How LMC is Battling Post-COVID Labor Challenges

We’ve all heard it before – “people are our greatest asset”. It’s a phrase usually only given lip service. But we at Light Metals Coloringhave embraced this cliché, and have spent the last year putting real meaning and action to it. 

At LMC, we all want all our employees to work in a place where they feel appreciated and valued. Where employee learning and growing are encouraged. Where high-performing employees are the norm. To achieve this has had us change our approach to our people. Now, we work a very defined plan that has a focus on getting the right people in the right seats, as job alignment directly affects employee engagement which in turn provides a quality metal finished product to our customers. 

Here is our approach: 

1. Role Organization – We’re starting with a fresh look at our org chart and each role in it. By shifting higher-value responsibilities out of management roles and into the workforce, we can justify higher wages and provide our people with a career trajectories. It also allows our managers to get back to working on the business instead of in it. More skilled workers means a leaner organization overall, and use of our temporary workforce simply becomes a strategic response to the fluctuating metal finishing needs of our customers.   

2. Hiring Rigor – We are bringing in ‘right people.’ We have implemented a process of creating performance profiles for each of our roles. Performance profiles summarize the tasks and expectations of each role, along with the personal attributes (skills, education and experience), and more importantly, the behaviors needed to be successful in the job. This then allows us to more creatively and intentionally source talent that fits the role and fits our culture. We apply the same rigor to our interview process, looking for responses that demonstrate the candidate’s fit to our values and purpose. You can read about what our ideal candidate looks like on our Careers page ! 

3. Employee Development – We are building a workplace that values, develops and engages employees. Once hired, keeping great people requires building and sustaining a sound workplace culture that engages and empowers employees to learn, grow, own their performance, contribute and make an impact. At LMC we are committed to providing all employees with: 

• Tools and resources needed to do their jobs well. 
• Clear performance expectations. 
• Recurring performance feedback that focuses on applauding good performance and improving areas of challenging performance. 
• Organizational focus on skill and career development. 

4. Management Training – We are training our managers to think and act like workplace coaches. At LMC, we have started the EDGE (Employee Development and Growth Education) Program which trains our managers in the fundamentals of workplace coaching, helping them to better support, guide and coach instead of direct, control and tell. The result is improved manager-employee relationships which then improves trust, accountability and performance. 

Our people are truly our greatest asset. Understanding how to get the people thing right is the most important thing we can do to run a successful metal finishing business. (It is, after-all, LMC’s purpose.)