Onboarding: Confessions of a Plant Engineer
My Interview with Gary Goodluck
I had the opportunity to interview a plant Chemical Engineer recently. For the sake of anonymity I'll call him Gary Goodluck. Gary is intelligent, energetic, focused and a dedicated employee. He's willing to do whatever it takes to support his plant's operations.
Gary has been working in chemical plants for about seven years now. As we talked, I learned about his qualifications including a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from a top university and a six-sigma certification.
We discussed his work experience in the chemical processing of rare and precious metals and polymers and some of the projects that he's led during his career. Gary loves chemical engineering but has become disillusioned with plant life. During my interview with him, I dug into this disillusionment and here is what I learned.
Gary's first job, fresh out of college was as a night shift supervisor for a chemical plant in New Jersey. Gary was afforded two-weeks of informal shadowing of another supervisor. The supervisor Gary had shadowed during his "training" had less than one-year of experience. Then it was off to his night shift assignment for Gary.
Gary was never provided leadership training at college. He majored in Chemical Engineering for goodness sakes. Leadership training not included. But that didn't seem to matter to Gary's new employer. A nightshift leadership assignment at a chemical plant, "Here you go! Have fun"!
Gary struggled to figure out how to manage the various situations that occurred on his shift such as an issue with a lock-out-tag-out system breakdown and an operator showing up to work "under the influence". New out of college. Not trained. Gary did his best. But he could not wait to move on from his nightshift supervisor assignment. Finally, after two years with the company, he was awarded a project manager role where he worked for a few more years. Gary was glad to leave his supervisor role behind. He never felt qualified for it.
After 6 successful years at this plant in NJ, Gary got engaged to his long-time girlfriend and moved to Florida. His next employer provided an onboarding plan even thinner than his first employer in NJ did. This chemical plant hired Gary and then totally ignored him. No assignments. No interactions. No training. And no engagement. He's been there for six-months now and he said, "It's nuts. I'm not sure why they even hired me!"
Gary keeps asking to shadow other engineers as they troubleshoot problems, but they tell him "no, we're okay". He keeps asking for project assignments, but he only hears crickets. Over the course of six-months he's developed a good relationship with his boss and finally got some traction, But a week ago his boss quit.
Gary is looking to quit now too. He was willing to accept his two-hours of commute time each day, but he has a bitter taste in his mouth about the lack of an onboarding process. He was planning on sticking it out for one full year but he and his fiancé decided that it just doesn't make sense to work for a company that isn't willing to engage with their new employees. Gary began his job search last week.
For Gary's sake and because of my love of manufacturing, I hope Gary finds a company that recognizes the value of formal onboarding. Proper onboarding improves retention, but its more than that, it can literally save lives!
Onboarding Could Have Saved Lives!
Mechanical failure involving a corroded steam pipe and a defective natural gas fitting caused a powerful explosion in 2023 at a factory in Pennsylvania killing seven workers. Company leaders failed to evacuate the plant. The explosion leveled one building and heavily damaged another, sending flames more than 21 meters into the air and causing over $42 million in property damage.
Factory employees told federal investigators they could smell gas before the explosion. The factory workers ignored the warning signs of a natural gas leak and while they should have evacuated, they failed to do so. Government safety officials said the factory failed to have a natural gas emergency procedure in place including employee training. This would have resulted in an immediate evacuation and prevented causalities.
Contributing to the accident's severity was the company's insufficient emergency training of its supervisors who did not understand the hazard and did not initiate the evacuate of the building before the explosion.
Have an Onboarding Plan
Below is a basic onboarding plan that WILL improve employee retention and plant safety:
- Start with a shadowing schedule. This should include a timed schedule over the course of multiple weeks with diverse resources at various levels in the organization. From shop floor employees up to manager levels, expose them to your company's operational structure and systems. From shadowing buyers to shipping products, your new employee should see it all.
- Provide learning objectives through each stage of training. Document right on the shadowing schedule exactly what the new hire can expect to learn during the shadowing event.
- Assign a mentor. This mentor should meet weekly with the new employee, ideally over a meal and discuss the training and answer questions. The mentor's role is to show the new employee "all of the ropes".
- Have a policy review schedule. The new hire needs to read and signoff on all the relevant policies, procedures and work instructions. If the policy review is extensive, mix the time in with the shadowing schedule. Do not have a new employee sit in a room for a full day or a few days reading policies, procedures and work instructions, A morning session and an afternoon session for 1-2 hours each is about all that can be absorbed in a day. Do not bore them and ignore them. Provide some Q&A time after reach policy review session.
- Create and provide job specific training for every role. If you hire a QA Inspector, what job specific training do they need to be successful? If you hire a supervisor, what training do they need? Team building? Managing conflict? Emergency response? Put thought into their role and job responsibilities.
Do not take onboarding lightly. If the factory in PA had done proper training, the outcome would have been less devastating. Companies that are not willing to train new hires, should not hire them.
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