainable outcomes and long-term value. It includes

• Employee engagement: If people don’t buy into the process, it’s never going to stick.
• Leadership engagement: Involvement with HR, Ops and Training managers is critical.
• Leadership training: We’re not going to be onsite forever. Leaders need to become trainers for this to sustain. We empower people but provide ongoing support.

Yes, a lot of this can sound like “consultant-speak.” What it boils down to, in plain English, is keeping your operations humming along on all cylinders even if every experienced employee on your line suddenly walks out of the door. It’s about identifying your core processes and procedures — what needs to happen to keep the place running. Documenting those procedures, and then creating and providing solid training to employees and higher ups. Sometimes that can involve getting to the heart of what IS NOT in any training manual, those invaluable nuggets of institutional knowledge your people have developed over years on the job.

To learn more about how you can shift your learning curve to retain your employees, give us a call today.

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What’s keeping manufacturing CEOs up at night? From supply chain disruptions to a disengaged workforce and growing skills gap, there are challenges aplenty plaguing leadership teams. Here are the top five manufacturing issues along with solutions from USC Consulting Group that will help them sleep a little easier.

Problem: Retiring workforce

My best shift supervisor is retiring next month! He knows everything there is to know about the line. How can I possibly replace him?

“The median age of manufacturing workers is 48 and continues to grow older.”

Solution: Capture that knowledge!

Before your seasoned vets retire, create mentorship programs, have roundtable discussions and update manuals with their hard-earned know-how.

Problem: Skills gap + Jobs gap

I have positions to fill but I’m not finding any qualified candidates! How am I supposed to get the job done?

“Manufacturers will have 2 million jobs to fill by 2030. But there’s a skills gap out there. A sea of open jobs and few skilled people to fill them is a one-two punch.”

Solution: Build training into your budget

Skill them up yourself! Invest in training for new hires and partner with a local trade school or community college to target new grads.

Problem: Disengaged employees

Are my employees happy? It’s like they’re just going through the motions. Are they going to quit?

“Only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work and 74% are actively looking for a new job at any given time.”

Solution: Walk the shop floor

Talk to the team, ask how things are going and how you can help. If they’re short-handed, roll up your sleeves! Also, promote from within and invest in career development! It’s a proven way to build morale and engagement.

Problem: Supply chain disruptions

My line was down AGAIN because our overseas supply was stuck at a port. Again! We have high customer demand but can’t meet it because we can’t get the supplies we need!

“A 400% increase in shipping costs from China and a 45% increase in ocean freight wait times is expected to continue for 6 to 12 months, if not longer.”

Solution: Reshoring      

It has long been suggested as idealistic and beneficial for the country, yet unrealistic. That is, until now. It’s time. Reshoring is a way for U.S. manufacturers to invest in the country and claim valuable subsidies, while also shielding themselves from any potential global supply chain issues.

Problem: Inventory management

All of my departments have a different view on inventory management! Some want excess inventory. Others want it just in time. Do we have enough? Too much?

Solution: Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP)

SIOP expands on S&OP by adding a crucial component: Inventory. It helps you wrangle your inventory management and achieve the optimal supply balance.

Want to learn more? Read What’s Keeping You Up at Night? The Main Concerns of Top Executives.

These aren’t the only challenges keeping CEOs up at night. At USC Consulting Group, we have more than 50 years of experience helping manufacturers find opportunities for greater efficiency and productivity. Call us today to talk about how we can help you get a good night’s sleep.

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Slowly but surely, consumers are returning to the marketplace in full force after a number of tumultuous years. According to Industry Week, consumer spending is up 20% from this time last year. While that number is great for a manufacturer’s balance sheet, there are still challenges in the industry that are keeping CEOs up at night. Here is a look at a number of concerns of top executives — and ways you can tackle them head-on to get a good night’s sleep.

Problem: Retiring workforce

Ah, retirement. The day valued, longtime employees get their gold watches and leave the plant for the last time. It’s great for the employee, not so much for their CEO. That’s because as retirees head out to enjoy their golden years, they’re taking all of the institutional knowledge they’ve learned over many years on the job with them. The median worker age as of 2018 was 44.1 years old — over two years older than workers in other industries. And that was in 2018, the most recent stat. Those folks are 48 now. But you don’t need stats to tell you that. A walk around your shop floor (or a talk with HR) will give you the lowdown on how many of your employees are nearing retirement.

Solution: Capture that knowledge

It pays to be proactive in most situations and this is one of them. Capture that institutional knowledge before your seasoned vets walk out the door. Create mentorships between older and younger workers. Film a roundtable discussion featuring your best older workers talking about the ins and outs they’ve learned over the years. Ask your seasoned vets to be part of updating your manuals. At USC Consulting Group, when we go into a manufacturing business to improve efficiencies, we understand that the people on your front lines are your greatest resource and our greatest ally in that effort.

Problem: Skills gap

The other side of the institutional knowledge coin is the lack of skilled workers to replace them. You’ve heard about the skills gap, certainly, and this is it. There is a dearth of qualified people out there. Or enough people. Manufacturers in the U.S. are expected to see 2 million unfilled jobs by 2030. It paints a grim picture for companies that aren’t planning or prepared for the future of their workforce.

Solution: Training

If you’re not finding skilled people, one solution is to create robust training programs that will get them the skills they need. It’s an investment, yes. But a worthy one.

Another tactic: Partner with a local trade school or community college to target upcoming grads.

Problem: Employee engagement (or lack thereof)

Are your employees happy? Do they feel valued and appreciated? If you don’t know, now’s the time to find out. To add to the problem of an aging workforce retiring and taking their skills with them, the new generation of warehouse and manufacturing workers are less and less inclined to begin and continue careers in the industry. The Great Resignation is a countrywide juggernaut that has prompted many of the younger workers to resign from and reject positions where they don’t feel adequately fulfilled or see a future career. The manufacturing industry is not immune.

The younger generation of workers needs validation and appreciation to stick around. Only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged at work and 74% are actively looking for a new job at any given time with their current employer.

Solution: Start walking the floor

Walking the floor is an oft-overlooked yet crucial way for managers and executives to engage with their team, foster relationships and directly affect employee retention in a positive way.

Getting out onto the shop floor shows employees that their employer cares about them and their career. For the employer, this strategy fosters retention while also affording an opportunity to discover any standout employees or ways to improve day-to-day operations. This directly combats an aging workforce by keeping new employees around long enough to become skilled themselves.

Another tactic: Invest in career pathing for your employees. It starts with promoting from within and giving people a roadmap for how to get there. It’s a powerful tool. In fact, 94% of employees said they would stay at a job that invested in their career development, according to a survey on LinkedIn.

Problem: Worldwide supply chain disruptions

While the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down, the manufacturing problems it caused are still very prevalent in the industry today. Bottlenecks in every level of the supply chain and overcrowded shipping ports have become the norm over the past few years — with little signs of slowing.

According to Industry Week, a 400% increase in shipping costs from China and a 45% increase in ocean freight wait times — both increases relative to last year — is a trend that could continue for 6 to 12 months, if not longer.

Solution: Reshoring

Reshoring has long been suggested as idealistic and beneficial for the country, yet unrealistic. That is, until now.

The dramatic increase in outsourcing costs and interminable shipping wait times has resulted in many Fortune-500 companies — General Motors, Toyota and Samsung, to name a few — making considerable investments in the improvement, expansion and new developments of their manufacturing plants in the U.S.

Reshoring is a way for U.S. manufacturers to invest in the country and claim valuable subsidies, while also shielding themselves from any potential global supply chain issues.

Problem: Inventory management

Dialing in proper order quantities, reorder triggers and keeping an accurate and adequate lead time have long been hot buttons for manufacturers. The aforementioned bottlenecks and disruptions have not helped.

The issue compounds when all departments have a different viewpoint on the situation: operations, sales, finance and business executives can all have contrasting requirements and best practices when it comes to an inventory management philosophy. Any divergence in departmental expectations mixed with a lack of communication can spell disaster for any manufacturer.

Solution: SIOP

SIOP expands on S&OP — the business management process that involves sales forecast reports and planning for demand and supply — by adding a crucial component: Inventory.

SIOP is a powerful tool that helps your company get departments in sync, ensures that everyone is on the same page and realistic about the process, helps you manage and roll with changes, and measures performance.

“A key to SIOP is to emphasize inventory as a strategic tool to help offset variation in either demand or production issues,” explains David Shouldice, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at USC Consulting Group. “One lever of control in the SIOP process is to make inventory harder working as a strategic tool.”

SIOP helps you wrangle your inventory management, achieve the optimal balance between not enough and too much, and settle back into Lean manufacturing principles that can eliminate waste and help ramp up your efficiency.

These aren’t the only challenges keeping CEOs up at night. At USC Consulting Group, we have more than 50 years of experience helping manufacturers find opportunities for greater efficiency and productivity. Call us today to talk about how we can help you get a good night’s sleep.

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William is the newly promoted COO at Acme Widget Company. He recently conquered his operational issues by improving efficiency and increasing throughput with the help of USC Consulting Group.

William’s current foe: Manufacturing labor shortages and the growing skills gap.

William has noticed, as his seasoned Acme Widget employees retire or leave, they take their hard-earned institutional knowledge with them when they walk out the door. The turnover is driving up operating costs and finding replacement workers with the skills, knowledge and expertise to do the job, which is increasingly technical, is a growing challenge.

But it’s not just that. It’s finding workers, period.

Analysts predict 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled by 2030, costing the U.S. nearly $1 trillion in GDP.

So how does William retain his skilled workforce while finding new hires? He called his friends at USC Consulting Group. Together, they came up with a plan: An advanced training course to retain employees and an expediting strategy to onboard new talent. The goal was to upskill current employees with the knowledge they need today and tomorrow, cross train them to do multiple jobs, and speed up the learning curve for new hires.

It was a win-win! Employees dove into the training and became more engaged. They saw Acme was investing in them and their futures, creating loyalty and appreciation on the shop floor and beyond. Plus, William’s new hires joined the team quickly and seamlessly.

With better employee engagement and training, William saw improved retention along with increased production and reduced operating costs. He created a work environment where his workers were skilled, felt valued, and took pride in getting the job done. The skills gap was closed and labor shortages were no more!

Are you experiencing manufacturing labor shortages and a growing skills gap on your shop floor? Give USC Consulting Group a call and they’ll put their expertise to work for you.

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The food and beverage manufacturing industry is facing labor shortages. While labor challenges aren’t new to the industry, the reasons for this current situation are. The pandemic brought about a seismic shift and disruption for nearly every industry, F&B included. Many companies, like Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods, saw closures of multiple facilities. Others stayed the course but laid off employees, and as the country begins emerging into a post-pandemic new reality, some of those employees simply aren’t returning to their jobs.

There’s also the matter of older workers retiring and not enough young workers entering the industry, leaving a skills gap as those veterans take their institutional knowledge out the door with them.

Together, they add up to a two-pronged labor shortage problem. You not only don’t have enough people to get the job done, the people you do have aren’t as skilled as the ones you lost.

Let’s look at both of those prongs in more detail.

Labor shortage challenges and questions

Like many industries, F&B is getting a handle on whether changes brought about by the pandemic will be permanent. Some challenges like supply chain disruptions can go away forever, please, but other aspects, like the adaptation of workflows, processes and procedures have proven to be positive changes.

Some questions F&B processors are grappling with now:

• Our staffing levels are down. Do we really need to staff up to pre-pandemic levels?
• Our demand is increasing. Can we meet rising demand with less staff?
• Will new configurations on the shop floor to accommodate social distancing continue if and when the entire workforce is vaccinated?
• How will companies deal with potential work stoppages in the future?
• Will we adapt to more regional, less centralized facilities?
• Should we change our forecasting model from yearly to quarterly or even monthly to be more agile?

Solution: Process improvements

The answer to all of these questions is: It depends on efficiency. Some companies, when aiming to do more with current assets and employees or, especially when they’re seeking to do more with fewer employees because of a labor shortage like the one we’re in now, turn immediately to automation, machinery upgrades, even artificial intelligence. The aim is to take the human element out of the equation or reduce it dramatically, with the goal of streamlining and speeding up operations.

But is all of that upfront expense worth it?

Time and time again, clients have come to us after trying to “buy their way to profitability” through large capital investments in technology and automation, only to see that profitability disappear because of high overhead costs of those upgrades.

A better solution to dealing with this labor shortage, keeping up with rising demand, and doing it all with fewer people is to optimize your processes first.

At USC Consulting Group, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses navigate operational challenges so they can get the job done efficiently and better meet the needs of their customers. The key to doing more with less, or even doing more with your current assets, is taking a deep dive into your operations to discover ways to be more efficient. That’s one of our specialties, and we’ve been doing it for more than 50 years.

In one example, we worked with a poultry processor that experienced just this situation, making huge capital investments only to see any gains eaten up by high overhead costs.

Poultry Processor Gobbles up Savings From Process Automation

We created cross-functional teams to evaluate the operation, highlighted the non-value-added activities and conducted analysis. Based on those findings, the teams identified waste and process variations that were causing lower yields, created improvements in workstation layouts and material flow, and conducted training sessions designed to impact yield performance. All told, we identified 300 loss points within their operation. Results?

By the end of our six-month engagement, the company saw a financial gain of $100 million, all realized without capital investments. That’s not chicken feed! Read more about it in our case study, “Poultry Processor Gobbles up Savings From Process Automation.”

Skills gap challenges

The other prong to today’s labor shortages in food and beverage manufacturing has to do with older, veteran workers leaving their jobs and taking their knowledge with them.

If you’ve got a team filled with long-tenured employees, you know what this is like. It’s one thing to train someone new on the basics of the job. It’s something else to lose your best worker who spent a career doing that job. It’s the experiences, processes, deep understanding and “this comes naturally” abilities of your people to get the job done in an intuitive way. The hard-won, trial-and-error-gleaned instincts that your senior people have absorbed from years on your front lines. That’s your company’s institutional knowledge.

When older workers retire or are laid off, that’s what you’re losing.

Skills gap solutions

There are a few tactics you can use to help close the skills gap.

Mentorship. Do you have a mentorship program in place? It can be an invaluable (and very low cost) way to transfer knowledge from your seasoned pros to your newbies.

Recorded interviews. Talk to your older employees about lessons learned on the job, hard-won experience and mistakes that taught them the right way to do things. Record those interviews for new hires to watch as part of their onboarding process.

Involve employees in process improvements. We’ve found that one of the most critical parts of enacting process improvements to create greater efficiency in our clients’ operations is getting buy-in from the front lines. Without it, we can find all the hidden opportunities for efficiency in the world but putting them into practice will be a challenge without your team on board. Getting your employees invested in process improvements from the get-go also has the added benefit of creating institutional knowledge. The younger workers were there when the process was changed, they contributed to it and they’ll carry that knowledge with them as long as they work for you.

Like many of the challenges we’ve experienced over the past couple years, silver linings can emerge from food manufacturing labor shortages and skills gaps. You can find better, more efficient operations without making huge capital improvements, and through that process, you can create institutional knowledge in your employees and close that skills gap for good.

At USC Consulting Group, we’re subject matter experts in helping companies find more efficiency out of their current assets. Learn more about doing more with the same or less resources in our white paper “Strategies for Meeting Increasing Customer Demand.”

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Are you having trouble hiring or retaining talent? Not surprising. Our economy, no matter the industry you’re in, is experiencing a hiring crunch the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. Even decades. This, in the midst of a surge in demand brought about by the lifting of COVID restrictions and the fact that consumers are spending money again after a long spending drought.

It has been a wild ride. First, demand dropped through the floor, if not dried up completely, as a result of the lockdown. Companies in many industries laid off or furloughed workers. Now, demand is skyrocketing, and companies are scrambling to staff up and fill those positions. In all segments of the economy, people are simply not answering the call.

But the fact that you’re getting few responses to your job postings isn’t the only problem. It’s deeper than that. It’s retention, too. Not only are those laid-off workers not rushing back to their old jobs, but people who kept their positions during the pandemic are now quitting en masse.

It has been termed “The Great Resignation,” and the numbers are staggering. According to the Department of Labor, 4 million people left the workforce in April 2021. Voluntarily. In May, another 3.6 million joined them. In June: 3.9 million.

It adds up to staff shortages nationwide coming at a time when demand is through the roof. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called it a “national economic emergency.”

Strategies to combat the hiring and retention crunch

At USC Consulting Group, we’ve been helping companies find efficiencies in their operations to do more with less for 50-plus years, and this year, because of what everyone is going through, that effort has kicked into high gear. Here are five strategies we’ve been recommending to our customers to combat the hiring and retention crunch.

1. Put a greater focus on onboarding and training

A couple of staggering statistics about onboarding and training: Glassdoor tells us that companies with a strong onboarding process improve employee retention by 82%. And, according to Gallup, 88% of companies aren’t doing it well at all. If your onboarding is focused on paperwork, informal or inconsistent, you’re in danger of losing your talent. One key to onboarding: automate what you can. Great onboarding is not about paperwork. It’s about acclimating your new hire to your company, and to the job. Automating the paperwork will allow you to focus on more important things: namely, getting your new hire onto the floor and doing the job faster. Also, onboarding and training need to go hand in hand from Day 1, but training doesn’t and shouldn’t stop when onboarding ends. Develop training programs that will keep talent up-to-date with the latest and greatest techniques and skills.

2. Preserve your institutional knowledge

Companies that are experiencing the hiring and retention crunch are having more problems than simply being short-staffed. It’s also a matter of losing their institutional knowledge. What is that, exactly? It’s generally defined as “what an organization knows.” Expanding on that, it’s the experiences, processes, deep understanding and “this comes naturally” abilities of your people to get the job done in an intuitive way. The hard-won, trial-and-error-gleaned instincts that your senior people have absorbed from years on your front lines. That’s your company’s institutional knowledge. But what happens when those people leave? It’s critical to find ways to retain or pass along institutional knowledge when talented, experienced workers retire or leave the company. Read more about this important topic in “How to Preserve Institutional Knowledge for Future Operational Success.”

3. Identify gaps and weaknesses in your operations

At USC, finding holes in the operation is one of our specialties. Are those gaps or weaknesses due to people or processes? Is your line as efficient as possible? What’s the ideal throughput, and how can you get there? Hidden efficiencies can be lurking in your operations. They could help you do more with less.

4. Enhance your management operating system

This is about assessing how you plan the work, assign it to employees, and follow up on their progress. Define the roles and responsibilities of each employee so your process drives your success. We help companies do this by meeting with everyone, from the bottom up, from blue to white collar. Getting different perspectives from different angles lets us see the whole picture. It also ties in with EIP, because it gets people on board and involved in the process.

5. Realize that hiring may not be the solution

If you’re used to working with a certain number of boots on the ground, naturally that’s the number you were going to gravitate to when it was time to staff up after the pandemic. But do you really need all of those people? Focusing on efficiencies and streamlining operations may well mean you can get the job done with fewer people.

If you’d like to learn more about how we work, or talk with us about strategies you can use to harness your existing assets to meet your growing customer demand in the midst of this hiring and retention crunch, please get in touch today.

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