The manufacturing sector has faced significant supply chain disruptions over the past few years, from the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitical conflicts. Supply shocks directly impact talent acquisition, making recruiting and hiring more challenging. This article explores how supply chain instability affects manufacturing hiring and strategies to overcome associated obstacles.
Hiring delays and shortages of critical operational profiles like production planners, buyers, and logistics analysts are real risks from supply instability. Manufacturers must reevaluate workforce planning and candidate sourcing approaches considering the supply chain context. Adopting mitigation strategies, as highlighted in this article, will enable continued recruitment success despite market volatility.
Model Workforce Demand Dynamically
Factor supply chain uncertainties into workforce planning instead of relying solely on historical hiring volumes. Model talent demand across scenarios reflecting potential supply scenarios – optimistic, moderate, and pessimistic.
Having contingency plans for flexing up or down hiring for operational roles allows aligning talent acquisition with variables like supplier capacity, logistics delays and inventory costs. Take a probabilistic, agile approach to workforce planning.
Expand Talent Pools Creatively
Widen talent pools to hedge hiring risks, like exploring adjacent skill profiles that could pivot into operation roles with upskilling. Tap unconventional channels to find candidates open to manufacturing.
For example, military veterans, retail managers or transitioning gig workers possess transferable capabilities. Taking a skills-based approach and removing biases enables tapping wider talent networks.
Offer Support
Provide training, mentoring, and support to upskill candidates from outside manufacturing into operation roles. Highlight your development culture and career growth potential to attract talent.
Develop robust onboarding processes focusing on both technical and cultural onboarding. Be prepared for a longer ramp-up time when hiring from outside the industry.
Highlight Job Security
Communicate job and income stability in your employer branding messaging to stand out amidst uncertainty. This attracts candidates seeking security.
Emphasize training investments, strong financials, established clientele, and recession-proof products. Back messaging with data, employee testimonials, case studies, and transparent leadership.
Partner Creatively for Pipelines
Explore win-win external partnerships with organizations that have adjacent skill profiles and would value manufacturing career paths for their members.
For example, partner with logistics associations to crossover talent into supply chain roles. Work with the armed forces to transition veterans. Creative partnerships expand candidate pipelines.
Tap Contingent Labor
Bridge urgent hiring gaps using expanded contingent labor like flex workers and consultants with niche supply chain expertise. Develop talent communities to access on-demand.
While temp workers don’t fully replace long-term hires, they provide operational flexibility and skill redundancy required amidst supply instability.
Automate for Efficiency
Automating high-volume talent acquisition processes with AI enables recruiters to redirect time from administration to higher-value tasks like candidate relationship-building and workforce planning.
For example, chatbots handle candidate screening and scheduling, while AI sifts applications and surfaces best fits. Automation brings speed and efficiency.
Listen to Employees
Check-in frequently with the recruitment team and frontline manufacturing managers to gather real-time insights on how supply chain issues impact existing workflows, morale and retention risk.
Address pain points raised to retain talent. Employees are your eyes and ears – they spot talent risks fastest. Listening enhances workforce agility.
Revise Compensation Strategies
Review compensation levels and recalibrate hiring offers, considering inflationary impacts on wages. Avoid compensation lag, which causes candidate loss and attrition.
Set competitive pay based on updated market salary data, particularly for supply chain roles. Be willing to negotiate. Compensation must reflect economic realities.
Re-Evaluate Hiring Criteria
Avoid overly rigid hiring criteria like years of experience focused in on exact skill matches. Focus on transferable skills from adjacent industries and assess for culture value-adds.
Hiring exclusively for industry experience limits talent pools. Take a skills and values-based approach to open up to talent from other sectors capable of pivoting.
Strengthen Employer Brand
Double down on showcasing your employer’s brand, culture and values during hiring. Highlight elements that bring stability, like community ties, legacy and social impact.
Get creative with content formats like permission-based employee candids on company social accounts. Drive authenticity in representing the work experience to attract candidates seeking meaningful work.
Monitor Industry Turnover
Keep tabs on talent churn in your manufacturing subsector using exit interview data and industry human capital reports. Identify familiar turnover drivers.
Assess if any retention risks, like career stagnation or uncompetitive compensation, apply to your organization that could compound hiring challenges during supply instability.
Build Talent Communities
Proactively create talent communities of connected candidates to nurture and tap as a pipeline when urgent hiring needs arise. Sustain engagement through advisory groups, content sharing and networking events.
Talent communities act as candidate reservoirs, allowing manufacturing firms to tap in as on-demand hiring hedges. They expand hiring agility.
Conclusion
Navigating supply chain complexities requires manufacturing talent leaders to take an agile, creative approach to hiring focused on expanding talent pools, upskilling and compensation. Robust workforce planning and talent pipeline development are critical to continued recruitment success despite market turbulence. Your Talent Team is here to assist manufacturing organizations like yours during both stable and volatile times. With the right strategies and right partners, manufacturers can build resilient, motivated workforces.
