Other Voices: For essential manufacturers, employee experience has never been more important

Editor’s note: The following column by Lloyd Adams, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, East Region at SAP America, is part of Modern’s Other Voices column, a series featuring ideas, opinions and insights from end-users, analysts, systems integrators and OEMs. Click here to learn about submitting a column for consideration.

————-

For manufacturers around the world, COVID-19 is the elephant that may or may not be in the room and its impact has been substantial. The ISM index hit 49 percent last month. Some factory floors have ground to a halt, other have slowed as orders decline. However, two manufacturing segments have seen the opposite effect during this pandemic: food and medical products. An adequate production of both essential product types will help us manage this global health crisis, but meeting demand isn’t as simple as increasing conveyor belt speeds or reconfiguring machines to pivot production. It’s employee experience that will make or break manufacturers ability to rise to the occasion.

The demand for both products is a challenge that isn’t going away soon. According to Rakuten Intelligence, order volume for online grocery retailers surged 210% from March 12 to 15, compared with the same period in 2019. Orders for ventilators and PPE have been so high that even non-traditional producers like Under Armour, Hanes, Tesla and Ford have taken leadership roles in pivoting production to help supply these essential goods to hospitals. The unique challenges companies like this face in refitting operations to produce different products aside, both segments face incredible pressure and much of that is felt by the world’s factory floor workers. These heroes are working around the clock and we owe it to them to ensure their employee experience is as high as possible during this challenging time.

While a variety of tactics are being implemented across industries to address each specific job function, the below are the key principles manufacturing managers in these segments should consider as they think about their workforce’s experience during this difficult time.

Put Safety First & Establish Measurement
It’s imperative that as a manufacturing organization, you understand the risk each and every factory floor employee is taking by leaving their house and coming to work. Even with the appropriate precautions in place, the risk is real and unavoidable. Safety protocols must be equally serious. There are some basic, yet effective measures you can take right off the bat, including spacing machines at least six feet apart from one another, having effective cleaning measures scheduled regularly throughout each day and providing adequate safety supplies. But it’s equally important to leverage technology to establish a feedback pulse from your factory floor employees.

Otherwise, you have no way to measure safety measure effectiveness and ensure employees feel heard. There are many options available for this; SAP has partnered with Qualtrics to provide a quick, free survey tool, Qualtrics Employee Pulse Survey, that has already provided a venue for workers at more than 7,000 organizations to share feedback and create a channel through which it is safe to raise workplace issues. Collecting this data empowers manufacturers to act in real-time to drive improvements based on direct employee feedback. You can’t know there’s an issue if you have no way of monitoring for one.

Connect Employee Work with Societal Impact
Every day, we see headlines detailing new efforts by food and medical supply manufacturers to fight scarce supply. For instance, leaders like Under Armour have pivoted production to develop cloth masks to aid in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 and others like Ford are refitting operations to help manufacture ventilators. These efforts will have a tremendous impact on communities impacted most by COVID-19; from an employee experience standpoint, it’s important that the people supporting these initiatives see a connection between their day-to-day efforts and the communities that depend on them. A few useful tactics include distributing productivity reports, sharing positive feedback from customers or even highlighting media coverage that details the results of their efforts. It’s important that we take time to help them see the fruit of their labor.

The Why Behind Employee Experience
Why should this matter? Study after study shows that this connection to purpose carries significant weight when it comes to employee experience. We’re in a “new normal” today. In the months ahead, many manufacturing employees will face tough challenges as they produce food products, ventilators and PPE around the clock. Prioritizing positive experiences for these employees by leveraging technology where we can to establish a pulse on engagement or sending a simple email to your team connecting their work to the local communities will have a lasting impact on the incredible workforces putting others above themselves to ensure people have food and doctors have equipment to treat patients.