Automotive News Canada - January 2022 - 23

* JANUARY 2022
23
GM approached Oshawa as a rare
opportunity to reset the workforce
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Restarting the assembly line
presented an opportunity to make
the shop floor a more diverse and
inclusive place, said Christopher
Thomson, human resources and
labour relations director for the
Oshawa plant.
" It's certainly not an opportunity
you get very often - certainly
not in automotive, " Thomson said.
GM announced the $1.3-billion
retooling
of Oshawa
in the fall of
2020. Almost
from the outset,
Thomson
said, the team
was working
toward
gender parity.
Although
plant hiring
decisions rest
solely with the
automaker,
the company
did confer with
Unifor, which
supported the
Thomson:
Oshawa
Assembly
retooled the
way it hires so
as to eliminate
gender bias.
PHOTO: LINKEDIN
effort to bring hundreds more
women into the unionized workplace.
" Automotive
manufacturing
has typically been male-dominated
in the perception, " Thomson
said. " So, one of the ways you can
shift that paradigm is how you
present the opportunities. "
This started with advertising
and social media, where the
recruitment team " very deliberately "
used images and video testimonials
from female GM employees,
he said.
MORE THAN 13,000 RESUMES
As news of the plant reopening
rippled out from Oshawa, the hiring
team was flooded with applications.
For
the approximately 1,200
production positions, GM received
more than 13,000 resumes,
Thomson said. He pointed to the
pandemic wreaking havoc on sectors
such as retail and food service,
along with GM's reputation,
as reasons for the huge applicant
pool. The automaker also starts
new production hires at $23.67 an
hour. The provincial minimum
wage is $15 an hour.
Muriel Matthews, 27, was
among those looking to step out of
the service sector.
Previously working six days
a week at a deli, Matthews' new
position at GM lets her spend
more time with her eight-yearold
daughter, she said. Matthews
started at the plant in August and
now leads a team of six on the
paint line.
Having grown up in Oshawa,
she had always envisioned working
at GM and had feared that the
closure in 2019 would mean she
would never get the chance. That
changed last year as the company
ramped up hiring efforts for the
plant's impending pickup production
mandate.
" It was like a collective, like
a whole community, everybody
[saying]. 'GM's opening!' "
Matthews said.
She brushed aside her few
qualms about stepping into an
THE BIG Story
Muriel Matthews had no manufacturing experience but that wasn't
a roadblock as GM tested applicants' skills building vehicle doors.
The assessor's reassurance put Matthews at ease. " She was
fabulous, and she just made me relaxed right away. "
PHOTO: GM CANADA
unknown factory environment.
" I figured, you know what, it's
2021 - at the time - we've got
to have made some kind of progress, "
she said.
'YOU GOT THIS'
Matthews had no manufacturing
experience when she walked
into GM's assessment, which tested
applicants' skills building vehicle
doors. The assessor's reassurance
put her at ease.
" She was fabulous, and she just
made me relaxed right away, "
Matthews said. " She's like, 'You
got this,' and she showed me, and
we did it and I felt so good after. "
Thomson said GM designed the
door-building simulation to eliminate
gender bias, employing an
equal number of male and female
assessors and testing the process
to ensure gender did not influence
passing rates.
Over three months last spring,
GM put about 5,000 applicants
through door building. Using the
scores as a rough basis for hiring
decisions, it began onboarding
for production assignments
in August and trained new staff
through the fall.
Because manufacturing experience
was not a requirement,
Thomson said, management was
prepared for a different approach
to training.
" The learning curve is going to
look a little bit different when you
bring in less-experienced team
members, but we think in order
to achieve the diversity goal and
create this vision we had for what
the workplace culture would look
like, that that's a sacrifice we
were more than willing to make. "
Having more women in the
plant also required rethinking
how space was divided.
Washroom and shower room
distribution, originally skewed
toward a larger male workforce,
needed to be reworked.
Compared with the even split
today, Thomson said, the plant
in its 2019 incarnation was about
18-per-cent to 20-per-cent women.
That breakdown is still prevalent
in many automotive manufacturing
environments.
'A WELCOMING FACTOR'
Auto manufacturing can still
be a lonely place for women, said
Jennifer Green, a 10-year veteran
of the industry and now director
of competitions at Skills Ontario,
an organization focused on promoting
the skilled trades as a
career option for young Ontarians.
" But companies showing they
have supports in place can help
change that.
" Being public and open with
what you have, to show that, 'Hey,
we've got your back,' really does
have a comfort level and a welcoming
factor that makes women
want to go to those kinds of companies. "
Other
automakers, and women
considering the industry, are likely
to take notice of examples such
as GM's, Green said.
" It's a really great domino-and-chain
effect, that if it can
happen there, will it start to happen
in other plants? Will it help
to effect the community and the
region around
them? "
Three
months into
production
at Oshawa of
the Chevrolet
Silverado HD
pickup - the
plant will
Green:
Oshawa's
approach
on gender
could rub
off on other
automakers
while piquing
the interest of
more women.
PHOTO: LINKEDIN
start building
the light-duty
Silverado this
spring - the
positivity of the
environment
has stayed
" infectious, "
Thomson said.
Now, with
most of the hiring
completed,
his team is turning its efforts to
building a sustainable culture.
Both MacLeod and Matthews
are eager to play a part. Pointing
to the early and easy sense of
camaraderie, both see themselves
staying with the automaker for
the long haul.
" There's a lot of different opportunities
I can see myself filling my
time with, " MacLeod said.
Details about the makeup of
plant-floor personnel in Oshawa
have also reached the U.S. parent
company. GM said it will use the
lessons learned " to inform future
recruiting efforts across the
company. " - ANC
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Automotive News Canada - January 2022

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