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Department Profile – Human Resources

Team 1 Plastics, a plastic injection molding company for the transportation industry, believes that “Building an exceptional company is the result of building exceptional teams with exceptional people.” Today continues a series of articles profiling Team 1 Plastics’ teams – its Departments. Meet the Human Resources Department.

Name of Department: Human Resources

Team 1 Plastics’ Human Resources (HR) Department consists of two Team Members: Robert (Rob) Clothier and Kiera Carter, whose key role is to support Team 1’s exceptional Team Members.

How does your Department support Team 1’s Customers? Rob said that one of the first messages that a new Team Member hears is the importance that Team 1 Plastics puts on Customer Service Excellence. During his/her orientation with HR, the new Team Member is told that everyone plays a role in Customer Service Excellence by getting quality parts to the customer. It is not just the job of the Customer Service Department – it is every Team Member’s job. This is one way that HR supports Team 1’s customers.

Another way is by maintaining training records. Kiera explained that when a customer is conducting an audit at Team 1, the auditor might ask about the training that a Team Member was provided. For instance, “the auditor might want to know if a Material Handler was fully trained.” HR will provide the training documentation to the auditor to answer the customer’s question.

How does your Department support Team 1 Plastics? Like most companies’ Human Resources departments, employee benefits are a function of Team 1’s HR department. Rob works with the insurance agents, reviewing the benefits package annually. Team 1 Plastics offers health insurance, dental insurance, short-term and long-term disability, life insurance, 401K retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, and a vision discount program.

The HR Department also oversees Team 1’s training program. “We may not be the trainer all of the time, but we help support the Teams,” Rob said. As part of her responsibilities, Kiera personally conducts training for all new Production Assistants.

Recruiting, hiring, and retention of Team Members are other ways of supporting the company. Rob said, “One of the good things that we’ve done over the last few years is to bring in some talented people in key areas, such as technical, maintenance, engineering, and our CMM programmer. I think the most important thing is that they’ve been a good fit culturally.”

Speaking of culture, HR plays a huge role in Team 1’s culture. HR plans the company parties and safety day celebrations, handles the clothing (uniform) ordering, organizes monthly dress-up days, and arranges for Team Member gifts.

Describe a typical work day in your Department. Rob says that he wears many hats – compensation, training, benefits, hiring, recruiting, retention, etc. During a typical work day, he is “probably doing a little piece of everything every day.” His typical work day also includes attending meetings, and his calendar tends to be pretty full. Even with all these things, one important thing that he tries to be consistent about is being visible. He understands the value of being out on the plant floor, talking with people, and intentionally creating and maintaining an open environment.

For Kiera, there really isn’t a typical work day. Her work tends to be more cyclical based on the annual calendar. But there are some tasks that occur during a normal work week such as training of new production assistants, calculating payroll for the temporary employees, and filing electronic reports.

Share an example of a problem/challenge that your Department encountered and how you solved it. In November 2017, Team 1 Plastics made the difficult decision to right size its staffing level on the production floor, reducing the staff by one die setter and one material handler position. A major goal of this process was to make it as painless as possible for those involved. The company wanted to make sure that every team member still had a job and that no one faced a potential lifestyle change due to a reduction in wages. “We were able to keep everybody on our team. We also allowed the two team members who had accepted a production assistant position to keep their current wage for three months before moving to the top end of the lower wage grade,” Rob said. “And, since the move was based on not needing the two positions, we were able to increase the production assistant wage grade — which benefited a large portion of our team.”

What is One Noteworthy Accomplishment by your Department in the recent past? One noteworthy accomplishment by HR is the success of the internship program with Ferris State University. A few years ago, Team 1 started attending Ferris’ Career Fairs, offering internship opportunities to technical and engineering students. The goal was to help develop students while in college and, if they feel Team 1 is a good fit, to help develop their career after they graduate. Curtis Long was Team 1’s first intern from Ferris. He worked at Team 1 in the summer of 2016. He returned for a second internship with Team 1 in summer of 2017. After graduation in May 2018, Curtis will join Team 1 as a full-time Team Member, working in the Engineering Department as a Process Engineer. And, the internship program with Ferris continues this summer with two more students interning at Team 1.

What are the Current Goals for your Department? HR is working on making the process of insurance enrollment be paperless — all benefit enrollments would be done completely online by Team Members. The changeover from paper to electronic enrollment is currently in the implementation period, but it is expected that by Open Enrollment in December 2018, the transition will be complete. One huge benefit to this process is that the Team Members will have easier access to information regarding the benefit plans. It will be available on their mobile devices and computers. To assist with the transition, HR will offer documentation and training to all Team Members.

What does your Department take pride in? Rob said that he takes pride “… in being available and open, helping create an open environment.” He views HR as a “bridge that serves between Management and our Team.” Kiera added that she takes pride in the confidentiality that HR exhibits, which “allows people to trust us,” and in welcoming new Team Members.

Department’s Random Poll: To which Internet Activity are You Addicted?
     1    Facebook
           Twitter
           Squidoo
           All of them – boy, am I in trouble!
     1    None of them!

Kiera admitted to being addicted to Facebook. Rob claimed that he was not addicted to any. And, neither of them knew what Squidoo was.