The shop floor can be a harsh place, fraught with fire-fights and repetitive issues. For someone working there, it can be pretty stressful, but a job is a job - they say you're lucky to have one. The engineering sector suffering a dearth of experienced talent has nothing to do with this assessment, based as it is on historic assumptions... good people will always be hard to find.
Everyone without exception wants to be proud of their brand. They want to look up at the logo and feel part of something special, something worth fighting for. Bringing home a pay check is part of the process, an unfortunate consequence of which is the tendency toward hierarchal perks. When companies free themselves from confirmation bias based on car space, they can become innovative and spirited in their quest for free enterprise.
You don't lose people by failing to give them a pay rise nearly as often as by not treating them well. Priorities in session deliveries invariably list as Communication, Morale and Recognition, usually in that order. What comes out of the woodwork is the knowledge that power is in everyone's hands; how they use it is what matters in the long run to them all.
Here's a brilliantly insightful article from Psyche about two key needs we could be missing out on...
Quiet people need reassurance that it's okay to be themselves, louder ones may yet learn temperance. Exploration of the self is essential to engagement - we have to see our own perspective as being one of many, and to do that, we have to learn why we cannot see ourselves! Understanding that we only have one perspective of the many assessing the same situation gives us an opportunity to make life easier by working together instead of wasting time blaming each other for things that go wrong.
Friendship, some say, has no place in the workplace but people are people and they will act as such. The more trust has a chance to flow, the more everyone gets from the working day... living under the shadow of hidden agendas is the kind of hard work that drives people to look for greener pastures and everyone in truth would rather avoid that.
Helping people to gain trust involves a lot of transparency. Be prepared for well-worn ground to break en route to the dynamic your company wants to set up, as you give rein to those whose trust is needed to bring about radical change. In the engineering world, light-years are lined with old stone walls that will only come down with the help of a forward-thinking, driven directorship who genuinely want to let change in and set it to work.
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