Nearshoring: What Can Companies Do in Tough Hiring Environment?

In my last article, I wrote about the state of education in Mexico. In summary, Mexico has a young, educated, skilled workforce, and a big untapped pool of talent that is willing to work in manufacturing; therefore Mexico is well-positioned to take on more manufacturing companies coming in for years to come.

I also wrote about the real challenge: Attracting, retaining, engaging, and developing people and how regions like northern Mexico and big and medium-sized cities are struggling with shortages of labor due to high demand, lack of loyalty from both employers and employees, social media, the food industry, and how our need to buy stuff we don’t need is driving our behavior, not necessarily in a positive way.

But what can employers do? It’s all about leadership! 

Over the years, I have developed my guiding principles, based on experience, based on lessons learned from past behaviors, and lessons learned from great leaders I had the privilege of working with (like Bob Paternoga from my years at Caterpillar, and Lewis Murphy from my years at Adient, who recently passed away at a very young age), and lessons learned from best practices documented in the form of books (like “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins), and all the great books written about leadership from John Maxwell (I’m a  John Maxwell institute-certified executive coach, public speaker, and leadership trainer). 

I’m a visual learner, so I had to draw my principles in the form of a picture . This is not a formula or a recipe, it is simply a collection of best practices and things that have worked for ME. I hope I can inspire, especially the younger leaders, to get better in this difficult, but very rewarding job of being a leader, not only at work but especially with loved ones.

If you are a good observer, the first thing you will realize is that this is an inverted pyramid. Not only is it the basis for the servant leadership movement, but it also matches, to a degree, the level 5 leadership model described by Collins in “Good to Great.” The essence of this is that we, as leaders, are to serve the people and the organization, not the other way around. People are at the top, we as leaders are at the bottom, the power flows from the people, and the service goes up to the people. Simple to explain: If you lead a 1,000-person organization and all those people were to leave you overnight, how much can you do by yourself? The answer is not much. But when you unleash the capabilities, experience, and passion of those 1,000 people in one voice to a common objective within an organization, the results will come, and you will become unstoppable as a team. 

Roles and Responsibilities. For years, I was the fixer of manufacturing sites that suffered from chronic disruptions. Every time I came to a new facility, I found the same basic problem: there was no clarity on who was supposed to do what. The bigger an organization is, the more difficult it is to communicate and accomplish any task. The RACI model is a great tool to use as guidance when defining these roles and responsibilities.

Very high and clear expectations. When turning around troubled manufacturing sites, setting very high expectations very clearly is one of my critical success factors. Performance is NOT higher than expectation, so you may as well aim high and get the best of people. SMART goal setting is a great tool to set, communicate, and document these expectations.

Resources. Make sure we provide employees with all the resources needed for them to perform their jobs. Tools and equipment, including EPP, training, the information needed, a physical place to perform their job, and support needed when something goes wrong are some of the basic requirements for our people to perform their job properly.

Strengths. We all have strengths and weaknesses, but we can only win if we use our strengths. They say that at the intersection of Passion, Strengths, and Demand is our mission, success, and money. Understanding what moves each person, and what that person is great at, helps them use those skills to advance in their professional career. Don’t focus on their weaknesses, unless they are character-related (arrogance, selfishness, insecurity, dishonesty, laziness, among others), which need to be addressed immediately. 

Pay attention to the person. Understanding strengths, passion, dreams, fears, and plans is key. If they are not focused on work, do we know what is happening to them at home? This is basic to understanding the person. John Maxwell says. If you give people what they want, they will give you what you want.

Safety. I had the privilege of working for a facility manager who was very radical about safety. One day, I asked him why. His answer blew my mind: “Safety is a very noble endeavor; you are trying to protect people’s integrity and well-being, and because of that, not many will push back, and most people will follow you. To achieve world-class safety, you need a lot of work, commitment, and process discipline. But once you achieve world-class safety, achieving the discipline required to have world-class quality is not all that complicated.” Since then, I have used the very same approach.

Focus and time management (priorities). It is very common for workers to have many tasks on their to-do list but not enough time to complete them. This is because most people suck at managing time and priorities. Before you know it, people are spinning like hamsters on the wheel not going anywhere. As leaders, we need to help people manage their time and focus on the right priorities. One very effective tool is to divide your tasks by importance (low and high) and urgency (low and high). There are urgent, important things that need to happen today. The not-so-important things due next week can wait. The more focused a team is on the right priorities the less stressed they become and the more effective they are. 

Recognition. From kindergartners to executives, we all enjoy being recognized. Recognition is the best tool to encourage desired behavior. This is not new, but because humans are good at communicating negative feedback, we have to be intentional and structured to implement an effective recognition program.

Measure. It is well known that what we don't measure we can’t improve. This is true for every organization. Are they measuring consistently? Are they doing something about the poor indicators? Do they have a dynamic scorecard? Answering these questions about a scorecard says a lot about an organization. But even more important than the scorecard of a team or an organization, understanding how that scorecard relates to each individual is key. When an employee arrives in the morning, he or she, no matter the rank, but especially a front-line worker, has to understand how his everyday effort or lack of it will impact the scorecard of the organization. Not easy to do, but doable.

Opportunities. We are all looking for opportunities. Organizations have more people than opportunities, but as leaders, we need to be open to offering opportunities to those who have the desire, courage, and potential to capitalize on those opportunities, even if they have nothing to do with that person’s choice of education or experience. It can be risky, but we may be discovering and catapulting a great leader.

What if I told you organizations like Trail Path Work Solutions, have done a ton of research and developed solutions to achieve Meaningful Employment Environments™? I admire their work a lot. It is hard work, but as the name says, very meaningful. Here is the best news: All I wrote about is dependent on the leader's capability and willingness to do what is noble and hard. Meaningful Employment Environments™ is a much more scalable and sustainable option. Go check it out!