Recruitment in metal fabrication: Why new hires choose to stay

This fabricated door for an enclosure was created by TFC employees. Those who’ve found the right fit probably aren’t leaving anytime soon.

William LaRue has a passion for criminal justice, always had and always will. Thing is, he doesn’t work in criminal justice; he works at a fab shop. He’s business development officer at Tru-Fab Co. Metal Products (TFC), a sheet metal job shop in North Little Rock, Ark. Still, he has a passion for what he does, a big part of which is finding new talent.

But he conceded that it wasn’t always this way. His change of heart, from apathy toward total engagement, guides him when hiring new people now. Specifically, he aims to foster that spark, a connection between new hires and the business.

To accomplish this, he first recognizes the unique needs of modern manufacturing, including ongoing generational and technological changes that, even if there were no labor shortage, make workforce development extremely challenging. He then builds off this to determine what TFC needs, making these needs clear to all prospective employees. Once they’re hired, he and other managers talk with them about what they want out of a career and pay attention to their performance and where they excel. The method isn’t foolproof—no hiring process is—but as LaRue explained, the process at least gives TFC a better chance of hiring the best people possible.

Channeling His Passion

LaRue’s dad had been an investor in TFC for years, so the family would make occasional trips to see the shop in action. LaRue saw all that the lasers, turrets, and press brakes could do and became fascinated. Laser operators would cut origami-like 3D puzzles for him to put together—the kind with microtabs so LaRue could bend them to their final shape. “I thought, ‘This is cool! I like this!’”

In 2013 his dad bought his partner out and became a full-time owner-operator. LaRue worked evenings and summers during high school, then studied business management at the University of Arkansas. “I graduated, and I came back to help grow the business.”

He wasn’t engaged from day one, though. Again, he had developed a passion for criminal justice—specifically, how people could re-enter society and build new, better lives after serving time. Now, just after college, he was in the sheet metal business.

“I was passionate about re-entry programs, and yet here I was making a sheet metal shelf that would hold cigarettes at Walmart. It was hard to get excited about that. But then I found we could find good people for our company by working with re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated individuals. I made it my own, and that untapped meaning in my work. It allows me to fulfill my passion while still working in this industry.”

The Workers Metal Fabrication Needs

Metal fabricators, along with manufacturers overall, need a workforce with an extraordinarily wide variety of different talents and skills. “This compounds the skills gap and labor shortage,” LaRue said. “Unlike many other industries, manufacturing demands a wide variety of skills from its recruits.”

Today TFC employs specialists who spend nearly all of their time learning and perfecting a single operation, be it in laser cutting, punching, bending, or welding. As LaRue explained, the shop still needs these people; as a job shop, TFC sells its ability to take on challenging work, and process-specific experts allow the company to do that.

The shop also employs multimachine operators who “float” among operations as necessary. And it hires people who may not have deep process-based knowledge but are happy spending their days focused on a single task, like bending a simple bracket for a large-volume order. As LaRue explained, that wide range of work, from the most intellectually and mechanically challenging to the steady and repetitive, is a big part of what has made finding good people such a challenge.

William LaRue, business development officer at Tru-Fab Co. Metal Products, has focused on hiring younger workers—that is, workers his age—for the past several years.

Starting With Honesty

When LaRue talks with potential hires, he describes this reality in a straightforward fashion, a tactic that has become critical for attracting the younger generation entering the workforce—those who didn’t grow up working on cars or tearing apart radios.

“I try to be transparent, authentic, and honest about the pay, the hours, and exact responsibilities, and how performance is measured, about our company’s goal and vision,” he said. “The young generation demands this.

“And I’ve learned to expect tough questions about why a position is open and who performed the job last. Were they fired after a couple of months? Did they leave after a week? Was the shop culture toxic? Did they get hurt? The younger generation doesn’t perceive this as unprofessional. They just perceive it as their right to know.”

Careers depend on the individual and life circumstances, but speaking broadly, LaRue described several career paths at TFC. One focuses on process expertise; another on production and repetitive tasks; and another on multitasking, with employees floating among different machines and processes to help where needed.

Where does a new hire fit? In some cases, company leaders know right away. In other cases, the answer reveals itself over time. “For instance, we had a recent hire who started in November. We knew in previous jobs that he ran a little bit of everything in the shop,” LaRue recalled. “We asked him, ‘Are you good with being a floater, moving around where you’re needed?’ And he immediately said, ‘absolutely.’ Those people are just incredibly valuable.”

Another instance led a new hire to an entirely different career path. “Working with a re-entry program, we had great success with one new hire, a younger gentleman who first said he’d be a floater. He was in part sorting first, then moved around the shop. Then, we noticed he had a knack for the turret punch, so we gave him more experience. He learned even more, and now he’s mastered punching to the point where he’s managing the setups while someone else runs production. Now, we’re training him on the laser.”

What about the repetitive production work? Here, LaRue said TFC has two kinds of people run such work: the cross-trained floaters and production workers who enjoy the predictable workday that comes with production work. And yes, repetitive work can be automated in many scenarios—but not all, especially in a job shop.

It all comes down to one’s nature and personality. Some enjoy the nature of repetitive work (TFC’s production workers) while others can take it only in limited doses (floaters). Still others would prefer to learn a specific machine inside and out (process experts). TFC needs all three to function well.

Attracting the Younger Generation

Just before the pandemic, LaRue took a trip to a machine vendor’s European headquarters with a few dozen other fab shop leaders from around the U.S. During the last night of the tour, LaRue got to talking about the youngest generation entering the workforce.

Others at adjacent tables stopped talking and started to listen. “Most of what I talked about that night was what younger generations want, and why I felt there was a disconnect between the industry and the younger generations.”

Today, LaRue treats the hiring process as an interaction between buyer and seller. “The company is the buyer, the candidate is the seller. Both have something to gain, and both can walk away at any time … The younger generation wants to know all of this upfront, and they want to know it honestly. If they feel they’ve been lied to after they take the position, they won’t hesitate to leave.”

What keeps the younger generation on board? LaRue should know; at 22 years old, he’s one of them. That informal talk at a machine vendor event turned into a formal presentation he gave at the last FABTECH in Chicago.

For the younger generation, LaRue said, digital processes in general are important. In front of screens, they’re in familiar territory (opposite from the generation now retiring). 21-year-olds were just seven when the iPhone hit the market. Microsoft Windows has been around longer than they’ve been alive. They were schooled on Chromebooks. To many of them, paper and a pencil look downright foreign.

Flex hours and shift swapping can be important too. TFC, for instance, operates on a 10-hour-shift, four-day workweek, with overtime if needed on Friday. “Yes, shift flexibility is difficult to implement in manufacturing,” LaRue said, “but there are some ways to do it. You can try flex hours, where employees choose a start time between 6 and 8 a.m.” They also don’t do their best work in a top-down, my-way-or-the-highway culture. As LaRue explained, “We need to allow participative, consensus-oriented decision-making whenever practical.”

Then comes the matchmaking—making sure the company’s structure offers opportunities people want, be it a process expert, a multitasker (floater), or production or repetitive job. Finding that good fit helps people discover new interests and perhaps new, unexpected passions. After all, who knew a formerly incarcerated individual could turn his life around and become one of TFC’s best turret press operators? Who knew LaRue could continue his passion for criminal justice at a sheet metal shop? When the job fits, people feel at home. When that happens, a job becomes a career.

Portions of this article came from “Engaging Younger Generations to Manufacturing,” a presentation LaRue gave in person at FABTECH 2021 and as part of the event’s on-demand, virtual conference.