Manufacturing Executives #1 Fear:

Communication with Plant Floor Workers

Research Study, February 2015 by TR Cutler Inc.

largest quantitative research project

• More than 1500 small and midsized

manufacturing CEOs were interviewed (in

February 2015) about greatest barriers,

challenges, and fears about growing their

companies.

• The survey, conducted by TR Cutler, Inc.

• Based in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

• Founder of their five thousand-member Manufacturing Media

Consortium™

The results of the Manufacturing

CEO Survey were surprising.

• The greatest pain point causing anxiety, fear, and apprehension

about manufacturing growth among these manufacturing leaders

was speaking to their employees.

• More than four out of five (82%) said that speaking to their

employees was somewhat difficult or very difficult.

Personal and

professional weakness

element in their

leadership style

• Those CEOs with more

general business

backgrounds (many

whom possess an

MBA)

• felt more comfortable

speaking with the

employee workforce

• less so with the shop or

plant floor employees

and shift labor

When digging deeper, the data

revealed that those manufacturing

CEOs with a science, mathematics,

or engineering background (more

than sixty percent of the entire

responding sample) indicated that

they recognized this as a personal

and professional weakness element

in their leadership style.

Knowing what to say to manufacturing

employees.

Knowing what to say is important.

Knowing how and how often to communicate with employees are equally

important.

When so many manufacturing CEOs (all with fewer than 250 employees)

report a weekly (in some cases daily) order, inventory, or delivery crisis,

the notion of employee communication quickly takes a back burner.

employees are their most valuable asset

• While the same 90% of these manufacturing CEOs reported that their

employees are their most valuable asset

• few knew how to motivate and inspire employee engagement and

assure employee retention within the organization.

Third-party manufacturing

communication solutions

Manufacturing leaders have little hesitation about hiring consultants to:

• provide kaizen events (to generate immediate elimination of wasteful

activities)

• create lean manufacturing initiative (to generate an on-going

program of process improvement)

• best-practice process improvements (to compare against industry

standards)

• outsource safety compliance to third party organizations (because it

is more cost effective and objective)

• outsource payroll, benefits, accounting, legal and other services

(because hiring experts is accepted as the best action plan.)

There is great recognition that this “shortcut” allows the company to

focus on what they do best: manufacture product and satisfy the

demands of customers.

According to

PDP Solutions

• Until now, they were

embarrassed,

uncomfortable, or unsure

of the value proposition of

regular, systematic, and

deliberate communication.

• Without a culture of

leadership guiding the

way, employees gossip

and create cliques,

absenteeism increases,

retention decreases, and

great workers take

positions with competitors.

“Only now are manufacturing

executives asking us to provide

regular leadership communication

strategies and content.”

PDP Solutions is

proactive in utilizing

technologies on the

plant floor.

we create communication content

for manufacturing employers

• “It’s not enough that we create communication content for

manufacturing employers if the employees don’t read, engage, and

interact with the information.

• Data proves engaged employees with communication from

manufacturing leaders

• stay on the job

• stop gossiping

• see themselves as part of the solution

• whole us (employees) versus them (employer) mentality evaporates with

the PDP program.

less than the cost of replacing one employee

The monthly retainer fees to engage PDP Solutions is

far less than the cost of replacing even one employee.

Denial of a

leadership

weakness is not

a management

strategy.

• Losing a single valued and quality employee due to poor communication defies the notion of lean manufacturing; keeping the best people eliminates waste (of time and money.)

• If manufacturing executives have weakness in communication, it can become a strength, by engaging firms like PDP Solutions, which performs the function with ease, expertise, and experience.

• It means making lemonade out of lemons.