Working with Ally was great. She was able to help us focus on the one area that we needed Enterprise Minnesota’s resources for. She kept us on a timeline and brought a very large knowledge base to the project, which was greatly appreciated. Ally worked with my team in a way that made them feel comfortable and they learned a lot.

Enterprise Minnesota is a professional organization with awesome, helpful people. The knowledge their consultants bring to the table and the resources they bring to help us with all kinds of manufacturing challenges is amazing. They have a strong team and are wonderful to work with.

We enjoyed working with Enterprise Minnesota. They helped us to successfully complete our ISO certification journey, which has allowed us to pursue external customers and expand our customer base. It was a lot of work to become ISO certified, but with Keith’s help, it was an enjoyable journey. Enterprise Minnesota helped us plan a lot better, found the holes we had in our system, and guided us in the right direction.

Enterprise Minnesota works very hard to justify and validate that every dollar invested yields a strong result, and the peer councils are no exception. Everyone I’ve worked with takes obvious pride and ownership in their work. When you work with Enterprise Minnesota, you’re going to get matched up with a consultant that knows how to get the job done. You’re going to get results.

I also appreciate the fact that even with the number of businesses that Enterprise Minnesota serves, the president, Bob Kill, will stop by and maintain a relationship with me. It feels like a family.

Working with Steve has been a nice evolution, both for our business strategy and plans, as well as team building for the key employees in the facility. I’m a proponent of the process and tell others about working with Enterprise Minnesota. I’ve had my eyes opened to the value.

With the number of departments and areas that were touched, we had many individuals involved in this project. When it first started, I was a little concerned, but since going through the facility layout and implementing it on the shop floor, it was entirely invaluable. It was phenomenal. What we got from Enterprise Minnesota and Greg was head and shoulders above what we could have done on our own.

One of the biggest advantages of working with Greg was that he came in with a non-biased outside view and asked the questions that needed to be asked. He challenged us in new ways to help us get better.

Engaging with Enterprise Minnesota has been valuable in many ways for our company. Not only in the facility layout process, but also for leadership development. It has been really valuable to learn about personality types, how to engage with employees, and work together more effectively.

Working with Enterprise Minnesota has been a positive experience. They’ve helped our company grow profitably. Knowing that Enterprise Minnesota is advocating for us and listening to our concerns is very helpful. It feels like we have a voice.

With the skilled worker shortage, and the fact that it’s really difficult to onboard a lot of those positions, we have really been focusing on retention more than anything these days.

Planning long-term is more difficult. That’s probably our biggest heartburn. I think part of it for us is industry change and employee changes. And regulatory issues have been a big, big heartburn for us with our business in plastics. So yeah, it’s planning. That’s going to be the most difficult. We can get numbers from customers, we can do a budget for an entire year, and we were dangerously close in the past. That’s not so true the last couple of years.

Our biggest issue now is what should we be paying in people. We’ve been finding good employees, but the way inflation has been, it’s hard. We had operators who are lower paid. Well, now they can go to Walmart and get that. It’s trying to juggle that and still keep your good operators. So, that’s probably our biggest challenge right now.

For me, it’s what our legislature, specifically state, is going to dream up next — new regulations or requirements that we have to do. Right now, it’s obviously paid family and medical leave. I’m just very concerned about the impact that’s going to have on the workforce. We already have people figuring out how to get out of working, and now they’re going to be able to get out of working and be paid at least some percentage of their normal salary to do it.

Does your outlook influence or inhibit your ability to plan? How does uncertainty affect your plan?

We’re probably going to spend less on capital, but we’re going to take the money and invest it in people — putting more training programs in place, putting more leadership development programs in place.

Let’s talk about the economy. How optimistic are you about the next 12 months? Are you pessimistic? Is it too early to predict?

There are so many conflicting indicators out there that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. So, you really don’t know what the most critical factor is. We’re a small enough company and hopefully in enough different industries that it’s going to come down to our effort and our focus versus the macro factors. That’s how we’re approaching it right now.

Let’s talk about some of the legislative laws passed this past July.  What are your thoughts on the new sick and safe laws, cannabis, and others? 

I’m worried to varying degrees for each new law. There are already people gone or just calling in sick because they don’t want to come into work. As far as the sick and safe time, we already have enough PTO given for that, but I don’t know if some employees will think that they deserve more as a separate thing. Cannabis we’re somewhat concerned about but not too worried.

Let’s talk about some of the legislative laws passed this past July.  What are your thoughts on the new sick and safe laws, cannabis, and others? 

I work in HR, so the safe and sick time, there is a concern that is going to be demanded in addition to what we’ve already negotiated in our contract earlier this year. And then with cannabis, how do we monitor it? We’ve changed our pre-hire drug policy, and we’re doing a reasonable suspicion training for our supervisors in November. But it’s not clear what we can call out, what we cannot call out. We are very concerned.