Manufacturing Magic

Here’s a tale of Manufacturing Magic with Smart Working!

Back in the 80’s, I was HR Manager at the Sock Factory in Sutton in Ashfield,  Nottinghamshire

Coming up to Christmas, production went through the roof and the business took on loads of temps to pair and pack millions of M&S socks!

Manufacturing Mayhem

But they didn’t have enough practice or the dexterity needed for the task. We had lots of waste and couldn’t hit the output targets. Not good.

So we introduced an early form of Annualised Hours into the Packaging Dept.

This was prior to the introduction of EU Working Time Directive. That arrived in 1993, so we had no cap on working hours.

Our amazing teams worked a lot of hours in the run up to Xmas.  Thankfully, with their help, we hit the productivity required to keep the client happy.

What happened next affected our Employee Brand

During the Summer, our teams took back the time with their kids, saving on childcare costs and ensuring they had quality time with them. It did a brilliant job for the Employee Brand too and we started to attract from a wider talent pool.

Of course, these days sock packing is mechanised but Manufacturing can still introduce Smarter ways of working today to solve other workforce issues.

It’s a case of working out what will work for the operation and what will not.

If you want some Manufacturing Magic – well, we can Sock it to ya!

Get Started – get in touch.