Manufacturing Institute Offers Best Employee Retention Practices

The Manufacturing Institute’s (MI) Center for Manufacturing Research partnered with the American Psychological Association to examine best practices for worker retention among manufacturers and explore the factors that affect retention. Featuring both leadership and worker perspectives, the Manufacturing Engagement and Retention Study analyzed why manufacturing workers stay with their employers and what contributes to that decision.

“With 814,000 jobs open in manufacturing, there has been a great deal of attention on recruitment, but part of the equation is also retention,” says MI executive director Carolyn Lee. “We partnered with the APA to provide manufacturers a deeper dive into the forces affecting retention—what works, what motivates employees and where employers likely can improve.”

Key findings include the following:

• Eight in 10 workers said they stay with their employer because they enjoy the work.
• Employees under age 25 said they stay with their current employer because of training and development (69 percent) and career opportunities (65 percent).
• Employees who feel valued were more than four times as likely to report high levels of work engagement (59 percent vs. 13 percent) and less likely to say they feel stressed out on a typical workday (16 percent vs. 66 percent) or that they plan to leave the company within the next year (2 percent vs. 12 percent).
• More than nine in 10 senior leaders are satisfied with training and development, compared to two-thirds of frontline workers.
• While competitive pay and benefits are important, designing work in a way that increases positive experiences on the job can be an effective approach to improving retention.

Common areas to improve retention cited by manufacturing leaders included employee recognition programs, internal communication, clear career paths and better management training (especially “soft skills”).