Build a stronger manufacturing workforce in a tight labor market
Reviewed by Scott Nielson, CPA, Partner, Director of Tax on
Machinists, maintenance technicians, engineers, production workers. For manufacturers across Idaho and Utah, the hardest positions to fill are usually the ones the floor cannot run without, and competition for experienced candidates is not easing.
A workforce strategy worth the name treats recruiting, retention and development as one problem rather than three. Pairing competitive pay with flexibility and training builds a pipeline that holds up better than any single lever.
Look beyond base pay
Wages matter, but they are the part every competitor can match. Signing bonuses, retention bonuses and performance-based incentives can move a candidate weighing two similar offers, or hold someone who is being recruited away.
Traditional benefits still carry weight. Health insurance and a 401(k) match are what most candidates check first, and those costs are more negotiable than employers assume. Go back to your existing providers with competitor quotes in hand.
Voluntary benefits are worth a look as well. Consumer goods purchasing programs, life insurance and disability coverage are usually paid by the employee, often through payroll deduction, and an employer can frequently secure terms an individual could not get alone.
Review your employee value proposition
Pay is one part of why someone joins and stays. The rest is your employee value proposition: the financial and nonfinancial reasons people choose your floor over another.
The fastest way to find out what yours is worth is to ask. Workers often rank a respectful workplace, a supervisor who backs them, recognition for good work, the chance to learn something new and a visible path forward above small differences in pay. Where two employers offer the same wage, culture is the tiebreaker.
Scheduling belongs in the same conversation. Remote work is not realistic for most production roles, but flexible start and end times, compressed weeks and alternative shifts are. Seasonal and part-time arrangements can cover needs a full-time posting never fills.
Develop the talent you already have
When experienced candidates are scarce, the people already on your payroll become the pipeline.
Cross-training widens what each person can do and gives you room to move when someone is out, demand shifts or a key role opens up. It also signals that you will invest in people, which is its own retention argument. Workers who can see the next skill in front of them are less likely to take a recruiter’s call.
Apprenticeships go further. Instead of competing for finished candidates, you recruit for aptitude and build the skills yourself, pairing structured on-the-job instruction with technical education. Over time you get people whose training matches how your plant actually runs.
Make advancement visible
You do not need layers of management to give people somewhere to go. Mastering another machine, earning a certification, leading a team, training coworkers or moving into more technical work are all real advancement.
What matters is that the path is stated rather than assumed. If an employee can describe how to increase their skills, responsibility and pay where they are, that is one more reason to stay.
Match the strategy to your workforce
No single compensation or recruiting approach solves a labor shortage on its own. What people value varies by age, role, location and circumstance. The manufacturers who do best combine pay with flexibility, training, a visible career path and a culture people mention to their friends, then keep adjusting as their workforce changes.
Cooper Norman works with manufacturers and retailers across Idaho and Utah on the decisions behind those tradeoffs, including what a compensation change does to your numbers before you commit to it. Bring us the decision and we will bring the figures.