Hidden Gems in the Factory

While all my favorite sitcoms are on their summer break, I decided to watch something different. So I turned to the Science channel, the learning channel and other educational spots and I watched shows on space exploration and shows with "Mega" in the title and my new favorite - "How Do They Do It?". I've learned a lot so far and there is still a good month before my mindless comedy shows return. So what exactly have I learned? Well, first and foremost, there a lot of people in this world WAY smarter than me. The accomplishments in science and technology are just astounding. But there were a few other lessons as well:

• It takes constant 24 hour processing to keep up with the demands of today's population.
• We tear up and process huge chunks of the Earth to filter out just a few grains of precious metals and other things used in manufacturing.
• We use massive amounts of energy to heat things to melt out the good stuff or bend it just the way we want.
  
• We have created some amazing and enormous machines with intricate parts to make many of the things we take for granted every day.
• Despite the amazing machines we have invented, most processes still rely on a few very talented individuals with very specialized skills that can't be duplicated by machinery.

This last one is what I find most fascinating. No matter how we try, the human factor can never be eliminated from the manufacturing process. It takes a human taste bud to know if the brew is perfect. It takes a human eye to pick out tiny imperfections in nearly perfect objects. It takes a precision human hand to load the delicate machinery with needed supplies or guide the machine to the perfect spot. It takes a human ear to know the difference between a perfect note and one that just sounds good.

I've worked in manufacturing facilities most of my adult life and I've seen these special people. In my last job I knew a man who loaded a machine that made boxes - for all the 13 years that I worked there. He was very good at it. The sad part is that I know management probably felt that he was unmotivated because he didn't want to move up in the company. And they probably paid him very little for his specialized job. Still, he was content to do the job he knew he could do well.

Management always tends to overlook these gems in their workforce. In their eyes it should always be the goal to advance to the next level. I've been a victim of this concept of "promote until your useless" theory of management. In my last job I was considered unmotivated because I didn't strive to move to the day shift where the "real" workers were. I was content to stay in my second shift position where I knew I was most useful. I accomplished on a smaller scale what a whole team of people did during the day - and it made me feel very important. Had I allowed it, they would have moved me to the day shift where I would have been unhappy, promoted me into a management position where I wasn't comfortable until finally I would have became an unhappy and unproductive employee. No thank you. I stayed in my job and shift where I was comfortable - and my meager wage stayed basically the same because of it.

The point of this article may be getting lost in my rambling but it is merely this: Management needs to recognize the value of their specialized employees - no matter how menial their job may seem. Without these specialized skills, your product quality will suffer. Quality is worth spending money on in the form of merit raises beyond the standard 2 -3 percent. Management needs to recognize these "gems" in their workforce the same way a documentary film maker recognizes them and pay them appropriately. The next time you are given a spreadsheet and asked to make cuts in the workforce, you might want to ask why someone gets paid seemingly more than they should in the position they are at before you blindly cut that job to save money. It's quite possible their supervisor has already recognized them as a "gem" and you would be a fool to lose them.