It’s a common story: A foundry hires 20 new people, and the human resources manager is grateful if just one sticks around. And will any of them have even a vague notion of what happens in a metalcasting operation? Highly unlikely, according to many HR leaders who recently attended the AFS Foundry Forward Round Table meeting. 

The struggle to hire and retain employees has become a universal condition across HR departments throughout the metalcasting industry, and for some, it’s only getting worse. HR personnel admit they’ve had to lower the bar on job qualifications just to widen the labor pool, but in some cases, the number of applicants remains far below what’s needed.

Blame COVID fallout or blame the work ethic of Gen Z, or just look around your local community to see a plethora of available jobs that are far less demanding (and hot), but regardless of what brought foundries into the present workforce crisis, HR leaders are working proactively and creatively to solve the No. 1 hurdle plaguing their companies.  

And an important consensus has emerged among HR professionals: To slow the revolving door, the foundry’s mindset and methods related to employee onboarding must change. Connecting new employees quickly to their co-workers and providing thorough and ongoing job and industry training are the secret sauce.

“A structured onboarding program helps new employees get to productivity faster and integrate with company culture effectively,” says Texas A&M Associate Professor Dr. Bharani Nagarathnam, a workforce expert who co-founded that school’s Talent Development Council. 

“According to Gallup, 88% of employees think that their employer did a poor job with the employee onboarding process,” he continued. “Onboarding is the first step in talent retention. According to Society of Human Resources Managers [SHRM], 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced great onboarding. In addition, a good onboarding program helps new employees feel welcomed, valued, and engaged. This also helps build a good employer brand and word-of-mouth referrals.”

We Need Your Help

Foundry HR folks concur that successful onboarding is not the sole domain of the HR team––rather, acclimating a new hire requires the buy-in and active participation of many, especially the team with whom the rookie will be working every day.  And there’s a lot to learn. Relationships, culture, facility layout, procedures, as well as good training about the job itself are all part of the glue that helps make a new hire stick with the foundry.

According to Nagarathnam, the success of onboarding hinges on designing a positive experience rather than focusing only on the process. He says SHRM is a good resource for best practices to integrate a new employee into the company and its culture, as well as getting new hires the tools and information needed to become productive members of the team. 

Beyond the tedium of completing necessary HR forms, an employee’s first day should be tailored to create a welcoming environment. Include a tour of the plant and introduce new hires to their team and as many other people as possible. Be sure to tell them in advance where to park, what to wear, and where to check in when they arrive. Also, provide an orientation schedule in advance so they know what to expect on their first day. Consider connecting them with a “buddy” who is their go-to for basic questions––whether it’s finding the nearest restroom or knowing when and where to eat lunch, having a friend right from the start who isn’t their boss can offer a sense of security and belonging.

“We’ve probably lost a lot of people in the past, and we’ll continue to do so if we don’t fulfill these basic needs, said Patrick Frazier, director of organization development at AFS Corporate Member ME Global in Tempe, Arizona, and a member of the AFS Talent Development Division. “Probably many of us in the HR profession have ‘survived’ our foundry orientation, but we don’t want our employees to just survive it––we want them to thrive in it, and the way to do that is to welcome them in. We also must give them the grace that it’s going to take time for them to get up to speed and become as good as the operator who’s been there for 30 years. It comes down to the team being willing to invest the time and effort to help that new person succeed.”

Worried a new hire won’t show up on Day 1? Nagarathnam suggests keeping in touch immediately and frequently, from the time they accept your offer till the moment they enter the building. “Share your company handbook and benefits guide, connect them with a buddy, and send a swag bag to their home with a handwritten note,” he says.

Train to Retain

Making a new hire feel welcomed is only half the job for foundry HR personnel who choreograph the onboarding process. An equally-critical part of the retention equation is training the new person to do a job they’ve never done in an environment they’ve never experienced––and it’s a complex undertaking. 

Even when an in-house trainer and safety manager are present, HR carries the responsibility for monitoring and maintaining records to ensure each employee receives consistent, uniform training about their job, the many processes inside the foundry, and how to become part of the company’s safety culture. Optimally, HR will be working collaboratively with these experts as well as the new hire’s manager to create a comprehensive training plan. 

Today, HR professionals are leaning into more videos for the hands-on and how-to training new employees need to become proficient as well as safe in their roles. HR is also being more intentional about teaching foundry terminology, which can easily feel like a foreign language to metal casting novices. 

The No. 1 training resource for foundry HR leaders is the AFS Institute, where learning options range from live online and video instruction (many in Spanish), to in-person classes and onsite training at your workplace. Introduction to Metalcasting and Metalcasting Safety are perfect for new hires, but numerous topics, times, and modes of delivery are accessible at afsinc.org/training. For a complete array of AFS courses and Foundry e-Learning modules, go to: https://bit.ly/AFSCatalog.

Another resource HR people are increasingly fostering and depending on is the plant floor veteran employees themselves who possess decades of tribal knowledge and firsthand experience. Some HR pros admit their companies are evolving––sometimes slowly––to embrace the benefits of older employees teaching the younger, inexperienced hires. 

“I think what’s changing is the mentality of what training is––it’s not just compliance,” said Frazier. “It’s not just checking a box that’ll pass an ISO audit … The question is, how do we get the workforce to engage with training? 

“One of our more gruff managers said to me, ‘Patrick, these young guys don’t know crap.’ And I said, “Yeah, they don’t; we should assume they’re coming in with absolutely no knowledge. If they do have even a little bit, hooray, that’s great, but let’s not expect it.’ We’ve got a whole demographic of individuals with 20, 30 years of experience who are going to be leaving in the next two or three years. So, let’s have them pass the baton––let’s get them teaching and passing on their knowledge. We have to find those champions when it comes to training and development.”