If you’re a frequent flyer of the Beekeeper blog, the name Mark Whitten may sound familiar to you. That’s because we’ve previously featured him in a Q&A blog post about how to engage manufacturing employees.
Since his Q&A was a huge hit with our readers, we decided to ask this manufacturing operations guru back to lead a webinar.
Who Is Mark Whitten?
If you’re new to our blog, let’s review who Mark Whitten is, and why he’s a rising star in the manufacturing operations field.
Mark is an experienced manufacturing professional with a proven track record of operational improvement through employee engagement and collaboration. He has been directly responsible for plant operations ranging in size from 500-1500 employees.
While we always look forward to a good Q&A session, we were especially excited for this opportunity to sit down with someone who is a champion of the employee experience and the effect it has on overall operations.
In an industry that must remain laser-focused on the bottom line in order to stay in business, company culture and employee experience often get overlooked in manufacturing.
In this webinar, we dove even deeper to uncover real, tactical ways that Mark engages his manufacturing team.
Here are some of the top takeaways from his webinar.
Why Does Culture Matter?
“Culture is the character and personality of your organization. It’s what makes your business unique, and it’s the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors and attitudes.”
– Mark Whitten
Questions Every Line Manager Should Ask Themselves
- Are the people engaged on the shop floor?
- Are they giving discretionary effort?
- Are they working hard?
- Are they happy?
- Do they want to come to work every day?
You’re not going to get extra effort out of people when they’re not passionate about what they’re doing and they don’t want to be there.
“In my experience, when you walk into a workplace that has a poor safety record, 9 times out of 10, it also has quality issues, employee morale issues, financial hardships, and they’re really all connected in my opinion.”
Pro tip: Discretionary effort is the level of effort people give that goes above and beyond the minimum amount required to get the job done.
Company Culture By the Numbers. . . Survey Says
- 51% of the workforce is not engaged
- Disengaged employees cost organizations between $450-$550 BILLION each year
- Organizations with engaged employees outperform those with low employee engagement by a whopping 202%
- 60% of employees said their employer had a way to provide feedback about their own employee experience, but only 30% said their feedback was acted upon
How Can You Make Sure Employees Are Engaged in Your Facility?
- Give employees consistent feedback
- Include employees in decision making models and goal setting
- Be more transparent about the overall health of the business
How to Change Your Approach to Company Culture and Drive Better Results
In this webinar, Mark outlines eight vital touch points that contribute to company culture, and how to refine each one to build a high-performing manufacturing workplace.
- Workplace environment: working conditions have a direct impact on workplace culture
- Organizational goals: Do employees know and understand what the goals of the organization are and how to achieve them
- Organizational structure: Inch wide and mile deep
- Employee engagement: Critical to driving a high-performing culture
- Surveys: Listening and acting upon feedback from employees
- Performance management: Regular, tangible feedback, 360 degrees
- Relentless communication: Multiple tiers, both ways
- Leadership approach: Hands on, collaborative, accountable
Listen to the full webinar to discover Mark Whitten’s complete playbook to building a strong company culture at your manufacturing company.
