Monica Anderton - "CHROs: Navigating Retention and Recruitment Challenges in the Manufacturing Industry"
Monica Anderton, CHRO of the North America Packaging and Paper Division at DS Smith, discusses HR challenges in the manufacturing sector, focusing on retention and recruitment amid labor shortages. She highlights strategies for building a resilient workforce, such as fostering a "sticky culture" and implementing inclusive leadership programs. Monica explains that creative recruitment, including hiring bilingual interpreters, helps address talent shortages. She also emphasizes the importance of aligning HR practices with business goals to boost productivity.
EPISODE:21 CHROs: Navigating Retention and Recruitment Challenges in the Manufacturing Industry A Conversation with Monica Anderton Monica Anderton CHRO, North America Packaging and Paper Division @ DS Smith
Episode Description Monica Anderton, CHRO of the North America Packaging and Paper Division at DS Smith, discusses HR challenges in the manufacturing sector, focusing on retention and recruitment amid labor shortages. She highlights strategies for building a resilient workforce, such as fostering a “sticky culture” and implementing inclusive leadership programs. Monica explains that creative recruitment, including hiring bilingual interpreters, helps address talent shortages. She also emphasizes the importance of aligning HR practices with business goals to boost productivity.
Table of Contents Introduction to Monica Anderon(2:06) Full Episode (27:02) Navigating HR Challenges and Bridging the Talent Gap in Manufacturing (2:06) Overcoming Workforce Challenges in Leadership and the Manufacturing Marketplace (2:28) Empowering Managers to Build Culture and Retain Talent (2:21) Building a Sticky Culture to Empower Employee Satisfaction and Growth (5:00) Boosting Organizational Performance and Efficiency through Employee Engagement (1:36) Empowering Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Through Innovative Hiring (5:27) Encouraging Innovation and Cultivating a Safe Environment for Ideas (0:52) Building a Winning Team Focused on Leadership, Innovation, and Impact(1:55) Fostering Strong HR Partnerships with Business Leaders (0:55) Short - Building a Sticky Culture to Empower Employee Satisfaction and Growth Panels (0:57) Short - Empowering Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Through Innovative Hiring (0:56)
(2:06) Introduction to Monica Anderton “I always like to say that I’m a global business leader with an emphasis on the HR function because I believe you really need to have that business savvy to understand what's going on in order to effectively manage the people aspect.”
Full Episode "When you really look at talent acquisition holistically, you definitely want to make sure that not only when you're bringing people in, but also that you're creating opportunities for them to continue to grow and develop—either in their profession or by acquiring other opportunities within the organization." 5
Full Episode: Topics Covered 1. Understanding the Post-Pandemic Manufacturing Workforce Crisis 2. Building a ‘Sticky’ Company Culture 3. Innovative Recruitment Strategies
(2:06) Navigating HR Challenges and Bridging the Talent Gap in Manufacturing “We’re seeing people retire, and one of the main challenges is figuring out how to get the next generation excited about manufacturing. It’s critical to our success that we have the talent on board to produce the products we make.”
(2:28) Overcoming Workforce Challenges in Leadership and the Manufacturing Marketplace “We’ve got this phenomenal team of people who just get it done. However, it means they’re working a tremendous amount of overtime to fill in the gaps where we have resource constraints.” 8
(2:21) Empowering Managers to Build Culture and Retain Talent “We have a great talent pipeline, with some expats who come in as industry experts to help fill niches and gaps where we might have talent shortages. However, we really focus on the supervisors and managers at the site because they are the backbone of our culture.”
(5:00) Building a Sticky Culture to Empower Employee Satisfaction and Growth “Culture is the differentiator for why people want to come to work. You spend a lot of time with the people you work with, and if the environment is welcoming, caring, and shows interest in you while supporting career growth and development, that’s the sticky factor for me.”
(1:36) Boosting Organizational Performance and Efficiency through Employee Engagement “With enhanced employee engagement and satisfaction, the cost of recruiting went down, and overtime decreased because we weren't training new employees. We also saw our safety stats improve, as we had fewer safety issues due to a longer-tenured workforce.”
(5:27) Empowering Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Through Innovative Hiring “We have a culture of fail fast and recover. If something didn’t work, we wouldn’t have kept going, but it did. I think we also built a foundation of being innovative: challenge us, don’t accept no as an answer, challenge the status quo, and think outside the box.” 12
(0:52) Encouraging Innovation and Cultivating a Safe Environment for Ideas “As a leader, keep encouraging and challenging your team to be innovative in their approach. We need to step back because the old ways of doing things aren’t going to work.”
(1:55) Building a Winning Team Focused on Leadership, Innovation, and Impact “We’ve created an innovative culture that allows both us and the team to push ideas forward. This has had a real impact on the business. My team is amazing—I love them.” 14
(0:55) Fostering Strong HR Partnerships with Business Leaders “It is critically important to understand the business— know the metrics, know their pinch points, and then figure out how you can bring people’s solutions to help craft answers to whatever the issue at hand may be.”
YOUTUBE SHORT: “Culture is the differentiator for why people want to come to work. You spend a lot of time with the people you work with, and if the environment is welcoming, caring, and shows interest in you while supporting career growth and development, that’s the sticky factor for me.” - Monica Anderton
YOUTUBE SHORT: “We have a culture of fail fast and recover. If something didn’t work, we wouldn’t have kept going, but it did. I think we also built a foundation of being innovative: challenge us, don’t accept no as an answer, challenge the status quo, and think outside the box.” - Monica Anderton
Monica Anderton Monica Anderton, CHRO of the North America Packaging and Paper Division at DS Smith, discusses HR challenges in the manufacturing sector, focusing on retention and recruitment amid labor shortages. She highlights strategies for building a resilient workforce, such as fostering a "sticky culture" and implementing inclusive leadership programs. Monica explains that creative recruitment, including hiring bilingual interpreters, helps address talent shortages. She also emphasizes the importance of aligning HR practices with business goals to boost productivity.
About Eastridge Established in 1972, Eastridge Workforce Solutions is an employee-owned provider of full-service talent acquisition and management solutions for companies globally. Eastridge provides a full range professional / technical industrial of solutions including professional / technical and industrial staffing. We also provide workforce employer of record recruitment process outsourcing management solutions such as employer of record, recruitment process outsourcing, as well as managed service provider programs Talient managed service provider programs. Our services are backed with Talient, a proprietary workforce technology that streamlines every step of managing your extended workforce.
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