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According to the U.S Chamber of Commerce, there were 693,000 open manufacturing jobs as of March 2023. The sourcing and retention of talent is impacting manufacturers already trying to manage demand, continued supply chain issues and rising costs.  Manufacturers that make improvements to the employee experience will not only be better positioned to attract and retain employees, but also can drive quality output and profit generation. Specifically, research conducted by Gallup has found that employee engagement among top- and bottom-quartile business units and teams represented a 64% difference in safety incidents, a 41% difference in quality and an 18% variance in productivity – all areas that directly tie to profits.  In the face of these ongoing challenges, how can your organization’s technology contribute to your employee experience?  The key to unlocking profits through employee engagement and retention is best-of-breed, next-generation systems integration, a concept Forrester Research calls a digital operations platform (DOP). Through DOP, manufacturers can gain data visibility across the organization to identify trends, relationships and root causes that may be tied to the employee experience.  A sample manufacturing DOP, with next-generation ERP, like Sage X3, and HCM, such as Rippling, tightly integrated, gives companies the data visibility across the organization to better identify trends and root causes to make faster and better decisions to impact efficiency and profitability. Vistage and technology advisor Net at Work joined forces to address this approach during the webinar, “Your Digital Operations Platform as a New Approach to Workforce and Operational Success.” Experts in Human Capital Management (HCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) discussed areas manufacturing executives should be working with their teams before taking on a DOP to properly support the employee experience: “HR Digital transformation is about how human resources can impact the business using digital technology,” said Harold Ford, Employee Experience practice director at Net at Work. “We need to first identify, how can we improve HR processes, employee workflows, and business outcomes? How can HR provide better optics into workforce data to make business decisions?” Solutions Engineer Dev Rawat expanded upon the employee experience from an operations and productions standpoint. “When it comes to your most important asset, your workforce, safety should always come first,” explained Rawat. “But how much are you able to tie together safety incidents to the employee record to establish trends and make predictions? For example, are you noticing safety incidents on a Monday morning after a football game? Do you know the exact percentage that a newer hire is likely to be involved in a safety incident? Once you’ve started capturing that, what then can you change about your training program to chip away at the probability?” Access this on-demand webinar today for more of these valuable insights to help you build the solid technology foundation to take on employee engagement and retention to unlock greater efficiency, productivity and profitability.

In this ever-changing digital age, businesses must evolve, and quickly. Digital transformation is an integral part of this essential evolution. While growth minded SMBs have plans on embarking on a digital transformation journey in 2024, many have absolutely no idea how to make it happen. Virtually everyone is familiar with the term “digital transformation,” but most people do not actually know all that it entails. According to The Enterprisers Project, “Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers.” Many IT leaders are embarking on these digital transformation journeys without much guidance, giving into the pressure from software manufacturers to adopt new technological systems without truly understanding them. Even worse, many do so without involving the people in their organization. It is imperative for IT leaders to remember to keep their digital transformations as human-centric as possible. By developing a people-focused digital transformation plan, SMBs markedly improve their chances of making a go of the endeavor. Being successful at such a transformation is highly desirable, for it leads to a healthier bottom line and more loyal employees and customers in the future. A Human-Centered Approach to Digital Transformation The pressure to fill the increasing need for digital experiences is intense. Feeling the heat, many SMBs opt to skip over the human factor as they jump to fill this need. This is a first class ticket to nowhere. According to Bill Rokos, Forbes Councils Member, “It takes more than just the low-hanging fruit of migrating to the cloud, installing new software and replacing analog with digital. It might seem counterintuitive, but the key to success for any organization’s digital transformation is its people.” A Successful Human-Centered Digital Transformation In most successful digital transformations, there are four key checkpoints. Notice how each of them involves people, which illustrates the need for a business to be human-centric through the transformation and beyond. Driving employee engagement. Asking employees for their input into company culture and how to improve it is a vital part of the transformation process because employees who feel heard and valued are much more likely to stay. The future benefit of this improved employee loyalty. Providing the right tools for employees to use is of paramount importance in any digital transformation strategy because it markedly increases efficiency within the business. For example, giving employees low-code/no-code tools will save organizations fistfuls of time and money because employees can focus on creativity, innovation, and enhancing productivity rather than wasting precious time and resources trying to learn how to use a complicated tech device or program. Leveraging data is a vital component of a successful digital transformation strategy because it helps inform business decisions. Using data to make key decisions allows companies to offer enhanced services and experiences for customers, employees, and stakeholders alike. Satisfied people are more likely to be loyal to the company. Setting clear, achievable goals is crucial to the success of a digital transformation, but even more important is making sure that these goals are communicated throughout the organization. Establishing a roadmap and overarching framework will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and fully engaged before, during, and after the digital transformation journey. After all, to quote 18th century poet Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” With all hands on deck from the get-go, success is much more likely to occur. “Involving employees early in the project helps the leadership get insights from the ground,” explains Noel Braganza of Up Strategy Lab. Doing so enables leadership “to shape a truly beneficial digital transformation strategy with a high chance of success.” While a digital transformation is an important strategy for SMBs wishing to keep abreast of technological change and remain competitive, it is nothing without focusing on the people within the organization and the customers it serves. Bottom line? Put people front and center in your business evolution and you are already ahead of the game.