OK. And that's time. So I'd like to wish
you good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, Igloo
fans and friends wherever you happen to be in the world.
My name is Brad Brook and I'd like to welcome
you to our webinar. How today's manufacturers
are tackling industry challenges in
2024. Really pleased you could
join us today. I've got a couple of great panelists
and we're going to get right into our presentation
and discussion. But first off, just wanted
to deal with a couple of housekeeping issues. The first
being A Q and A, uh you'll notice
you're not able to chat and uh your
video is currently turned off. That's OK. That's
by design. Uh We do have
a question and answer link. You'll find it on
your uh zoom ribbon and if you click on
that, you'll be able to ask questions of our presenters.
Uh Just note that uh time allowing,
we will answer all the questions that we get.
If for some reason, we are unable to answer
a question, it might require a deeper response,
whatever the case may be. Uh We also do
retain those questions and we'll be happy
to provide you with those answers
a little later on. So again, just to be
confident you can use the Q and A link to
ask questions of our presenters. I do
want to remind you the webinar is being recorded. I
also want to remind you on the lower. I believe
it's the right hand side of your Zoom link. You will
also see closed captioning
if you need that uh as a service,
uh just go ahead and click the closed captioning
uh uh button on your Zoom ribbon
and you'll be able to uh to see
uh the captions pop up there as far as
things go. So, uh with the
housekeeping out the way again, welcome to our
webinar. And uh the first thing I'd
like to do is introduce some folks.
So let's meet our panelists and
first and foremost, not first and foremost,
first up myself. Uh My name
is Brad Rook. I am the senior customer advocacy
marketing manager with Igloo Software
and joining me uh foremost are
our two panelists and we
have first off Sierra Trojan. Sierra
is the internal communications manager with
our friends at J Fa Hearn. Welcome Sierra.
Hi, Brad. Thanks for having me. Hello,
everyone. Uh like Brad said, my
name is Sierra. I'm the internal communications specialist
at ahern, I manage our digital workplace
and do a lot of content creation, employee
engagement. So happy to be here today.
Thanks very much Sierra. We're excited to have
you here and joining S Sierra on our wonderful
panel is Tony and Sinus. Tony
is executive assistant to the President and
CEO with Transcontinental
packaging. Welcome, Tony.
Thank you, Brad and thank you for having me here.
We're very excited to, to discuss
with you guys on the manufacturing topic.
I support the President CEO of
TC Transcontinental Packaging for the
past 4.5 years
and uh wear many hats
including help manage our digital
platform igloo. So I'm excited
to be on the call today to kind of discuss and,
and talk through some, some uh topics with
you guys.
Awesome. Well, thank you, Tony. We're excited once
again to have you and uh we're gonna jump
right into things. So what do we have
up? Well, we've dealt with introductions already.
Uh We are going to very shortly get
to the uh manufacturing industry 2024
trends and outlook. Uh And then
following that, we'll get into our panel discussion,
the manufacturing industry and digital transformation.
Once again, after that discussion, we'll have some
time for Q and A and that will our
webinar. So first, before
we get into the manufacturing industry
uh presentation, uh we do have
a poll question for you if I could ask my
uh uh colleague Carly to put the poll
up on screen. Uh And again,
we're looking at a digital transformation strategy
here. Do you have a digital transformation strategy
currently? And you'll see the options there. Uh
We will just give you folks a few
seconds to uh to go ahead and answer
that if you would please
and then we'll get into our discussion.
Perfect. OK. So we can see we've got
uh um kind of a mix here and
answers, well defined and implemented strategy.
We've got a strategy in the planning stages and
we've got some folks who aren't sure. So, thanks
very much for those votes. Uh We'll go ahead
and close those out and uh we'll
get right into our discussion
for today.
And
as I promised, we're going to look at the manufacturing
industry 2024 outlook. Now,
one thing I wanted to mention as a caveat
is obviously this is not going to be an exhaustive
list of every trend, everything that we're looking
at within the manufacturing industry that would be
a much more comprehensive and albeit
much longer uh webinar. But we
have done a lot of research. We've talked
to some folks, we've done our research.
We've highlighted uh quite a few key trends
that we wanted to talk about uh facing
the manufacturing industry in 2024
especially with uh a lens of
digital transformation applied. So
just clarifying that as we move into this.
And as I mentioned, we did a lot of research,
we talked to some folks and one of
the biggest challenges that folks are
seeing currently or anticipate
seeing in 2024 is
a continuing challenge and that's supply chain
resilience. So just um
we had obviously supply chain was,
was greatly interrupted by the pandemic. It
took a uh quite a while to write the ship. In a lot
of cases, it hasn't necessarily that
ship been righted yet.
So we've got a lot of work to do with
supply chain resilience. And uh
first, as we can see on the slide
according to a Deloitte survey, on the outlook
for manufacturing, 72% of executives
believe that the persistent shortage of critical
materials and the ongoing supply chain
disruptions will remain the biggest uncertainty
for the industry. So we can see that that
is a big trend and something
that is anticipated to continue in 2024.
Now, this is including lessons
learned and obstacles presented by the pandemic,
including shortages and delays, but it also
is extending to the establishing
and re establishing of supply chains
and investments in overall resilience. So organizations
are certainly trying to make sure that supply
chain is not as much of an issue and
they're putting checks and balances in place to
ensure that that is in fact
happening. Organizations are implying
applying pardon me lessons learned by
diversifying their suppliers, investing
in resilience and enhancing their inventory
management practices. So this is
the first point where we put kind of a digital transformation
lens on things and we state
that unifying information and
messaging around supply chain issues against
your project expectations with your
working team as a whole
uh around the supply chain issues
is it's a great use case for digital transformation
in the industry. We're seeing a lot of folks that
are taking these into cloud based systems
and that brings us to our next
point. Of course, which is that most many
more manufacturers. Pardon me are
turning to the cloud.
Uh the list of challenges that manufacturers
need to address the speed at which
they're required to do so is going to continue
to drive cloud based solutions. Why
is that? Well? It's because software in the
cloud is allowing scalable, flexible
and secure systems with contextualized
data at the center, the cloud is allowing
more collaboration and accessibility to the
data and the answers that the data itself provides
from anywhere when you need it
A I Artificial Intelligence and
ML machine learning are becoming much
more influential in in today's climate
and developments in robotics and
and automation are continuing
to evolve. We're seeing of course massive technological
leaps seems every time we turn around
this is creating a need for skilled workers
and we're going to talk about skilled workers a lot today.
But for skilled workers who are able to adapt
to consistently changing technologies,
it's creating many training and education
opportunities is is a big benefit
here, a digital workplace. So again,
looking through that digital lens that focuses
on the front line can be useful in ensuring
training modules, shift scheduling
corporate communications are delivered to
the folks on the front line and they're in their hands
when they need that information
as manufacturing plants in the manufacturing
process on the whole gets smarter, the
dependence on consistent uptime and secure
connectivity becomes clearer. But of course,
there is then a challenge that
comes up with that, which is our next point
and that is the need for cybersecurity.
The connected factory has led to
a new era of cybersecurity threats to
stay ahead of the curve. Manufacturers have
to adopt a new approach to cybersecurity.
So
we we looked at a study that really encapsulates
this problem. And in a recent study,
more than half of surveyed manufacturing
companies said that they were targeted by ransomware.
So that is huge in and of itself as ransomware.
Uh potential is an enormous
but more to the point,
nearly seven out of 10 of those organizations.
Um and those attacks resulted
in malicious data encryption. So there's
a quite a large, if you will success rate
on behalf of these people who are are undertaking
these uh these, these attacks. And
that's something that needs to be nipped in the bud. Obviously,
um cyber security best practices
include things like ensuring employees
are provided with regular and accessible information,
security best practices, regular
security testing, communications, letting
people know about um which emails
are safe to open the various scams
that are taking place, that sort of thing. So
there's a lot of that, that again can be
um positioned within a single, single source
of truth, like a digital workplace, within
a solid digital transformation strategy.
We also have to ensure continuity
of business with robust fail over and backup
processes, cybersecurity. Again, another
big trend uh for the industry
in 2024 as we see
the industry grow and expand into the
into the technical field.
Another trend and this is another big one that
came up in a lot of our uh discussions.
A lot of our research is sustainability.
Um Sustainability questions, concerns
and issues are are huge right now within
the manufacturing industry.
Interesting statistic, nearly 90%
of Gen X consumers said that they would be willing
to spend an extra 10% or more
for sustainable products, which was up 34%
over a two year period. So that's
an enormous statistic. We have people that
are taking sustainability to heart
and further cementing the point. According
to a Gartner survey, we saw 87%
of business leaders expecting to increase
their organization's investments
in sustainability over the next two years.
So lots of data there as
far as things go, um customers
are wanting their, their demanding, wanting,
expecting demanding sustainability from
manufacturers and from their supply chains.
Manufacturers are responding to this by
investing in technology that will support their sustainability
goals while always remaining aware of cost
implications and the implementation challenges
these new technologies will create.
So again, we see that kind
of cyber aspect of things, new technologies
coming in. And we also start talking
about our next trend, which is of course
the skills required to operate and maintain
advanced manufacturing equipment, they're
in short supply globally.
So the shortage of skilled workers could
potentially hopefully not delay the adoption
of new technologies and constrain growth
in the sector. Moreover, we're
seeing other challenges in the workforce.
We have an aging workforce. We have the challenges
around that succession planning and knowledge
transfer from those aging
uh workers. And of course, attracting
and retaining talent are big challenges
within the industry currently.
So access to skilled talent and
the loss of expertise from retiring workers
is a major concern for the industry to
develop the next generation of workers. Manufacturers
will need to increase their investment in training
and education programs, employing
digital tools to enhance talent and
acquisition and retention is a big
trend that we're seeing with manufacturers tapping
into the knowledge of retirees. I thought this was
very interesting creating retiree
networks quite often online um
to help with
existing employees, getting that knowledge
from retirees and that advocacy from
retirees building and upscaling the
pipeline they currently have as well as creating
a better pipeline for an influx of new
workers.
Um organizations are improving
employee attraction and retention by leveraging
digital tools, engaging retirees
and fostering partnerships within the local community.
Another stat we uncovered was that
in a recent survey 46.8%.
So call it 47 of surveyed
manufacturing executives pointed out they're
now offering flexible scheduling to production
workers. So we're getting away from that, that
9 to 5, that 11 to 7 continental
shift, whatever the case may be. And a lot
of manufacturing organizations are now offering
those same uh fluctuating
shift benefits. Uh work at your preferred
time benefits. We're seeing a lot of that starting
to come in.
Um
encapsulating. This is really
a point and that is that ensuring employees are well
informed and can access the materials they need whether
it shift schedules, pro production timelines,
the latest cybersecurity information, whatever
the case may be,
um This is a key benefit ensuring
they have this information in place
when they have what they need, when they need
it, they're informed and they're able to do
their jobs to the best of their ability.
The benefits of this are going to include
improved quality assurance, improved health
and safety as well as employee retention
overall will improve employee morale
and reduced churn with reduced
churn. Of course, we see reduced hiring costs
because we don't have to hire uh as
many people. Uh We have those people staying
on within the workforce.
So overall
significant investment and growth in the US
manufacturing industry is expected to continue
in 2024. If we continue
to embrace the new technology and digital transformation,
that's going to be a big trend. And it's likely
going to be very, very important for manufacturers
as they look for ways to capture the opportunities
they see at hand and of course, tackle the challenges
they face.
So we're now gonna get into our panel
discussion. But before we do that, we did have a second
poll question and Carly, if you just bring that up on
screen, please.
Ok. And the pole question is, what is your biggest
digital transformation challenge? And we've got a
number of options listed there. If you just go
ahead and select one, please note it is a
single choice,
then we'll give a few seconds for that and then Carly
will bring up our results.
Thank you, Carly. OK. So yeah, we can see
kind of the um uh more dominant
one here is reaching deathless workers. We also
see some employee resistance to change and
the integration of new technology. So
thanks very much for your votes here. Certainly.
Um seeing some trends there and
relating back to the uh to the presentation
we just saw as well.
OK. So with that all in mind,
I am going to bring our presenters back up
and we're just gonna stop the slide show share
and bring our presenters on camera with me here.
Uh Once again, we do have Sierra Trojan
and Tony and Sinus. And what I wanted
to get into uh just for starters folks
is Sierra. You uh got
right up right out ahead of us. There with the whole
idea of who you are and what you do, but give
us a little bit of a um a download
of who you are, what you do and what Jeff
Ahern do in the world of work. I got
ahead of myself. Sorry about that.
So, like I said, I do a lot of content
creation in addition to um managing
our digital workplace. So
that goes from feature stories
um to really build connections within our organization
to more business communications
that we do.
Um J Fa Hearn is a company
that really focuses on um
mechanical contracting and fire protection.
So plumbing HV ac
um industrial services,
really all industrial work and then
sprinkler systems, fire alarms
on the fire protection side. We
have about 1700 employees
um all across the Midwest. And
then we do have a national group that
works all over the United States as
it sounds. So I really
related to that poll question of people
primarily selecting uniting,
you know, your desk, less population
is being kind of a big struggle.
And I think that throughout this panel discussion,
that'll kind of be a theme of what
I discussed, but
that's kind of um
summary on J Fa Hearn and what
I do.
Awesome, thanks Sierra. And uh just bonus
question, what's the name of your digital workplace? It's got
a cool name. Can you share it? Yes. Thank
you for that question. Our digital
workplace is called red zone.
So it's kind of a sports theme.
Um I would say our employee population
is pretty motivated for
like with sports
motivation. So we
really played into that for our digital workplace.
Awesome, thanks Sierra. Um Next
up Tony and seen us Tony. Can you tell us a
little bit about yourself, your role at
Transcontinental and what Transcontinental
do in the world of work? Of course.
So
uh tininess,
I think it did also get a little ahead of myself.
So apologies there earlier, but
I um
I am the executive assistant to the CEO
uh Thomas Min of TC Transcontinental.
And
um so basically I manage
the digital workplace of our sector
and our sector is the packaging sector.
So we have three different sectors
and it all falls under TC Transcontinental
and our sector manufactures flexible
packaging. So anything from
um meat, container,
meat, plastic containers, uh dairy,
uh containers, plastics, anything
relating to any kind of consumer foods,
beverages, Coke is one of our biggest
customers. PNG. Um
We manufacture a lot of different things and
we have approximately
9000 employees throughout the entire
world. So
our sector which is packaging,
we have plants in um
Wrexham in the UK, in New Zealand,
in Latin America, in Canada, and all
over the US.
And you know, to Sierra's point,
definitely
like she mentioned um uh reaching
our desk class workers and being able to,
you know, have them even want to look
at um, with mobile devices
as a form of getting information regarding
the company news and, and different things like that is
definitely a challenge. Um, it's something we're working
on but, um, you know, we're up for
the challenge. That's what we do.
And so, yeah, it's a little bit about
me and, um, kind of what we do at
TC Transcontinental.
All right. And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask the name
of your digital workplace, Tony.
Oh, sure. It's called The Corner and that is
a little bit of a play on TC,
which is um like the first word
of our name. So TC Transcontinental.
So the corner.
Awesome. Thanks Tony. All right, getting
right into our discussion folks. Um And
I love the fact that we've got, you
know, multiple locations for both of you. We've
got a global dispersal for, for Tony
and Transcontinental. We've got a us
dispersal for Sierra, but again, we've got
dispersed employees, things like that.
What I wanted to get into first. Uh We
talked a lot or I talked a lot in
the earlier presentation about
um talent and about,
you know, ensuring www Tony,
you mentioned it like reaching employees, things like
that. But first, we have to get those employees and
one of the things that we have to consider as we look
towards that digital transformation
lens that we're putting things under
um presently and, and, and that we're trying
to bring into the manufacturing uh
area is on boarding and
I've talked with you both uh from time
to time. In fact, Tony III, I um
was really witness to your implementation
uh a little while back and, and,
you know, we talked about the idea of onboarding
folks and when they joined the organization,
how to bring them into that digital culture and
introduce them into some of these tools
that are available. Um Maybe
we'll start with Sierra. Sierra. Can you tell us a little bit,
maybe about some of the things you folks do for
on boarding and maybe give some tips there.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think for
everyone to really understand how far we've
come in the world of onboarding, I just
need to give a very brief description of what
our on boarding process was like before
we started partnering with Igloo back in.
Oh man, I think it was 2016
now.
Um Yeah, it's been a while.
It's been great.
Um Prior to Igloo,
our onboarding plans really were
fairly unorganized.
If I'm being completely honest,
it was kind of just up to manager discretion
of how they wanted
to train employees, which
meant that
there was kind of a lack of information. We
didn't have everything housed all in one
place, which became really problematic
because,
you know, people were unsure of exactly
what they were supposed to be doing. And when you're
new to an organization, that's a very
daunting thing to have to deal with.
So once we implemented igloo,
we really kind of hit the ground running with
on boarding
and we kind of created a very
detailed on boarding plan
that all of our managers are required
to fill out. It is detailed
down to.
I mean, honestly, for the very first week,
almost the hour of
exactly what people should be doing and what
sort of training and things
that they should be learning.
And we house this template
and all of our other essentially
new hire onboarding materials
in our digital workplace.
So I would say really having this all
housed in this one system in the spot
where all of the managers know where to find
it has really helped
make this onboarding process smooth,
which is like the first key step
in making sure that,
you know, people are engaged
and then we can retain these employees
who have decided to come work for, ahern.
So really just being
able to have a well defined
plan where everyone knows where
it is has been key
for our success in this area.
That's awesome. And, and you know, just unpacking
what you said there a little bit, you kind of had
a fractured or fragmented process.
You didn't have necessarily an established source
of truth, you create that source of truth,
you make it a destination for folks as they come
in. And that really has benefited the
the the onboarding process because you're the
number one streamline it. But number two, you're able to
bake those employees uh into the
digital culture, kind of right away. Uh understanding
the tools are there isn't, is as
important as using them when it comes down
to it. So, thanks very much for that perspective.
What about yourself, Tony? What sorts of things are you folks
doing at Transcontinental?
Sure. So with us, our on boarding,
you know, looks a little bit different. Each
of our plants have their own way
of onboarding employees. Um,
you know, obviously since we're in different countries,
different continents,
but
what we've done is we've kind
of zeroed in on our US plants
like the on boarding, what goes on
how they've been doing it in the past and
what we've seen is each plant does it differently
and obviously hr are the ones that
own the on boarding.
And I believe that
before a lot of the plants started
using a glue, everything was shared
primarily on SharePoint. So
forms procedures, different things.
And I know that one of the pain points that
several of the plants had were that
people were kind of, uh stuck,
they didn't know, you know, what's, what
needs to be completed within the 1st 30 days,
what needs to be completed within the first, you know, 60
days. Um, kind of
that, I guess, kind of a more of like
of a timeline. It wasn't very
uh strategic the way that, uh, things were
before. And with igloo, what
we've been able to do is we've been able to streamline
that because we've had checklist,
right? We have timelines on our corner.
We have forms that managers have
to fill out, you know, letting their employees
know. Ok, you have to check these things off,
uh, within 30 days or this needs
to be completed within three months and it's
really good as well because
it shows the employee what's expected
of them, you know, for the first month, the first
three months, for six months. So employees can
see at a glance, um, all
kind of like on one page in one area,
um, what the on boarding experience
is gonna look like for them.
And so the nice thing about this is
not all of our US plants
have, um, taken,
um, igloo as their onboarding,
have used Igloo, you know, for the onboarding.
And what we've done is we've opened up
our corner to all of our employees
and packaging so that other hr
managers can see how it's being done at their
plant so that they can then get ideas
and see how streamlined the process
is, how beneficial it is for
their employees, for the new employees
to be able to,
you know, be able to see everything at a glance, be able
to have like a single source of truth. And also
to your point that you made bred,
if you get employees using the
corner, using the internet first, then right
off the bat. Then it's gonna be so much easier
to be able to have them continue
using it, um, to get information
to really uh continue to trust
it. Because one thing that we've seen, Tulsa
was one of our plants that, um,
introduce the corner for their
onboarding. They were one of our first plans and they've
said that that was a huge thing, having
new employees start on the corner right
away. So
that definitely helps
um with the barriers that we've
seen with employees who have been here for 1015,
20 years because we have a lot of longevity in our
organization
and you know, having employees
kind of, you know, go back and forth
and try different websites, different tools
has definitely been a challenge but definitely
getting the new employees right off the bat
on, you know, using it through
on boarding and then having them continue
on that path has been very beneficial.
Awesome. Thank you, Tony. I really like the point you
made about the fact that, you know, you've got
um a diversity in, in your
locations and not necessarily
everybody is, is necessarily up
to speed on the corner, but you're opening it
up for hr managers to take some
of the key lessons learned and, and things like that
and implement their own processes, which I think
is great. I also like the point you both
made about having a logical process
that folks are following whether it's the first
Sierra, as you said, almost down to the hour,
you know, in the first week, the 1st 30
days, that sort of thing. These are things that
uh certainly are common principles across
digital transformation. Uh But certainly,
um more, not more impactful
but certainly very impactful when it comes
down to um an industry
like manufacturing where a lot of the workers
may not necessarily have as much touch
uh with the digital side of things. So
really cool points there.
Um So next up and considering
employee life cycle because I like going, I like going
in this direction um employee life cycle.
One of the things that uh we talked about it again
was the idea of um skilled
workers and upskilling workers
and ensuring workers have access
to the information that they need to do their jobs.
It really comes into the aspect of training. Um
What sorts of things are you doing within your organizations
for training? And we went with Sierra first, last time,
Tony. What about yourself? How are you facilitating
training and maybe making it uh something
more of a digital process within uh Transcontinental
packaging?
Sure. Right. So basically in our organization,
we have several different
uh training platforms for
safety training, for hr
training, just for continuous improvement
training. And so before we didn't
really have a place that someone could
access all of these platforms
just from one location. So for
us, in terms of the training
component. It's been more where we been
able to house everything where people can easily
find everything
um has been how we've
used this. Um And
I would say that moving forward,
I know that igloo can be used as
a place to house training.
Uh you know, they have the wiki channels and we've
been considering putting policies on there
as well.
Um So definitely there's a lot that
Igloo can provide. Um We haven't
used it to its full capacity, I don't think,
but I think for us personally, it's
our singles, for us the truth for all of the training
websites platforms to house in one
location.
Well, and that's a good point because, you know,
it's, it's part of a digital ecosystem.
It's not necessarily the be all and end all.
And um you know, but it is a key
part of the digital ecosystem. So if even
if we're linking out to key resources or
whatever the case may be, use the phrase
against source of truth, that's just as important
when it comes down to things Sierra.
What about yourselves? What about J Fa Hearn?
Yes. So at
Ahearn, um
you know, similarly, not all of our trainings
are housed within red zone,
but our digital workplace is really kind
of where people know that they can go to
access those trainings, which is really
important. We also have um
several resources that people
just know that they can get there. So being
in construction. We have so many
acronyms. It's kind of like a joke within
our company is that it's like acronym
Central. I remember when I started,
I was new to the industry.
I'm hearing all of these acronyms
that are one, not only construction
specific but a hearn
specific that we just create
all of these acronyms. The MC.
Well, what's the MC, the management
committee? OK. So we
have basically compiled a whole
list of all of these acronyms
and it's something small,
you know, saying, oh, we have a list of acronyms,
but people really actually seek
this out and they know that they can find this
information in our digital workplace.
So really it's our go to spot,
but we've also been able to really
kind of overcome a very unique challenge
that our company faces in terms of
training in our digital workplace.
So being a fire protection company,
we need people, we need designers
to be able to design
these sprinkler systems so that they can create
the plans, give it to our field crew so that
they can install these systems.
There are only
about four schools in the entire
United States that actually have
a program that's designed to train people
on fire protection design.
You can see how that would be problematic.
There aren't enough people
for what we need, who are coming
out of these programs. And not to mention
all of the other fire protection contractors
that are in the United States fighting for these candidates.
So basically, what we did is
our hr team paired with
two of our very senior designers
several years ago.
And we created an in house training
program
that yeah, it's essentially
equivalent to like a two year associates degree,
a two year program that we house
completely within our digital workplace
and really formed these
trainings to be specific to
red zone.
So this allows us to basically
find anyone who just has an
aptitude for mechanics and
we can take them with no prior experience
and make them a full fledged,
fully trained designer.
So we really utilize, you
know, the wiki articles.
We do a lot of the um Accordions
with that and we have the whole course catalog
for each of these trainings. We
do live interactive trainings
that are embedded within the html
content widgets
and have just so many like links with
modules and resources that we've been
able to
um really just find great
success with this program because they, they learn
the skills that they need
and we've invested in them from the get
go. And in turn that
one gets us skilled workers
and two,
I mean, these employees, they want to stay with
us because we've invested in them
throughout their entire career. So
um really, we wouldn't have probably
been able to create such a successful program
without utilizing a lot of the features
that um Igloo
has, has given us. So
Awesome. So again, we're seeing the
use of some of the tools to create that, as
you say, uh
uh equal with kind of an associates degree
sort of program, all these resources
being housed in that digital environment for
you. We also see and you mentioned not
necessarily the entire um
uh ecosystem as far as training goes,
but definitely one defined purpose.
And again, linking out to other areas as
needed, but really housing everything within, again,
that source of truth is very important. I
also love the way you, you take me
forward with Segue Sierra and I worked together on
webinars before. And of course, the thing
I'm gonna segue into next and we'll stick with you,
Sierra is talent retention.
So we've got them, we've trained them, we want
to keep them. Now, now we're starting to talk about organizational
culture, which again, in the industry
can be a little harder because we don't necessarily
have everyone with that, that, that touch to
the digital workplace. So what sort
of strategies are you using in terms of talent
retention, digitally and, and, and what sort
of tips can you offer?
Yes. So I think that part
of talent retention naturally are some
things that I already mentioned, like the robust
on boarding and
um you know, detailed trainings,
I think that really helps to just retain
employees. But one thing I do
want to mention is really
employee engagement and employee
recognition. It's
building connections with
people within the organization.
So really, anytime somebody
has a big success in the company,
I am posting about it in our digital
workplace, it really fosters
I think uh
a sense of belonging and people
feel like
um not even the person who's being
recognized specifically, but the other people
who are seeing it, recognize that
employees are being appreciated.
So one example of that, um we
had recently one of our fire
protection design managers who
passed her certification to become a licensed
professional engineer.
We have probably only one other person
in the company who has this. So
basically, um all of our
designs, we would have to give them to an outside
third party engineer to approve
the plans, get the stamp that it's been looked
over. Everything is good
so we can now do that in house. So it's
a really big deal. It's a pretty rigorous process.
And she was also the first woman in
company history to achieve this,
which um is just really
great and we really want to celebrate
that, you know. So
I wrote up this whole article recognizing
her and it
um you know,
it, it goes just beyond the office,
even though she technically works in the office.
It's also those people who are dispersed
all across the country who
aren't necessarily
um you know, working behind a computer
screen that they can celebrate
these successes and by creating that
sort of environment, it really makes people
feel like they belong. And that's
been really important for us with talent
retention.
Absolutely. No, that's, that's really
cool for starters. Um, just writing
some of those, those stories and having a robust kind
of kudos and recognition program for
sure. But, you know, the other point that you made
about the idea of, um bringing
some of these more remote workers into the corporate
sphere, just because we're, we are recognizing
people that they know or we're giving them opportunities, these
recognition. That's one of the biggest things
that I've seen in a lot of the research that I've
been doing about engaging front line workers is
they will come for things like recognition,
whether it's for their team or for them or
for others. They like to celebrate, they like
to feel part of the corporate whole. So that's drawing
them in. Thank you for those thoughts, Tony.
What about yourselves at TCP?
Yeah. No fantastic uh points
that you made Sarah. So for us,
it's very similar,
you know, what we've used the corner
for is primarily
to reach our blue collar employees,
right? Our employees that are on the floor and
what we've seen is we've done a lot of
like employee spotlights. So we do
videos where we interview employees
and we ask them questions about what they do for
work, you know, their personal life.
And we've really seen people
get excited and interact because, you know, we
post these videos and then people from other plants
to different parts of the world, respond,
engaging and into s's point.
It really does foster a sense
of community belonging
and that what they do matters, right?
Because so then the rest of the organization, their
name is out there like a colleague, Chad
Hayes, for example, in one of our Battle Creek
sites, um he's constantly
posting on the corner, you know, he, his name
is out there. He's, we've done an interview with
him. So I mean, that stuff is important.
People want to know that what they
do is important. They wanna know that they're
recognized and not just that employee,
but also that employees peers. So
you know, that employee's peer at Battle Creek, they
see that, oh, you know, the the company
is recognizing what our colleague um
Chad Hayes is doing um why
it's so important.
So that definitely that visibility
that the coroner has given is
definitely been important also
since we have employees in plants
throughout the entire world, a lot of people didn't
know each other. And so now with the coroner
being able to have employees post, we
have something called the water cooler, right? Where people
post photos of vacations,
they post photos of their personal achievements.
Um you know, their grandchildren got married and
so people are able to foster those relationships
um via the corner now,
whereas before, there really was no
platform that everyone was on.
And so there's that and then also
the
like we have like the anniversaries widget,
the birthday widget and that's built into
igloo, which is really nice because,
you know, people can recognize each other
can see when you know, someone's celebrating.
Like, like I mentioned for a TC,
we have some employees that have been working here for
40 years. So we're able to recognize employees,
we're able to call out special
achievements like that. Um So
yeah, it's super important for employee retention
um especially for blue collar employees. They
definitely want to know that their work is recognized
and that they are someone in the
community.
And so
corner has been huge for that because before
what we really were using to communicate
with everyone was linkedin and
linkedin is great. It's more external though
it's not really too much uh for
employees. So
uh some of the plants had individual Facebook
groups, but of course, that only will reach
that uh plants employees, right?
So that's why the corner has been very instrumental
in really helping us
foster a sense of community within all
of our plants, within all of TC
packaging. So it's been huge. It really
has. That's wonderful. And certainly,
yeah, those, those small celebrations,
those profiles, those methods of inclusion,
really help um create that overall
sense of satisfaction and, and you
know, keep employees uh happier and of
course happier employees will stay with us,
gonna pivot for a second if we can
and talk about um communications.
So in, in, in the presentation I gave earlier,
we talked about making sure folks have
anything like from shift schedules, packaging
quotas, uh new procedures, whatever
the case may be uh in their hands.
But also they need to,
they need to look at corporate communications.
They want to know what's going on,
um coming from head office or coming
from their team leader or coming from,
um you know, they want to know about industry news,
whatever the case may be successes of the organization.
How are you folks handling corporate communications,
Tony? We'll start with you.
Sure. So we have a packaging
newsroom where essentially we post
all of our organizational announcements. So anything
that is cascaded to everyone,
uh messages from the CEO from
our senior vice presidents of operations,
all those messages get cascaded
through our corporate communications
channel. And so it's important
because before a lot of these hourly
workers that don't have company email,
there really was no place for them to get this
information. It was really essentially
word of mouth. But now with the app,
um there was workstations at the plants,
they're able to log into the corner, they're able to
consume this content just like their
peers, the white collar workers. So they definitely
feel more included.
Um like they are being um
like they're able to get the information
firsthand because as we know,
a lot of times these workers get
their information, second hand word of mouth and
uh it's not the best way to make
employees feel like they're part of an organization
that they're really important. So for
us being able to have a platform
now that reaches everyone
is hu has been huge.
Awesome. Yeah. And you mentioned, of course, using
the mobile application so these workers can get
these uh notifications where
they're at as opposed to having
to um go as you say by word of mouth
or whatever the case may be. So fantastic
point there, Sierra, what about yourselves?
Yeah, so I really
understand exactly what you meant, Tony,
when you said that, you know, our dustless
employees used to just get
this information by word of mouth. It was the same
thing at a hearn
and we've really
um been able to
do better with just getting them
the information firsthand like you said.
So we definitely have
dealt with that same issue in our organization.
I think outside of that, the biggest
thing that I've noticed has shifted
in terms of corporate communications
is now there's really an avenue
for that two way communication
with these um you know, more
business information that we're putting out there
in a hearn. I think we have a very um
large culture of transparency.
Uh Similarly to transcontinental, we
have
um different channels um for
like all areas of the business kind of where they can post
updates. Whereas before it was maybe just a
memo that nobody read
now we have all of these channels
for different management committee
members where all of our, you know, most senior
leaders, the executive committee
and once a month they post an update
to these channels. And
that really um
kind of adds to our culture of transparency,
but it allows people to ask questions
on these articles. And before
there was no way for them to do that, now
anyone can ask any sort of question
that they have
and um get
an answer immediately. So that's
been really, really great for us
in terms of corporate communication.
I really love that. The idea that there
can be a dialogue uh granted,
not with every corporate announcement. Can there
be a dialogue? Sometimes it's just, here's the
news consume it, please. But you can
get some things that are released and people
can ask questions, people can provide
commentary and again, feel included.
I think that's awesome.
Um Now we do have a question that's come
in and uh II I did want to deviate
for just a second because we were on that subject and
Tony, I'm gonna ask you this one first. Great question.
Um Do you have a hard time getting de less
workers to download the mobile app? Um
Ours don't want to put it on their personal devices
and just, you know, some thoughts on that and maybe some
tips if you can provide any.
Yeah, you know, for sure. That's actually a great
one. And it's totally understandable. And
so, for example, uh the first,
um,
plant that we launched the corner at was
with TC, New Zealand. And
initially, a lot of the older workforce
that had been with the company for a long time were
very reluctant to want to download the corner
app. But as people
started talking more and more, there was
word of mouth, we had lunch and learns
where we would actually show people how
to use the app via team. We'd have
meetings with people. People were then able
to be more comfortable using the app.
And honestly, one big thing that we noticed
is it's kind of the fear of missing out, right
fo So once these employees, a lot
of these employees were seeing that, ok, you
know, um Mike John and and
Henry are getting information that we're not getting,
they felt like they kind of had to download
um the corner to be able
to keep up with everything that was going
on. Um And also employees
can directly from the mobile app, post
photos from like their company events and
things. So that's huge uh that
um
his ability to be able to, to make
posts like that on the fly. And also
um just knowing that
what you're downloading is not gonna
and this is something that this is a lot
of training that we have to give a lot of
um information that we have to give in these training is
letting people know just because you're downloading
the corner app that has nothing to do with
us being able to see anything on your device
because a security is a huge thing and I'm sure
it is for you to
people. Yeah, people are like, oh my
God, I'm gonna download the corner and then our company is gonna
be able to see everything. Like first of all the corner, it's,
it's igloo and second of all, they're not gonna be able
to see anything on your phone. So there's
a lot of learnings because a lot of these, I mean,
I'm sure, you know, c,
you know, people probably
in our generation, ok, this app is not
going to give you ability to do that. But the old
generation, like our parents, they have
no idea they think by downloading
this app now, you know, TC
can see everything that we're doing on our tablets
computers. So it's
honestly a lot of training, a lot of talking to people,
a lot of education,
um,
and that needs to be kind of reiterated and
in order for people to be able to really feel
comfortable to download the app and start using
it. So that's a great question. Right.
Yeah, absolutely. And well, and you, you
also made a really good point there as well. You know, you
talked about, uh, Fomo, that sort of
thing, you know, that fear of missing out, but making
it worth their while right. If people
see it as just a, a tool
and you mentioned the idea and people will do
it. I've, I've, I've seen this before. Uh
you know. Oh, well, they, it's just a work
thing. Um totally
can see where there would be some reluctance, but
if you can make it worth their while in other things,
certainly that can uh help. And
you mentioned the idea of like uploading photos from
company events, things like that. Again, going
back to that, that level of inclusion. Uh
we actually had a customer uh that
implemented a while back and they
were manufacturing customer, they actually went
out into the field and not everybody can do this.
I understand this, but they went out into the
field. They had a little team for the mobile application,
they went out into the field and uh went
to them manufacturing facilities and did in person
luncheon learns and and log the app onto
on people's phones. Sometimes there's technological
challenges as well. So I thought that was really
good, Sierra, you came off mute. I know you wanted
to jump in. I don't need to be so wordy, fire
away. Oh, that's OK. I just
Tony, I love what you said about
our, you know, our more experienced workers
being unsure about adding
these this app and you know,
utilizing igloo because they're concerned
about, you know, security.
We have dealt with that. It, that
was honestly like such a resistance
that we had. So,
yeah, I can see how we also have,
you know, a, a very experienced population
longevity within our employees. And that was
a big hurdle. I love this question,
Stephanie. And I think it's really
interesting because
it sounds like a
hearn has taken a very different approach to
this
than Transcontinental did.
So
we have implemented
um
our digital workplace
in terms of safety so
that people have to use it
rather than just um you know, don't
miss out, we have all
of these safety like toolbox
talks and safety trainings
that we house on
our digital workplace. And it is
required by the company
that our desk less employees
are looking at these trainings
for like OSHA requirements.
And we, we have to be able to prove that
they have been doing these safety
trainings and you know, using
the activity feature on igloo, that's
how we track it. So we have
kind of taken the different approach and
almost mandating that
our desk list workers use it in that capacity.
Now getting them engaged
is a different story and creating,
you know, that we, we won't, don't just want
them going on it because they have to, we want them
to want to go on it.
Um
But that is really, yeah, we,
we have
kind of got them on the app
by tying safety to it.
So if that's something that your
organization deals with, that might be
a really good way to kind of implement it and get more
people
on, on the app.
Absolutely. And again, you know, the idea
of showing the benefit in this case, the benefit
is you need to because of
safety, right, to put it very bluntly.
Um But you can also create
other benefits uh beyond
that. But, you know, getting that initial touch point.
Yeah. Thank you, Stephanie for the question. I thought it was
a, a really timely question
considering what we were talking about and
uh I knew our panelists would have a lot of good thoughts there.
Um We're getting a little short on time.
Uh Please do feel free to ask any other
questions in Q and A as we're going along. I did
have, I think maybe one more question for
you folks and sir, you touched
on this a little bit when you talked about safety.
Uh And you know, we, we talked about it with corporate
communications. How are you folks dealing with
that policy, compliance and awareness?
How are you seeing that in, in the manufacturing
context?
Yes, good question. So, so
I think that um being
in the industry that we are in, we have
so many different rules and regulations that
we have to follow. So for every
state, every
um individual municipality we work
in individual job site, um
there are very specific requirements
and
um you know, if it's health care,
our employees might be required to have a flu shot
on file with
the health care system that they're working at, on
the job site. So we really
utilize um our digital workplace
to have all of those policies
in exactly one place so
that they know exactly where, where to go.
It makes them more efficient because they're
not looking for this information. They can just
start their day by
finding it going there. Boom, done.
Now, they're hard at work. Um
And that's been great.
I'm try, I'm trying to be quick. I don't wanna make
a go over sorry guys. But
um I will just say one other thing on this point, I think
that we're a very process
driven company as well and
we um do
a lot of succession planning, but I think part
of that is documenting all of our procedures.
So if we do have any sort
of employee turnover,
all of those processes are really clearly
documented. So if somebody
um it this does not happen often,
but if say somebody were to leave abruptly,
we won't be left scrambling because
everything is documented in our wiki articles
and we have those procedures in place and
it's become an expectation that we document
those procedures. So
um that is how we've really
implemented that and having it
just in that one spot has been really great for us.
Awesome. Thank you, Sah
Tony. What about yourselves?
Exactly? Very similar to what Sierra
said for us. Safety is huge being
a manufacturing company.
Um So, you know, anytime a new
policy gets added, we add it to
our policy, our wiki policy
that we have. Um and
you know, having that single source of truth has been very
important, having employees know, ok,
you know, if there's anything we're unsure of, you
know, we can go to this location and we know that it's
gonna be up to date. We always put, you
know, the updated version when it was updated
by who?
Um so that for us has been really
important um in order to
be able to keep everyone safe.
Um and I did mention hr
is something we wanna start putting some hr
policies on there as well. Um
But I think seeing the success we've had
with safety, uh being able to keep our employees
safe up to date more
on everything and also
getting notified every time something has been
changed or updated, you know, having that ability
to send that notification out has been
huge. Uh So employees aren't
missing these important updates and they're
not overlooking things because we
all know in our emails when people get email
and they get bombarded by emails, right? So,
um being able to have the app send
out notifications every time things get
updated added has been really important
for us. So very similar to what sir, I said.
That's awesome. Yeah, definitely. Um
Being able to, and you keep using
the phrase source of truth and I think that's fantastic
because that's exactly what it is. You know, it rolls back
to the idea we talked about on boarding, we talked
about training, making sure people understand
that this is a source of truth and then making
sure that our policies are in there and up to date.
So we're not seeing, um, you
know, word of mouth changes to those policies
or we're not seeing, you know, heaven forbid in the,
uh in, in the the lunchroom on a production
floor someplace. Here's this policy from 1996
that nobody's bothered to take down yet because we haven't
painted in a while, that sort of thing. Um
So yeah, there's definitely a lot that can be learned
uh from that
um Lightning round
uh real quick. We're, we're, we're just down to the
last little bit of it. Uh Folks, if you do have Q
and A do feel free to ask. But Lightning round
just general thoughts on front line
worker unification. Um Sierra.
Go ahead. Yes. So
I mentioned safety with Stephanie's question. Safety
is the most important thing we do. So I would
say that is a huge aspect. Another
one is just generally building connections.
I think when we were talking about um
talent retention, Tony brought up
that employee spotlights like
people I have found in this industry
love talking about what they do. They are
proud.
So really highlighting that has
been a great way to build connections
with um our desk list employees
and just generally finding
unique ways to feature them.
Um I work in our Milwaukee Wisconsin
office. So love the box.
I found um a sheet metal
worker who
Giannis on Tum our star
player sat next to him, courtside.
He was interviewed by the news. He wore his
a hearn apparel in his interview. I did
this whole interview with him about
why he represented Ahearn what
the experience was like for him to sit next to Giannis
and oh my gosh, that story,
the engagement was through the roof. It
was, it did so well because it was
something that both our dustless people
and our office folks could
really relate to and they just
loved it. So my last
advice, parting advice to everyone, find
unique stories because it will make a really
big difference in uniting
your, your workforce.
Wonderful. Thank you, Sarah. I would love
to see that story. Honestly, Tony, next
up, I love that. I'm a huge NBA
fan and a big Giannis fan. So that's awesome.
So yeah, I mean,
you know, being able to know
right, like who your colleagues are and
knowing one important thing too
at the corner has been really instrumental
knowing like who to go to if you need
something, knowing um context
uh because on our plant sites,
we have like, you know, people to contact. So that's
been really important and even for the front
line workers. Um
So yeah, unifying people, making them know,
making them understand that this
is their place for them to be able to communicate
two way. Like Sarah did mention that it's something
I forgot to mention. Um you know,
the corporate communications emails that we get,
uh people can respond, right? And that's
important because people want to know that their voices
are heard. So if there's a comment that they wanna make,
they know that they do have the platform
to be able to make these comments. So that's huge.
Um And I know we're at the top of the hour. So yeah.
No, thank you both so much
for this. This has been an amazing webinar.
I really appreciate your insights, really appreciate
your partnership, Sierra Trojan and J Fa
Hearn, Tony and CNA and Transcontinental
packaging. Thank you both so much for, for
being here. Thank you as well to our attendees.
Uh Hopefully you found this session informative
and until we see you again, take
care and igloo on.
Thanks everyone. Have a great day. Thanks everyone.
Thank you. Bye guys.