David Marshall
-
Do Floor Managers and Supervisors Need Leadership Training?
- October 6, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business
No Comments
One of the great cockups that Corporate America makes is assuming people who are great at their jobs will be great leaders of their departments. They promote great salespeople to become sales managers or they promote great machine operators to become floor managers. This compounds two mistakes, one on top of the other. Not only
-
Corporate Buyers Should Leave Acquired Companies Alone
- August 25, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership
Every successful company that has a product or service has a culture of its own that developed around it. Successful companies have found the secret to making their culture function to become one of the leaders in their field, which made them an attractive target for acquisition or merger by corporate buyers. This is how
-
Automation Makes Work (and Life) Better For Workers
- August 18, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Productivity
Automation is changing the face of manufacturing. It may be taking away some of the low-paying jobs, but it’s also taking people away from the heavy, backbreaking work on the floor. It’s giving people new opportunities to do much easier work and to even learn new skills and gain new knowledge. That leads to higher-paying
-
Don’t Overlook Older Workers In Your Hiring
- August 11, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
We’re in a hiring crunch in the United States, especially in the manufacturing industry. Yes, there are issues in the fast food and service-related industry, as people aren’t going back to work even as states end their unemployment support of $300 per week. Many people blame the low salaries fast-food workers are getting (which is
-
Is Slow to Hire, Fast to Fire Still Important in a Slow Job Market?
- August 4, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
Slow to hire, fast to fire as a management philosophy still matters, even now, in today’s labor market. The job talent pool is pretty shallow these days, with worker shortages in manufacturing, and there’s a concern that if you hold out for the best possible talent, those candidates may be gone by the time you’re
-
How Can You Solve a Worker Shortage Right Now?
- July 28, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Manufacturing
There are worker shortages right now in all kinds of industries, from the restaurant industry to office workers to manufacturing. There are a variety of causes, like the fact that we’re paying people more not to work than what they were being paid to work. Or that some people don’t want to return to the
-
The Annual Performance Review Is a Terrible Waste of Time
- July 21, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
The Annual performance review is a terrible waste of time and a terribly inefficient method of creating improvements in your associates. For one thing, if you are measuring everything in your operation, from the associates working on the floor to the back-office staff, they know when there’s a problem almost immediately. They don’t need to
-
The Person Closest to the Problem Often Knows How to Solve the Problem
- July 14, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Measurement
A recent article in IndustryWeek, Once Led Through Fear, a Small Manufacturer Reimagines Itself, got me to thinking about who I often relied on to solve problems in our manufacturing plant. Last week, I talked about how as a manager, I had learned early on to ask people to “show me” whenever they were dealing
-
Be Humble Enough to Learn from Everyone
- July 7, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Leadership, Management
Managers and executives often suffer from the belief (the conceit?) that they should have all the answers, should know how to do everything, and should be the smartest person in the room. The problem is they become bottlenecks, assume they’re the only ones with all the answers, and will often require associates to carry out
-
Stay Focused on Employee Health & Safety
- June 16, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Safety
As a manufacturing manager, the worst words you can hear are “workplace injury.” Manufacturing is not necessarily a safe job, and people can get hurt just doing their work. Even with all the employee health and safety training, policies, and personal protective equipment, people can still get hurt on the job. That creates a lot