Posted April 14, 2015

 

Recently, I sat down with Cyril Guerin, president of Picanol of America in Greenville, S.C., to discuss his recent hires and the process he went through to land highly skilled employees. Guerin recognized a few years back that much of his workforce is aging and would need to be replaced when they retire. But rather than wait for that day to come, he took an active approach to filling those positions through a transition period.

 

Guerin told me he knew that process would not be easy, and it wasn’t. He searched high and low for good fits and ended up looking in some creative places to land a couple of those individuals, including the military veteran ranks. He also took an active role in engaging students to find potential employees. And he explored the rosters of some former customers of Picanol weaving machines, among other places. All told, the company hired five people with varying backgrounds, all with either great knowledge and experience or with “incredible” potential, he said. He knew they would need months and years of serving in something of apprenticeship roles, working with senior employees to learn every aspect of their job and going through extensive training in the U.S. and at the company’s headquarters in Belgium.

 

When Guerin asked if I would be interested in a story on the new employees, and when given more background, I realized this story was one with great “legs.” It certainly merited more than “blurb” status, given the depths he had plumbed to find exceptional talent with conceivably long-term futures with the company. And, especially given the manufacturing skills gap we hear so much about, I thought this story would be of great interest to our readers.

 

According to a recent study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, over the next decade nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs likely need to be filled. But the skills gap is expected to result in 2 million of those jobs going unfilled, despite automation, technological advances and productivity gains. Pretty scary numbers considering the impact of manufacturing on this country’s economic prosperity. Every dollar spent in manufacturing adds $1.37 to the U.S. economy, and every 100 jobs in manufacturing create an additional 250 jobs in other sectors, according to the study.

 

The issue is reaching a critical stage, and those involved in the manufacturing sector realize this. Many companies, educational institutions, associations and others are working to help solve the skills gap problem. I’m sure many of you are involved in some way or another, either through working and engaging with community and technical colleges by donating equipment, expertise or dollars or through open houses of your facilities and the like.

 

For the textile industry in particular, the fight may be bigger. As we reported last week, the industry has a huge image problem to overcome based on misperceptions or past experiences. Guerin mentioned this in our interview, even though Picanol isn’t a textile manufacturer – but it is a supplier to the industry, and many lump the entire supply chain under the same umbrella.

 

Fortunately for smaller companies such as 20-employee Picanol, finding enough skilled employees isn’t as difficult as it might be for larger companies with dozens or hundreds of employees to replace in the coming years. But, hopefully, this week’s story will shed some insights into one company’s experience in finding good hires. Could be some useful lessons there.