There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “never buy a car built on a Monday or a Friday.” The root of this saying’s logic was founded in the belief that on Mondays, employees aren’t fully motivated to work, and on Fridays, they’re too preoccupied with their weekend plans to pay attention.
This is one of the reasons why Marlin Steel is dedicated to making happier, motivated employees. After all, a motivated employee will continuously outperform an unmotivated one, which translates into increased productivity and quality of work.
With this in mind, how does Marlin Steel make sure that the employees working on your orders are happy, motivated, and productive? Here are a few of the secret ingredients that Marlin Steel uses to make happy, productive workers to help you with your custom metal form needs:
A Dash of Competitive Spirit
Sometimes, a little competition is just what it takes to light a fire under your workers. At Marlin Steel, employees have all of their relevant job skills and qualifications posted on a publically visible “Job Skills Matrix,” where they can see what skills are needed and who knows what.
Employees are encouraged to grow their skills, knowledge, and abilities by mastering the job skills that others do not have. As an added bonus, employees who master new skills that are needed by the company are given a bonus on their pay that scales with the difficulty of the qualification and how much that skill is needed.
The end result is a flexible team of workers who are constantly working to learn more to better help clients with their needs, and a factory that won’t be brought to a standstill because one key employee decided to take a well-deserved vacation.
Two Parts Teamwork
While encouraging competition among employees to master new skills is good, said employees still need to be able to work as a team to accomplish a common goal when the time comes.
Marlin Steel incentivizes teamwork by organizing employees into small, tight-knit production cells and setting aggressive, but doable, bonus goals that will take a concerted effort to hit. Each member of the cell wins or loses as a team, and nobody wants to be the one who dragged everyone else down and cost them their bonus.
When one member of the team is struggling, the others will work to help him or her to get up to speed so that everyone can earn their bonus pay.
A Heaping Helping of Meaningful Incentives
You may have noticed a common theme in the above two ingredients for happy, productive employees: monetary incentives.
Employees need to know that putting in an above-average effort will pay off for them in the now, not in some nebulous future date. When incentives are too far-off to be of use, they lose their power as a motivating force.
This is why Marlin Steel’s employees are given monetary incentives in the form of bonuses on individual pay periods for meeting tough production goals. By making it something that will be added to their next paycheck, there is an immediate sense of urgency attached to the goal that makes it much more powerful than some vague promise of a reward in a few years if the employee “does well.”
Permanent pay increase incentives attached to learning key job skills provide a lasting, long-term benefit to employees who put in the time and effort to train in critical skills.
With a combination of short and long term pay incentives, Marlin’s employees are happy to work hard and master new skills.
A Well-Stocked Kitchen
Few things can undermine employee morale like not being given the right resources to do the job.
Imagine being asked to build the Colossus of Rhodes on a shoestring budget using only small, handheld tools. And you have 2 weeks left until the project deadline. Would you be motivated to do your best work, give up, or start cutting corners like there was no tomorrow?
Employees that are not given the right tools and training to do a job will quickly become frustrated, losing motivation and productivity as time goes on. Worse yet, they may be tempted to cut corners with their work, creating inferior products.
This is part of the reason why Marlin Steel is dedicated to using the best manufacturing automation tools and equipment possible. These pieces of workplace automation help to ensure that the employees have the right tool for the job, no matter what kind of manufacturing challenges come up. Additionally, automated manufacturing equipment helps to improve employee safety, which is something that any employee can appreciate.
Learn more about how Marlin Steel’s motivated team of workers can bring you top-notch custom parts and basket like they did for the client beow:
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