Tackling the Talent Challenge

In both our State of Manufacturing® survey and at related events around Minnesota, manufacturers continue to express concerns about ongoing workforce challenges. These challenges persist from year to year, regardless of business strength or the state of the economy.

One of our top talent and leadership consultants, Abbey Hellickson, offered a condensed version of her manufacturing workshop on this topic at this year’s Owatonna regional SOM event. She says that while manufacturers’ concerns are real, the opportunities are equally strong, especially for companies willing to treat talent management and leadership development as core strategic elements rather than a list of HR to-do tasks.

“Business strategy is where it all starts. And who executes your business strategy? Your people do,” Hellickson says. She adds that organizations that excel at managing and developing their talent outperform competitors by a significant margin.

“Every single year we think about what we need to do as a business to get better. Are we thinking about making sure that our employee skill sets are going to match that? That’s what the talent management is about,” she says.

To avoid a mismatch, Hellickson encourages companies to treat talent management as a full lifecycle—from attracting people to onboarding them, supporting their productivity, developing them, and ultimately capturing their knowledge before they exit.

A central concept she shares with manufacturers is the “productivity zone,” the period when employees know their jobs well, contribute value and solve problems effectively. Companies gain the most momentum when employees stay in this zone, but that doesn’t happen naturally. “The longer we retain someone, the more development we need to put into them. The knowledge, skills, and abilities that we need today are not going to always be the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we’re going to need tomorrow,” she says.

To build long-term strength, organizations must also cultivate leaders at every level. Hellickson encourages companies to think of their leadership pipeline, which breaks development into five stages: leading yourself, leading others, leading a function, leading the business, and leading the enterprise.

Leadership development, Hellickson stresses, cannot be a one-time training event or a hopeful promotion. It must be a system. Organizations need clarity about what leadership looks like at each level, the competencies that matter, and where each leader currently stands. Development can take many forms—stretch assignments, mentoring, coaching—but it must be intentional and ongoing. “You want to be sure that you’re embedding it into your organization and into your daily work,” she says.

Hellickson suggests a practical challenge: identify one step you can take in the next 30 days to strengthen leadership in your organization. Small actions—reviewing a job description, talking with a promising employee, mapping leadership levels—compound over time.

“When we make sure our strategies match our employee skill sets, we’re going to start to get that competitive advantage,” she says.

Look for a full-length feature on this topic in the next issue of Enterprise Minnesota magazine, due for publication in late February. And, to learn more about how Abbey or one of our other talent and leadership consultants can help your company grow, connect with your business development advisor here.

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