HR has a number of tools they can use to recruit new employees and retain current employees, from healthcare and retirement plans to scheduling and training. In our 2025 Top Shops survey, Win-Tech stood out for the array of benefits it offers its 40 employees — the company pays for 100% of its employees’ healthcare premiums and offers a 401k match that vests on day one of employment — plus its strong outreach and recruiting efforts. But, in talking to Co-President Allison Giddens, it’s clear that the true source of the company’s HR success comes from personal connections, both in and out of the shop.

Taking Off With the Aerospace Industry

Dennis Winslow founded Win-Tech in 1988. A Vietnam veteran and machinist by trade, he wanted to go into business for himself and eventually established a shop in Kennesaw, Georgia, near a Lockheed Martin Marietta plant. “It was kind of on a main road that many of the Lockheed engineers drove home on. It was easy for them to swing by Win-Tech to drop off or pick up parts, or check on a project, so that was how we got our foot in the door with Lockheed. That was how we got into the aerospace side of things, and then engineers would take us with them, so to speak, as they went to different companies.” Aerospace and defense work accounts for between 60 and 80% of the shop’s business, depending on the year, with other industries such as medical, construction and general industry making up the rest.

Giddens says “a good mix of small production runs and some R&D work” run across Win-Tech’s CNC mills, CNC turning centers and manual machines. She defines its specialty as production runs of tight tolerance milled parts, where it can really dial in the process and make improvements.

Over the years, the shop has added capabilities, including EDM, grinding, welding, bending, waterjet and marking, as a response to trends towards customers expecting suppliers to be a one-stop shop. “I know a lot of shops have found themselves needing to be turnkey,” she notes. “A customer will say, ‘I've got a whole assembly. I don't feel like piecemealing this out. I want you to do everything, so I don't have to pull out my hair and find four places to do it.”

While customer demand has driven some of Win-Tech’s technological investments, it also considers its employees’ abilities and ambitions when making these decisions. “We watch to see who on our team is primed and ready to take on something? Let's pull the trigger and give this to them to own,” Giddens explains. For example, when Win-Tech recently replaced two CNC machines, co-owner and plant manager John Hudson chose the new machines with two employees in mind. “He was like, these are going to live with these two people that I know are going to be the next rock stars at Win-Tech. I'm going to have them own these two new machines and they're going to make these things sing,” she says. “And it worked.” The shop saw a positive effect almost immediately — the employees quickly expanded their skills on the new equipment and started cutting chips. “It refreshed the department,” she notes.

Giddens acknowledges that investing money in technology based on employees who could leave at any moment carries some risk, which makes employee retention that much more important.

Feedback Loop

One of Win-Tech’s retention strategies is to provide a variety of opportunities for employees to give feedback, and then using that feedback to improve the company. For example, the shop has a program where employees can suggest safety improvements on the shop floor. Any time the company uses one of the suggestions, the employee who submitted it is entered into a monthly raffle. “We've got a box of things they can pick from, like employee tools and machinist handbooks, good stuff that helps them in their own trade,” Giddens says. “At first, we were like, is anybody actually going to do this? And they did. And it was solid stuff.” Some suggestions have included labeling electronic breaker boxes in a clearer way and changing part flows so employees don’t have to climb ladders to two separate mezzanines. “Those kinds of things let the employees know that you give a damn,” she notes.

In December, every employee has an annual review with their manager, and Giddens uses the opportunity to have a separate conversation with each employee. “They know that we're not talking money and we're not talking training,” she says, “We're talking benefits.” She reviews which benefits each employee uses (including health insurance, 401k, vacation time and supplemental insurance), asks about any benefits they’d like to see added or switched out, and provides an open forum for discussing other topics. “There’s some things that I don't know that I would have learned had we not had frank conversations,” she notes. These conversations provide an opportunity for employees to advocate for themselves. One employee expressed interest in learning Mastercam, so Giddens consulted with Hudson, and that conversation provided the extra push to get that employee the training he requested. “And now he's one of our CNC programmers that uses Mastercam,” she says. These conversations are also a source of personal information that gives Giddens context and the opportunity to provide extra support.

Giddens acknowledges that some of these conversations can be difficult, but at the end of the day, “If they're here and they're getting a paycheck, then we want them to stay here. If we didn't want them to be here, then they wouldn't be here.” Her goal with these conversations is to show employees “it's not just about making money for the company. Somebody else cares enough to want to know what would keep them here.”

One of the biggest changes the shop made based on employee feedback was switching from a typical workweek of five eight-hour days to four 10-hour days. Giddens says this traces back to shortly after the pandemic when the job market was really tight. “It was scary,” she says. “And we knew, employee retention-wise, we had to keep our good ones.” Management was looking for perks and benefits it could offer (beyond more money) and consulted a few of its top performers, who requested more flexible schedules. Giddens and Hudson compiled a few options and sent out a survey to the employees. The results showed 90% of the employees wanted four 10-hour days.

The shop started off with a staggered schedule, where half the employees had Mondays off and half had Fridays off, and the off days switched every six months. The goal was to keep work flowing through the shop and prevent late deliveries. However, Giddens says the shop is so lean that even with cross-training, work would still wait for specially trained employees. “If the person that typically marks parts is here from Monday through Thursday and an item arrived Thursday night that needed to be marked, it would sit,” she explains. Logistically, cross-training and scheduling to ensure full coverage became too much work, so the shop switched to a schedule where everyone has Fridays off. She says that, while the shop’s production dropped off at first, it has since recovered. “It works out pretty well and I don't think customers really notice because I'm still answering emails and addressing stuff,” she explains.

Giddens and Hudson are still in the shop on Fridays, so they offer that time as an opportunity for employees to upskill. “If you want to come and learn or take advantage of a computer or a machine, come on in,” she says. Win-Tech offers its employees classes through NTMA-U, as well as Mastercam training through Streaming Teacher. Employees can work through these classes at home, or on Fridays in the shop.

This schedule has proved popular with employees. “I think if you took it away at this point, all hell would break loose,” she laughs. Prospective employees like it too. “It's definitely a driver,” she notes. “When you're talking to somebody in an interview and you say, ‘four 10-hour days,’ people light up.”

The Key to Recruiting

Win-Tech uses a variety of recruiting strategies for students, and in all of them, Giddens says, “Consistency is key.” Much of this work revolves around the local technical school, Chattahoochee Technical College. Giddens has served on the board of trustees for its foundation, and Hudson has served on the advisory council for the CNC technology program.

Giddens says that while committing time to these efforts on top of an already busy schedule is difficult, particularly when the benefits aren’t immediate, building relationships and a good reputation in the community takes time. “It's an uphill battle and we're we know we're not alone in it,” she says, “but we think the tide is turning.” The local school district is building a new Cobb Innovation Technology Academy with a maker space, in partnership with the technical college. “The high schools will obviously feed right into Chatt Tech and then feed into places like us,” she explains.

Win-Tech’s outreach to students expands beyond its local school district. In 2020, the shop was set to take on summer interns from a local school. The pandemic halted those plans, but Giddens couldn’t bring herself to cancel the program entirely. Instead, she pivoted to a virtual internship. “I went from having two interns on site, which to be honest with you, I didn't really have any work for them, to having 15 virtual interns from around the county,” she says. They all met for an hour each day, and Giddens invited guests to speak to the interns about different aspects of manufacturing. “It was a hit,” she says. “So now we do it every summer.” This year’s Advanced Manufacturing Virtual Internship (AMVI) had 17 students, most from Georgia but some from as far away as Florida and New Jersey. “Last year we had somebody from Dubai,” she adds.

In the past five years, the virtual internship has evolved to incorporate new aspects of manufacturing, such as supply chains and AI. It also includes soft skills, such as networking. “The whole idea behind it is to expose kids to manufacturing, to make them understand like this isn't just standing at a manual machine in a little oily shop. This is exposing them to different careers and connecting them with professionals and encouraging them.”

Community Connections

Win-Tech’s work with other local organizations, such as the local chamber of commerce, also helps them in recruiting. “They are really doing a good job trying to get more of a focus on manufacturing and different high-demand career fields,” she says. The Cobb County Chamber of Commerce also provides opportunities for small businesses, such as a deal Win-Tech recently took advantage of for inexpensive billboard advertising to help its recruitment efforts. Giddens has also made other connections through their programs, including with the city manager, which she says comes in handy when potholes form in the road near the shop.

The chamber of commerce also put Hudson, a military veteran, in touch with a program called Honorary Commanders, which pairs military personnel with local business leaders to teach the community about local military activities. “We are very close to Dobbins Air Force Base, so a lot of the local economy revolves around that,” Giddens explains. One of Hudson’s peers in the program was a local county judge who works with the county’s veterans court. “That’s for veterans or people in the military who have gotten caught with misdemeanors, drugs or something minor, but just enough for them to be in hot water with the military,” she explains. The veterans court gives veterans in this situation the opportunity to expunge their record by going through an intensive program, which includes work requirements. Win-Tech has employed two veterans through this program, and Giddens says they’ve both been “fantastic.”

Giddens says it’s important to keep in mind that connections, whether internal or external, go two ways. And many times, these connections, whether in the shop or in the community, can prove mutually beneficial. “Those people that we have connections with, they know we would stop what we're doing to help them too,” she says. “It’s not one-sided.”