Maintenance Technology October 2016 - 8


ON THE FLOOR

'I noticed that our
number of years to achieve).
We attract job candidates through
the normal channels (employment
services and also social media). I
noticed that our company recently
used Facebook as a way to reach
potential trades and engineering
personnel. When trades people are
hired, they're generally put with a
senior person and evaluated by him or
her for a short time.
I can say that in my 17 years here,
we've only had a very small number
of people that were not able to catch
on and were released by the company.
Overall, we have had a pretty good
workforce!

Maintenance Supervisor,
Process Industries, Canada. . .

No formal succession plans at this
time. We're currently working with
just enough staff to accomplish our
repairs. With not much time for PM or
projects, they're farmed out.
We tend to "grow our own" for
the maintenance-manager positions.
Others in production are hired from
outside the company. We will use an
outside firm to put together a prospective list of candidates for us.

Maintenance Engineer,
Disrete Mfg, Midwest. . .

With our managers starting to retire,
we've begun the succession-planning
process. We've tried to hire from
within, but some skill sets have caused
us to hire a few individuals from
outside the company. We also found
some bad practices with the start of
this succession planning and are trying

company recently
used Facebook
as a way to reach
potential trades
and engineering
personnel.'

to fix them on the fly.
We try to use past experience on
our production floor for in-house
personnel and often pull from our
quality department (inspectors) to fill
front-line supervisor positions. We
often tried to use our better machine
operators to fill machine technician
roles, but found our machine training
was lacking. So now we are paying to
train new technicians and incorporate
the updated training programs from
here on out.

College Electrical Laboratory
Manager/Instructor, West. . .

We have succession programs set up
for several departments.
Senior maintenance staff members
are assigned newer people to train as
apprentices. My management position
is covered by many of the senior maintenance personnel and in management
training programs.
We try our best to promote from
within. Most employees have attended
Career Track interviews where we

About the MT Reader Panel
The Maintenance Technology Reader Panel includes approximately 100 working
industrial-maintenance practitioners and consultants who have volunteered
to answer monthly questions prepared by our editorial staff. Panelist identities
are not revealed and their responses are not necessarily projectable. Note that
our panel welcomes new members. To be considered, email your name and
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8|

MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY

MT1610onthefloorREV.indd 8

discuss what they want to do when
they "grow up" in the organization. We
then jointly set up plans for training
and outside education to help them
reach their goals. (We pay for their
college classes and textbooks.)

Retired Plant Engineer,
Industry Consultant, Canada. . .

In the plants I managed, trade succession was always an issue. Attracting
prospective employees with sufficient
experience on our particular systems
was problematic. Those with vested
seniority were unwilling to make the
switch, and the less experienced were
often doubtful we could provide them
with the job security they already had.
We deliberated and argued, but
eventually each plant settled on homegrown apprentices, with a defined path
of promotion to [the positions of]
lead-hand and supervisor. I learned
that my own promotion was unlikely
unless I groomed a lieutenant, and
after setting up the trade training, I
ensured that I could likewise move up
(or out).
We decided that college graduates
were the best pool to consider, and
devised several auxiliary tests to
narrow that group. We occasionally
head hunted, but for the most part, the
individuals we found weren't permanent; they continued to be hunted.
Those plants (and many of my
previous clients) are currently
struggling with immigrant trades and
college technicians to fill the gap left by
retirement. But the pickings are slim.
A significant problem [as I see it]
is that most immigrants have not had
the solid technical schooling that we
had when Europe was the primary
source of immigrant trades. With a
crowded curriculum, colleges seem
to allow their grads to fall short of the
"enabling' skills that we previously
took for granted. MT
Go to MaintenanceTechnology.com
for a slightly expanded version of this
month's "On the Floor."

OCTOBER 2016

9/29/16 8:54 PM
http://www.MaintenanceTechnology.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology October 2016
