Board Converting News, September 28, 2020

Identity Crisis: Overcoming A Poor Industry Reputation BY ROY OBERG

Board Converting NEWS INTERNET DIRECTORY

The first thing I do when I get a new search from a client is call everyone I know locally. It just makes sense, right? If I

THE HAIRE GROUP www.hairegroup.com

can find the right person locally, it removes the need for relocation, as well as making the interview process easier. Unfortunately, a lot of the time the answer I get from these local candidates is not just “no,” but “hell no!” Turns out there are facilities out there that people are wary or

Haire Group is the premier provider of new machinery for the corrugated industry. As the exclusive US & Canadian agent for one of the largest machinery manufacturers in the world, Haire Group is able to pair clients with the best machinery solutions for the best value to meet their spe- cific needs. As an operating partner of the US-based DFA Technical Support Center (a joint venture of Haire Group and Dong Fang), Haire Group delivers top-notch 24/7 pro- fessional, reliable service and support, maximizing quality and uptime. Additionally, Haire Group has been the indus- try’s #1 pre-owned machinery broker and plant equipment appraiser since 1976. HarperLove is the leading provider of specialty adhesives, performance additives, and wet-strength resins to corru- gated packaging manufacturers. With the largest and most experienced field service and technical support team posi- tioned throughout the U.S. and Latin America, HarperLove has a long-standing reputation for providing outstanding service and delivering demonstrable performance improve- ments. HarperLove’s renowned services include not only innovative product development and custom product for- mulation, but also machine and process assessments, ad- hesive formula adjustments, machine tuning, detailed ser- vice reporting, and more. HARPERLOVE www.HarperLove.com

Roy Oberg

scared of going to work in because of a bad reputation. Turns out there are a lot of companies that have poor rep- utations. This can be a huge challenge when it comes to trying to find the right people to fill your facility. If your reputation is bad, you’re going to have a harder time convincing top talent to even apply or consider your facility, which means you don’t even get a chance to convince them the reputa- tion is false... How Does This Happen? There are a lot of reasons that companies develop poor industry reputations. In some cases, these rumors are unwarranted and are passed on by sour, terminated employees. Right or wrong, everyone has an opinion, and in an industry this close together, that opinion is amplified. A guy that’s spent his entire life in super high-perfor- mance facilities might not gel well with a specialty facili- ty that runs a little slower. When he leaves, he might not have the best things to say about the management that “couldn’t run a facility to save their lives.” On the other side, an employee that has spent his whole career in smaller, specialty facilities might have trou- ble keeping up with a super plant. This could result in him telling anyone that will listen how terrible conditions are. In either of these cases, there’s not actually anything wrong with the culture or leadership of those facilities, they just hired the wrong people. It happens, unfortunately. In some cases, the poor reputation is very well de- served, though. The command-and-control, screaming- and-shouting-about-every-tiny-issue style of leadership isn’t tolerated by today’s workforce. Those that still try to use it will find themselves short-staffed, without a lot of prospects to fill their open roles. Very few people want to work in an environment that is run that way. In some companies, the vision they share in their inter- view process about their work-life balance, vacation time, or shift schedule ends up being very different from the re- ality new employees discover upon starting work. These companies earn a poor reputation in the industry as well, and rightly so. CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

KIWIPLAN www.kiwiplan.com

Kiwiplan - premier worldwide software provider of enter- prise-wide, fully automatic solutions specifically for the cor- rugating and packaging industries. Kiwiplan’s Total Solution delivers comprehensive, seamless real-time flow of infor- mation from sales order management to dynamic total plant scheduling and inventory control through shipping.

MAROTECH INC. www.marotech.com

Manufacturer of Marotape®, Marotape®Plus, Marotape® FPT and MaroString™; hot melt coated tapes and strings used for reinforcement and easy-open features for pack- aging. Marotech Inc. also manufactures state-of-the-art dispensing and tape placement equipments to optimize the productivity of applying hot melt coated tapes in pack- aging.

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September 28, 2020

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