In July of 2014, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) launched a series of panel discussion called the NAM Leadership Engagement Series. These panel discussions highlight the challenges that are facing American manufacturers in today’s world, and the innovative ways that leading manufacturers have overcome these challenges.
Just recently, Marlin Steel was invited to join the panel discussion taking place in Charlotte, NC on April 30. This panel, which will be moderated by NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons, is going to be held at the Charlotte City Club on 121 West Trade Street in Charlotte, NC.
The Good News for American Companies
The American economy is on the mend, jobs are starting to grow, small businesses are more confident in the future of the economy, new investments are being made, and a manufacturing renaissance of sorts has been declared, one which Marlin Steel wholly embraces and is preparing for with factory expansions and new jobs.
With this in mind, why do we need this manufacturing leadership engagement series, and why should you attend?
Fight Excessive Red Tape
Simply put, just because things are better now, that doesn’t mean that manufacturers can relax just yet. As stated on the NAM’s Leadership Engagement Series web page, “Washington has grown more aggressive in advancing policies that hurt manufacturers’ competitiveness.”
How might some policies hurt manufacturers? Every year, new regulations are added to the ever-growing mountain of standards and practices businesses just like yours have to follow. While these policies may be well-intentioned, some of them have vague, hard-to-follow standards or are outright duplications of policies that already exist, which only adds yet more paperwork that you and your employees have to fill out, wasting time.
Failure to meet paperwork requirements can result in hefty fines.
For an example of this, Marlin Steel was once slapped with a fine worth tens of thousands of dollars simply because one signature of three was missing on one page of a long, complicated document. One missing signature resulted in the generation of a massive fine. While Marlin Steel was able to eventually get the fine reduced to something more reasonable, it was only after spending days and days working with the government office on the problem.
This was not a safety issue. This was not an environmental issue. This was one missing signature on a 20+ page document, a mistake that anyone could easily make.
By joining your voice with other manufacturers at events such as this one and sharing your story, you can make sure that the policymakers in Washington hear your voice and see how their decisions affect hard-working, everyday people trying to support not only their own families, but those of every worker they employ.
Learn from the Successes and Mistakes of Others
Aside from having the chance to show the people up on Capitol Hill the effects of their policies, you might just get the chance to hear a creative and effective solution for dealing with some of the more unusual or stringent policies that are used by leading manufacturers.
Each of the panelists in the Leadership Engagement Series is a hardworking manufacturer who has faced many of the same challenges that affect manufacturers such as yourself on a daily basis. With every story, you’ll discover how these other companies have faced their challenges. This gives you a chance to find new ways to handle these issues yourself, or at least learn what not to do.
Network with Others to Enact Change
Last, but certainly not least, a great reason to attend the Leadership Series event in Charlotte, NC (or any of the other locations closer to home for you in the future) is that it gives you a chance to network with other manufacturing experts and get organized.
By working together, we can help make sure that policymakers listen to the needs of American manufacturers, such as cutting red tape and streamlining the regulations that govern the industry so we can spend less time filling out form X on page 1,286 of federal regulation document Y and more time building our nation’s GDP and hiring more tax-paying Americans so they can support a family.