Pete Wright:
Welcome to Human Solutions, simplifying HR for people who love HR from AIM HR Solutions. I’m Pete Wright. Manufacturing is one of those environments where HR never really gets to be theoretical. The challenges are immediate. They are physical. They often happen across three shifts at once. And while we’ve visited manufacturing HR as a concept in this forum before, today we’re going to dig a little bit deeper into the compliance weight that comes with plant life — from wage and hour questions that sound simple right until they aren’t, to accommodation requests in jobs that are entirely physical, to safety obligations that follow workers from the moment they walk in the door. Joining me to unpack all of it are our own Terry Cook and Stacey Wenczel, two people who live in this world every day. Terry, Stacey, welcome back to Human Solutions.
Terry Cook:
Thanks, Pete.
Stacey Wenczel:
Thanks.
Pete Wright:
We’re going to start with the overall concept of HR bandwidth and operational strain. We have HR professionals whose responsibility is to support multiple shifts — one person has to make themselves responsible to support people when ostensibly they are asleep. Stacey, kick us off. Tell me about the extent of strain that our peers are addressing in the manufacturing environment.
Stacey Wenczel:
Sure. It’s common that there’s one person, but sometimes the HR department will have multiple people working there. Nonetheless, they’re mostly working general business hours — nine to five — and then supporting a second shift, possibly a third shift, maybe a weekend shift. They have to periodically come in early, stay late, and come up with some mechanism so that employees working on those off shifts know how to reach them, or feel that they have access to HR at least by appointment — feeling that they have similar access to what employees working during the day have. It can never quite feel the same for the folks on those off shifts.
Pete Wright:
My sense is that the off-shift folks are feeling their support from their shift supervisor — that there is a shared load at some point between the daytime HR pro and the person who’s actually on shift with them. How do you draw the line between what HR owns and what the shift supervisor should be handling independently? What’s that relationship like?
Stacey Wenczel:
There’s definitely — I wouldn’t say that the night shift supervisors get too into the nitty-gritty of HR, but if there are temporary employees working on those shifts, they definitely do a lot more of the handoff or administration for those folks. So there is a unique relationship, and maybe some resentment from those night shift supervisors — they’re like, well, I’m doing HR, and those day supervisors don’t have to do any of this because HR is here.
At the same time, sometimes they feel like it’s almost their own shop. They take care of things soup to nuts across a variety of functions, not even just HR, because they are the only supervision or leadership on that shift.
Pete Wright:
When you are the only HR person covering multiple shifts, what do you find is the first thing that falls through the cracks? What’s the first risk you see, and how do you protect against it?
Terry Cook:
I think a lot of it is policy. Something goes wrong and the shift supervisor doesn’t enforce the policy correctly, doesn’t know how to react, or in some instances actually overreacts. So without talking to HR, all of a sudden you get a little post-it note on your door in the morning saying, by the way, I fired such and such. And you’re like, okay, that person’s never had a write-up before — what happened? Why didn’t anybody reach out? It can go to either extreme, but I would say policy enforcement and employee relations issues are probably the riskier things that come to mind immediately.
Pete Wright:
That makes for a good segue when you think about the role HR serves in communicating across internal committees like safety, and how to handle things like post-incident reviews. What is unique about the manufacturing environment?
Terry Cook:
Any company can have safety issues, of course, but in a manufacturing environment there are some scenarios that are a little bit riskier. Serious injuries — unfortunately, even deaths — can occur because you’re dealing with heavy machinery and things of that nature.
It’s really valuable to have a safety committee, because somebody needs to dive in. Often what I would do working with my safety committee is have somebody who didn’t work in the machine area walk into that machine area and tell me what they see as risks. If you’re working there every day, you might not see what somebody on the outside sees. Those safety committees can be that additional voice — your eyes and ears out there to walk around and say, this area is looking a little unsafe, this path isn’t working well, this person is leaning into a machine when they shouldn’t be.
On top of that, as you mentioned, Pete, is the post-incident piece. When an accident does occur, HR and the supervisor would work with the employee to find out what happened, and then the committee gets together to ask what they can do to change things. In addition, of course, the workers’ comp company wants to be involved — what happened, why did it happen, can you prevent it going forward? People who work closely with either the committees or the workers’ comp carrier find it a helpful addition to prevent future problems.
Pete Wright:
It seems like we’re talking about a role that demands the attention of several people to make sure it gets done. HR professionals in manufacturing operations feel stretched — that’s not an unreasonable assumption. How do you guide those who are feeling such strain to manage administrative demands alongside the strategic work, like facilitating internal safety committees, when they also have to manage everything else? Stacey?
Stacey Wenczel:
It’s a balancing act, and it’s an attitude. I’ve now worked in both manufacturing and more professional white-collar environments, and HR in manufacturing is — for lack of a better word — a little more down to earth, a little more down and dirty. It’s reality. People are working skilled labor, unskilled labor, hands-on. Things happen, and they happen quickly. When someone has an issue, you have to be there and ready.
While the administrative work still needs to get done, the attitude in manufacturing is that because there are generally a lot more people and the needs can be immediate — especially if it’s a safety issue or an interpersonal conflict on the floor — HR needs to be ready to drop admin and go fight a fire. The hours can be long if there’s a payroll deadline or a reporting requirement due. You just dive in and see what resources you have to get it done. It’s a different beast. It really is.
Pete Wright:
Here’s something you didn’t know about me. When I was a young man, I worked as a Cummins diesel engine jerk — that’s what they called me — working on engines on a tourist cog railway train that took passengers up a mountain. That machine shop had some very similar characteristics to what you’re describing, especially around the administrative versus strategic versus safety demands, and the amount of time we spend just invisibly adapting to the environment without recognizing that we may not be doing so in a way that’s necessarily compliant or safe. You make accommodations for yourself and you try to be safe. But the value of having someone come in and say we have to address the safety of the people working here — it can create both a rift, because we feel competent and we’re doing a good job already, and also a sense of real relief, because somebody was going to get hurt and we just weren’t aware.
Stacey Wenczel:
Yeah. Any organizational effort needs to come from the top — where management says, yes, we want to get this out the door, meet a production deadline, whatever it might be, but also, when we say safety is important, we really mean it. So when a new person starts, they have to go through the requisite training before they can start operating a machine. And it’s the biannual time for forklift retraining — we have to do that before this person can continue to run the forklift.
It is a push and pull between production and required safety training. But if it’s a shared understanding across the leadership group, there’s definitely more collaboration and cooperation. It can be challenging, though.
Pete Wright:
Getting over that hump of “how dare you come in here and tell me how to do my job.”
Stacey Wenczel:
Yeah.
Terry Cook:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Terry, I’ve worked in and around HR for a long time. I’m educated in HR, and you just introduced to me in our notes words that I only thought were applied to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Can you tell me about donning and doffing so we can all be on the same page?
Terry Cook:
Donning and doffing is either putting on or taking off safety equipment — something protective in nature — and really trying to define whether that safety equipment is required to be put on at the worksite versus at home. It comes down to whether that time is paid or unpaid.
Donning is putting protective equipment on. Doffing is taking it off before leaving. The best way to think about when it’s compensable is when it’s something required to be done on site. If they can’t walk into your building with safety glasses or safety shoes already on — maybe they’re in an environment where they have to dress in special clothing for sanitary reasons in a food processing facility, or for welding, or respirators, things of that nature — if it cannot happen until they get to work, then that time is technically compensable. But when the equipment is something they can do from home, it’s unpaid time because it’s part of their job but not something they have to do when they arrive or before they leave. It’s really described as an integral and principal part of what they do.
Pete Wright:
So I don’t put my respirator and hazardous materials suit on when I get out of bed in the morning before I get on the train.
Terry Cook:
Correct. Although in your situation, Pete, you never know. [laughter]
Pete Wright:
Depends on the train, I guess. Stacey?
Stacey Wenczel:
I want to add to that. It seems like a minor consideration, but when you’re thinking about the layout of a production floor — depending on the size of the location — they might have multiple time clocks that employees can use. If part of the donning is compensable time, you want to make sure the time clock is available and accessible prior to going into the changing room or wherever they’re putting on their gear, so that they’re already on the clock by the time they’re donning. If the clock is positioned after that area, that time wouldn’t be recorded.
Pete Wright:
And it’s lost. Yeah.
Terry Cook:
Right. Great point, Stacey.
Pete Wright:
Let’s turn our attention to employee relations and communication.
Stacey Wenczel:
Love it.
Terry Cook:
She’s excited, Pete.
Pete Wright:
I know. It’s contagious. How do we balance face-to-face floor communication? We’ve got people working across plants, floors, sites — they might not be using digital tools in their day-to-day jobs, so email might not be reliable. How do you balance communication to make sure everybody gets what they need in terms of policy and strategy?
Stacey Wenczel:
Oh, the days when everybody got an actual hard paycheck and you just stapled the company newsletter to it, and everybody got the same message. Those days are so gone.
Office staff sitting in front of a monitor with access to email can get very real-time information electronically. But staff out on the floor — people on a machine all day — probably don’t even have a company email. There might not be a shared kiosk where people can get information. So it comes down to what’s the best mode of communication for that organization, and it is a cultural thing.
I’ve seen it done a few different ways. One organization had monitors in a shared space right outside the cafeteria, where HR would update them with open enrollment information, policy updates, birthdays, anniversaries, awards, safety recognition, company performance — things like that. But the supervisors need to reinforce with their staff: make sure you check the monitors at least once a week so you stay updated. Some organizations still use hard copy bulletin boards by the time clocks where important information gets posted. And there are still organizations doing newsletters — hard copy for those without a computer, electronic for those who have access. It’s going to look different depending on the organization and what works best for them. The monitors were a great idea — HR had access to update them daily, and employees just had to know to check regularly.
Pete Wright:
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I used to be a diesel engine jerk. Stop me if you’ve heard this. There was a time in those days — two straight years where everybody got all their information from the newsletter taped to the inside back of the bathroom stalls. It was straight-up brilliant. Everybody at some point had a few minutes in there, and they read those updates — everything from jokes to compliance to whatever you needed to know. Perfect.
These are the halcyon days. The question then becomes how do you handle getting information back up the chain into HR, navigating those production staff tensions. Terry, how do you handle workplace complaints?
Terry Cook:
Let’s just call it what it is. Some of it goes back to what Stacey mentioned — making sure someone in HR is available no matter what the shift is, so there’s an open-door policy of sorts. I was always a big fan of being out on the floor. I would walk the manufacturing floor all the time so people could stop me instead of having to jump off a machine. I would make sure there was myself or somebody else out there for the different shifts.
When it comes to complaints — you don’t want certain people to feel like they can’t access HR and then have to go through the supervisor. And if they don’t like what they hear, the supervisor may conveniently forget to tell the HR person the next day. It’s really about being available and showing people how to come to HR. It can’t be a situation where the HR person shows up at eight and leaves at five when you have people on shifts before and after those hours. If you don’t make yourself available, they feel like they’re not getting the same attention as everyone else.
Pete Wright:
There’s a very fine line between communication problems and something more fundamental — how two groups see one another across different times of day. That’s what we’re navigating with these questions.
Terry Cook:
Absolutely. You’re a hundred percent right.
Pete Wright:
Stacey, let’s talk about accommodation requests. We’ve talked about accommodations often on this show over the years. But in manufacturing, accommodation requests in roles that require physical presence, physical activity, and physical strain can lead to complications. How do you navigate this?
Stacey Wenczel:
Accommodations for work from home for an office employee are really not that complicated anymore. But it’s not the same when someone needs to run a press or an extruding machine. Accommodations are going to look different for an office employee versus a production employee, and sometimes they’re just not available.
That’s also going to come down to the company’s overarching policy around getting people back to work after an injury — whether work-related or personal. Do they have work that accommodates somebody who can’t use their hands, or can’t walk around, or can’t run a forklift? It could look like: no, we don’t have accommodations for people doing physical work, and until you have a full release back to work, you’re going to be out. Or it could look like: we have a short list of administrative, low-physical-demand work that someone who primarily works on a machine can do while they’re recovering.
I don’t even think stuffing envelopes is a good example anymore, but something like that — putting labels on folders, going around and taping things to the back of bathroom stalls. [laughter] Those things are probably declining as well with the reliance on electronic methods. But there could be modified duty work available outside of the production floor. More often than not, I am seeing manufacturers waiting for someone to have a full release and be able to perform the complete essential functions of their job before they can return.
Pete Wright:
I’d like to transition to some questions as we get toward wrapping up in the broader category of safety, security, and risk management — and nail down some of these, including some more donning and doffing, which I’m just glad I get to say again.
Terry Cook:
Yes. [laughter]
Pete Wright:
More specifically around pre- and post-shift activities, clean room environments — what is HR’s role in ensuring that standards are met? Stacey?
Stacey Wenczel:
I think it goes back to what Terry pointed out — being on the floor, especially during shift changes when people are coming in or going out. It’s just catching what the routine is and making sure people are putting equipment back where it belongs before they leave, making sure there’s communication between one shift and the next about what’s on the docket. Being visible, and making sure your supervisors are on board with that as well.
Pete Wright:
You were talking a moment ago about full releases to return to work after incidents on site. When you’re talking about workers’ comp incidents in a manufacturing environment, what is your mental model when you go into working to prevent repeat workers’ comp incidents?
Terry Cook:
A lot of it is knowing the work. We keep going back to being on the floor, but when you know what everybody is doing and what the physical activities are for each job, you can go two ways. That knowledge informs the job description — specifically the physical activity section — and that helps you look at the types of things that are physically happening in each role. Then you partner with your workers’ comp company to look at areas you feel are riskier, or where you’re seeing a higher percentage of repeat injuries, so you can find ways to prevent things going forward.
A lot of it is also just talking to the people doing the job. You really need to know what people are doing — don’t assume. Watch it. Talk to people. Employees love to be the expert on something. They want to tell you what they do and what concerns them. I worked in all the departments at one of my manufacturing companies, and the machine shop gave me a little certificate of completion when I finished. They loved it. For me it was a huge learning opportunity, but at the same time it’s about engaging with your workforce and making them comfortable enough to come to you with issues — whether employee relations or safety. You don’t have to do things in a bubble.
I used to say that in management meetings. Managers or supervisors would say, these are the issues I think we have. And I’d ask: what do your employees say? Some would say, I don’t know, I’m just going by what I’ve seen. Others were right on it — Terry, here are the issues, I’ve talked to my employees, and they’re focused on these areas. It really comes down to communication and engaging with people.
Pete Wright:
We talk about ongoing safety training, and obviously high-risk environments demand it. But “ongoing” is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence. How do you rationalize a defensible cadence for ongoing safety training that keeps people working and confident in their jobs while meeting compliance standards?
Stacey Wenczel:
You can create incentives — someone gets to be a safety ambassador, and you really get employees more involved as cheerleaders for accomplishing various types of safety training. But as you pointed out, “ongoing” sounds a little daunting. It’s not incessant. There are certain OSHA requirements that have a cadence with no budging — annual, upon hire, every three years, whatever it may be. But there can also be best practices that manufacturing environments want to incorporate that aren’t legal requirements, and they speak to the culture of an organization that’s really making safety a pillar of their environment.
You can incentivize it, and it has to come from the top. It can’t be HR only saying we have to do this, because that’s just not going to fly.
Pete Wright:
Right — that’s a great way to foment conflict between groups who already see each other differently. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on a floor and heard people say, oh, I have to do another training. You know the tone. It’s challenging.
We’ve got more questions than we have time to answer at this point. It is a rich topic and we’re probably going to have to come back around to it. But in the meantime, Terry, do you want to talk about Supervisor Essentials?
Terry Cook:
Sure. We have some training we offer for supervisors. We have a core skills and strategy session that covers what do you do as a supervisor, how do you communicate, how do you deal with conflict, how do you talk to employees. And then we have a team leadership supervisor session focused on developing your team and the team aspect of working together. About fifteen or so classes that we can offer — those can be virtual sessions. We hold them as public training about four times a year. We just had one recently that sold out, so we’d love to see people look at our upcoming training in April and then going into the summer and fall.
Pete Wright:
Thank you both for hanging out, and thank you everybody for joining us. Don’t forget AIM members can reach the HR helpline at 800-470-6277 or helpline@aimnet.org for inquiries Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Email requests will be responded to within 24 hours.
On behalf of Stacey Wenczel and Terry Cook — or Terry Took, if you know her well enough — happy birthday, Terry. Thank you for taking your birthday to come join us for this conversation. I’m Pete Wright, and we’ll check you out next month right here on Human Solutions.
