3 innovative strategies for hiring manufacturing employees

Written by Trevor McGlochlin, Research Consultant

Attracting and hiring the right person for a job is central to the success of any organization. By hiring the right manufacturing employees, plants can improve productivity, teamwork, workplace safety, production quality and volume, and in the end, profitability. With so many hiring decisions and options, identifying the best process can be difficult. A well-defined hiring process not only helps direct the right candidates to your open positions, but also helps you select the right employees. This saves both time and money by reducing the time spent searching for employees as well as the need to replace and train new people who were not a good fit.

Embracing innovation in the hiring process is key to staying competitive in the manufacturing industry and attracting the right individuals who will drive success. Keep reading to unlock three ways to improve your own manufacturing hiring process.

3 innovative hiring strategies for manufacturing employees

1. Use manufacturing simulations in your hiring process
   Candidates applying to manufacturing jobs often have never performed that job before. While they may have experience in a similar position, manufacturing often can require a very different set of knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform a specific role well. Depending on the type, virtual business simulations can provide hiring managers with a good measurement of the candidate’s potential in performing the job well.The simulation could also be an online assessment measuring the soft skills needed for a manufacturing job or it could be a more hands-on physical simulation that measures a candidate’s hard skills. Both are important in showing the full, complete potential of an individual candidate when you’re hiring in manufacturing.
2. Incorporate a realistic job preview (RJP) in your application process
   Utilizing realistic job previews (or RJPs) during your application process for hiring manufacturing employees could be a better, more cost-effective way for your organization to maintain a better candidate experience. This is where the real innovation should come in. Currently, many job descriptions have a job preview in the form of text that doesn’t quite paint the ‘realistic’ part of a realistic job preview. To achieve this, your team could create a video of individuals working in various jobs that are very similar, an image carousel depicting relevant job tasks, or it could feature real manufacturing employees talking about their day-to-day routines in the target job.
3. Make your manufacturing hiring process mobile friendly
   People use their phone for everything, including finding and applying for jobs. There are several different areas where the employee selection process for hiring in manufacturing can be more mobile friendly. Candidate communication, online assessments, interviewing, background checks, job offers, and onboarding are just a few steps of the hiring process that should be mobile-friendly. First on that list should your job postings.

   Make sure that the job boards where you post are mobile friendly to ensure you’re not missing out on a large percentage of top talent that only review job postings via mobile.

   Then focus on the job application specifically. – Manufacturing organizations can really get ahead of the game if they adopt innovative, easy, and painless job applications that are mobile-optimized. This will make the applicant experience better and build a great organizational reputation among those individuals that don’t make it to the next step in the hiring process.

Embrace innovation to hire the best manufacturing talent

Effective, innovative hiring practices are essential for the success of any manufacturing organization. A well-defined hiring process not only ensures the right candidates are directed to open positions, but also aids in identifying the best-fit manufacturing employees. By implementing these hiring strategies, organizations can streamline recruitment efforts, reduce costs, and improve their overall candidate experience.

Talogy has worked with dozens of manufacturing clients to implement innovative hiring strategies and adjustments, resulting in significant improvements. Moreover, there are many other enhancements that HR teams can make when it comes to hiring manufacturing employees and increasing retention rates.

Are you ready to take the next step to improve your strategy for hiring manufacturing employees? Do you have a goal to build a safer, more productive operational workforce? Talogy’s talent solutions can help to address the tough challenges manufacturing organizations face today, including how to address the manufacturing skills gap. And by incorporating these three easy steps into your hiring process, you can ensure that you’re attracting the right candidates and giving them a realistic picture of who you are as a company.