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8 Strategies for Empowering Emerging Talent in the Supply Chain Industry

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8 Strategies for Empowering Emerging Talent in the Supply Chain Industry

Some supply chain industry companies need help attracting new talent. Executives can turn this around by making opportunities more appealing to applicants. 

Although improving job-specific details like pay is crucial to future employees, they’ll also appreciate employers who provide training for the workplace and their lives.

1. Make Hours More Flexible

Supply chain management teams should consider letting their teams have flexible hours. Recent research shows that when given the opportunity, 87% of employed adults chose flexible work schedules over those requiring 40 hours in an office each week.

Employees could agree to set their schedules at least a week or two in advance so everyone knows who will be at work and who will be remote during specific dates. It makes modern workplaces more competitive than employers with strictly traditional schedules. 

Supply chain companies can empower their teams to get more joy from their employment by appealing to a broader audience of workers and future hires.

2. Provide Career Growth Plans

Forward momentum is key to retaining employees. No one enjoys feeling stuck in a job. They want to improve their skills and gain promotions as rewards for their efforts. Communication is the best way to ensure this career growth occurs for talent in the supply chain industry.

Management teams could create general growth plans for specific roles within their organization. The employees in those positions can trace their way up the company ladder based on which departments they want to work within as the months and years pass. 

People who see their potential future charted before their eyes will know they have the forward momentum required for a long-term career.

3. Update Teams Regularly on Automation

Researchers with the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health noted that employees of all ages feel worried that automation will replace them, but that anxiety is especially prevalent among young people. They have many years ahead to work, pay their bills, save for retirement and enjoy their jobs. Supply chain employers must communicate their job security with regular updates on the industry’s automation.

Recurring meetings present opportunities to discuss the latest technological updates to work processes and explain why they’re necessary. The core of each gathering should focus on how each employee will remain on the team even with machine-focused optimization. 

People feel empowered when they have job security because they know their efforts won’t become a waste of time.

4. Provide a Scholarship Program

Young people often hear that getting a college education is the best way to secure a comfortable paycheck. However, 75% of people choosing not to attend college are opting out because they can’t afford it. They may feel like they’ll never make a livable wage because they can’t get a degree, but employers can erase that anxiety with scholarship programs.

Scholarship programs are life-changing financially and empowering personally. They show employees they are worth more than paycheck and benefits. Their dreams are worth pursuing, which they may not hear from people or organizations outside the workplace.

One company that hosts a scholarship program recently awarded two women with money to help them through college. As a result, Elayne Blancas received financial support as she worked to become the first in her family to graduate as an engineer. Elizabeth Landers was able to apply to more residencies with the goal of providing healthcare in her home state of Oklahoma. Communities will benefit from their support while the company providing the scholarship creates opportunities for aspiring professionals. 

5. Demonstrate How Their Teams Help the Environment

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) plans are more important to the modern workforce. They demonstrate an employer’s commitment to the planet and their communities through sustainable, compassionate business practices defined in ESG policies.

Research shows that 41% of employees want to work for companies with ESG plans, which includes one in four people in Gen Z. Leadership teams can formulate actionable plans regarding how their supply chain company can improve the planet, give back to its community, support employees and commit itself to the highest ethical business standards.

Publishing these commitments on the company website and posting them around the building reminds team members that everyone wants the same thing. They’ll support their employer more enthusiastically and feel heard, resulting in a desire to stay with the company.

6. Implement Recurring Raise Schedules

The annual inflation rate rises and falls, but it reached a peak of 8% in 2022. It makes everything from groceries to utilities more expensive, which is discouraging for people who aren’t receiving recurring raises.

Some employers don’t promise raises on a specific schedule, but doing so could help retain emerging talent in the supply chain industry. Scheduling an annual raise for each employee — unless their job performance takes a drastic turn for the worse — makes their futures brighter if they stay with the company longer. They know they’ll be able to keep up with the cost of living, providing peace of mind and financial stability.

7. Schedule Individual Growth Meetings

Workplace leaders can always meet with team members one-on-one to plan their futures. These meetings create time to ask big questions like:

  • What does the employee want to do with their career?
  • How do they want to use the skills they’re learning?
  • How would their work feel more fulfilling?

It’s nearly impossible to make these changes without employer support. Management teams could rearrange schedules to allow more study time for ongoing learning or connect employees with in-house mentors so they learn from those they look up to.

When these meetings occur, leaders should record the desired path forward within the company on a shared document. Employees can reflect on their short- and long-term plans to feel empowered and stay with the company longer.

8. Celebrate Everyone’s Successes

Recognition is vital in the workplace. People need to know their employers value their efforts and cheer them on. Pizza parties and gift cards are always options, but financial incentives through bonuses are equally — if not more — essential to employees.

Celebrate them as individuals in private meetings and as teams. Leaders can call out people’s accomplishments so everyone applauds. The widespread recognition bonds employees and makes them feel valued. They’ll continue making an effort to help their supply chain employer, which supports everyone who depends on the company for a living.

Empower Talent in the Supply Chain Industry

Companies should always seek opportunities to work with their team members more effectively. Empowering emerging talent in the supply chain industry with these ideas is an excellent start. They’ll show employees their value, forge stronger relationships and make people want to stay with their employers longer by supporting everyone differently.

Gebrüder

Gebrüder Weiss Supply Chain Leadership Scholarship Awarded to Rutgers Student Gunjan Sinha  

Gunjan Sinha, a junior at Rutgers Business School, was recently honored with the annual Gebrüder Weiss Supply Chain Leadership Scholarship. Gunjan is a Supply Chain Management major with a minor in Urban Planning & Design and plans to pursue a career in procurement and supplier relationships after her 2024 graduation.

In addition to her academic achievements as a Dean’s list student, Gunjan is an active member of Women BUILD, an undergraduate women’s leadership network, and is President of the Rutgers University chapter of Pencils of Promise, a charitable organization that enables educational opportunities for children in underserved international communities. Her resumé is already populated with impressive career experience, including internships at numerous multinational firms, including Nestlé Health Science and Société Générale Equipment Finance.

Gebrüder Weiss is a global freight forwarder and a pioneer in sustainable business practices with a focus on economic, ecological, and social initiatives. The scholarship program began in 2020 when Gebrüder Weiss USA pledged a gift of $25,000 in total to the Rutgers University Foundation. The scholarship aims to encourage diverse talent and remove financial barriers for students who plan careers in supply chain and logistics.

About Gebrüder Weiss 

Gebrüder Weiss, a global freight forwarder with a core business of overland transport, air, and sea freight and logistics, is the world’s oldest transport company with a history that dates back more than 500 years. The family-owned company employs more than 8,400 people worldwide and boasts 180 company-owned locations. The business presence in North America includes headquarters in Chicago and offices in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, El Paso, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The company has implemented a wide variety of environmental, economic and social initiatives and is considered a pioneer in sustainable business practices. The company’s emphasis on superior customer service pairs customized solutions with a single point of contact to provide customers with focused, reliable, and economical solutions. www.gw-world.com/us

interdependence

5 Things an HR in Supply Chain Management Must Know to Find the Right Talent

Supply chain management is the whole process that a product or service goes through before reaching the consumer. Depending on the type of business, supply chain management may include planning, sourcing, manufacturing, delivering, and returning goods and services.

The primary focus of supply chain management as a whole is to minimize cost and maximize productivity. Sacrificing one for the other isn’t considered an optimum solution and can be implemented without any planning. 

If you install more machinery and hire more laborers, you can increase productivity. No surprise. But achieving that without investing the presumed resources is the job of supply chain management. 

An HR professional working in supply chain management, while finding the right talent, must be aware of several facts that contribute to the effectiveness of supply chain management. This list includes the general principles of hiring, supply chain orientation (SCO), and organization-specific guidelines. 

We are going to focus on the last two components. As an HR manager in the supply chain, you need to learn and apply these elements in your recruitment process to find the right talent. 

1. Creating Strategic Partnership

Working in a supply chain requires individuals to work in various fields that overlap with each other. An HR professional needs to know about the importance of strategic partnership between the suppliers & organization and between employees. 

When hiring the right talent, you need to verify that the person is capable of analyzing a situation and making logical judgments depending on that. They might also have to take responsibility for each other and solve issues that arise. You may also need to work with workforce retention solutions that hire frontline workers for you. They can hire a talent for the supply chain management through their experience and sources. 

As an HR manager in the supply chain, you also need to take into account the long-term organizational goals while choosing the right talent. If a talent isn’t capable of respecting and adhering to the organizational goals, they wouldn’t be the right choice despite their experience. 

Traditional relationships in other fields are replaced by strategic partnerships in supply chain management. The right talent for supply chain management needs to look beyond opportunism and embrace a co-dependent, firm-specific approach that focuses on long-term partnerships rather than short-term gains. 

2. Building Trust

Just like a strategic partnership, the supply chain employees need to trust each other and the process. This is achieved by making sure that every member of the supply chain works towards a common goal and can fulfill their obligations. 

Your job as an HR manager in the supply chain is to maintain trustability and hire a talent who is responsible for what they do. Experienced employees are somehow better in this aspect. They know how to gain trust and make others comfortable around them. 

A key aspect of hiring the right talent is listening to the employees. HR professionals in supply chains are required to listen to the existing teams and workers to incorporate their feedback into the hiring process. Since supply chains are dependent on coordination between members, it’s important to listen to them before making a decision on hiring. 

To increase trust between parties, you need to know and embrace a philosophy that encourages joint planning, transparent information sharing, and risk reduction activities. When hiring a new talent, you need to consider these elements too. If they aren’t a team player and don’t value the opinions of others, they aren’t the ones for your organization. 

3. Protecting Organizational Confidentiality

Supply chain partnership relies on trust and long-term mutual benefits between suppliers and the organization. The supply chain management system predominantly focuses on protecting supply chain partner interests. Protecting specialized assets, proprietary information, and other sensitive assets need to be maintained by your organization. 

Since your organization requires confidentiality about the partners, the right talent must have the integrity to not fall prey to external influence and greed. In many cases, businesses have faced huge monetary and reputational losses due to sabotage. Especially if you are hiring talent for a management role, consider background checks. 

As an HR professional in supply chain, you are responsible to hire a talent who can comply with the organizational requirements and are capable of maintaining confidentiality. They also are expected to share common goals, common norms, and economic integrations. 

4. Strength of Dependence

Supply chain management systems strongly depend on various partners and services. For example, if your organization runs on Windows PCs, you are dependent on Microsoft for its services. 

Your dependence may also extend to particular suppliers that you source your raw materials from. For example, car manufacturing sectors source their raw materials from metal and electronic industrial partners. 

Whatever be the case, you need a talent who can sustain and operate within the bounds of that symbiotic relationship. Especially if you are hiring a talent for management and executive roles. Make sure that the talent has the necessary certification and skill to function properly. 

You, as an HR manager in supply chain, must know the compliances and the stronger and weaker dependencies to hire the right talent. If your prospect was unable to comply with the norms in their past jobs, consider reviewing their skill levels to understand if they are fit for this job or not. 

5. Interdependence Between Departments

Automobile assembly lines are examples of pooled interdependence. As HR professionals in industries with pooled interdependence, you are looking for a talent who functions perfectly without structured coordination and guidance. 

Sequential interdependence requires the processes to be done sequentially. In the clothing industry, spinning fibers, knitting, dyeing, cutting, and sewing need to happen sequentially to make a complete product. The right talent needs to work in a dependent environment and in collaboration with other departments for the best outcome. 

The IT industry is the best example of reciprocal interdependence. The teams need to perform in coordination with each other daily and process information that’s available through other teams. This kind of complex interdependence is fit for a talent who can communicate and collaborate with different teams on a regular basis. 

Depending on the requirement of the interdependence of your organization, you must hire a talent who can embrace the coordination levels and work accordingly. 

The Bottom Line

Being an HR professional in supply chain management needs you to be mindful of the organizational goals and partner interests. In addition to adhering to the basic hiring practices, you need to hire a talent who can maintain trust, manage partner information, and nurture synergy. The dependence on partners and interdependence on other teams within the same organization also needs to be considered when hiring the right talent.  

Hiring Supply Chain Talent: What to Look for In the Perfect Candidate

black smartphone near person

If your business is growing, maybe it is the right time to hire new talent. It also means facing the challenge of the dearth of supply chain talent and overcoming it. It is pretty common to find business growth these days with job titles evolving and shifting because of quick changes in supply chain management and the latest technology-oriented needs. With several businesses trying to remain competitive there is more demand for talent. Management of the ways you will use to seek the supply chain talent can make or break your organization.

Here are some attributes you need to watch out for:

  1. Soft skills: Most recruiters normally have a list of around thirty job skills that they are looking out for while reviewing the candidates. It is pretty common for the supply chain industry. Soft skills are the top priority for producing more successful recruitment. Some of them include email marketing skills, fundamental business ethics, communication skills, and problem-solving skills. All of these may be identified via past job experience of the candidates, references, and the responses they provide to some key questions at the time of the job interview. When you are looking to hire globally you cantake help from PEO services.
  2. Inventory, finance, and supplier management experience: Watch out for earlier experience in financial, supplier, and inventory management together with direct knowledge. These are the important components of the skill sets required for a hire. If the candidate has financial management training in fields such as investing, it is a massive advantage. Maybe this talent did not go through massive numbers every day in his earlier position. But there will be sufficient indications of whether the candidate has the requisite understanding of data utilization for making solid business decisions.
  3. Education and area of interest: You need to look out for candidates that have certifications and university training. Some of the specific things you must look out for include participation in projects that involve a basic understanding of financial matters and problem-solving that is related to them. Sometimes even the way they handlepersonal finances could show something about their work skills. You need to look for talent that has enthusiasm, passion, and energy for the position he or she is applying for. For instance, they would have researched and displayed knowledge about an organization and how their skills could benefit this business.
  4. Result-oriented track record: Ask the prospective candidates, not just about their earlier job responsibilities. Ask them to correctly quantify the results also. Try and find out people that will produce some examples of the projects they have accomplished with good results in their resumes. It should demonstrate that they had to work with supply chain departments, service providers, and suppliers. You also need to be flexible and open-minded while considering the top talent from other industries and fields. There are many candidates out there that are working in other professions. However, they have transferable skills that can make them the right candidate for your supply chain.
  5. Hire female candidates: Women are under-represented in many industries and it’s imperative that we find ways to bring them into the fold. In order to remain competitive in the future of supply chain management, it is important that you consider hiring female talent for roles usually reserved for males. They can take on roles that men have traditionally held, but with some added perks- they’re better at relationship building and interpersonal skills which will be important for certain jobs. The best way to find a replacement for your position is by interviewing applicants who have the skills you need. This will allow you get more personal insight into their personality, knowledge of procedures, and ability-to-efficiently perform job duties than if they were applying without being interviewed first. You can also look at female workers’ resumes or career paths during mentorship programs that involved working closely with seasoned professionals in similar fields.

Conclusion

There are challenges involved in securing the supply chain talent at the moment, especially for filling out the necessary positions. it is a good idea to change your approach. You need to examine the staffing forecast, be aware of the specific needs and trends from historical data, and develop a talent management program. After doing all this, you need to take a closer look at the candidate pipeline that is capable of fulfilling the continuous hiring requirement. The organizations that perform well are the ones that consider the recruitment department as a value-added and strategic program.