RETAINING MAILROOM WORKERS

Keeping workers in post-press jobs is easier if managers understand training needs, the demographics of the job market and the necessity of trying new solutions to get the job done.

"The Right Staff: Finders Keepers," offered up information and solutions during a Tuesday post-press segment.

John Disera, vice president of production at Copley Chicago Newspapers/Fox Valley Press Inc. in Plainfield, Ill., said retaining packaging workers is about boosting their involvement, stake in the success of their work and understanding of the job.

More than two-thirds of the packaging workforce at Fox Valley is part-time, he said, so managers must aggressively seek new ways of building informed employees who want to stay on the job.

Each and every worker is trained in five modules on:

o Employee expectations and guidelines

o Task training

o Department safety

o Ergonomics

o Lockout/tagout processes

With the previous training program, new employees "frequently became confused and overwhelmed" in the one-day session, he said. The new program spreads training across the five-day workweek, and the company is seeing excellent results, Disera added.

He says supervisors (there are six), full-time machine operators (there are 13) and part-time employees (75) are "contributing to our production much sooner than in the past." Perhaps more impressive, turnover among new employees last year was 45 percent lower than 1998, according to Disera.

Sara Brown, who holds a doctorate and consults with newspapers on a variety of employee issues from Hamden, Conn., offered a demographic snapshot of the workforce of tomorrow. Knowing who post-press workers will be helps establish effective programs aimed at retention, she told attendees.

The workforce of 2010 will be made up of more women, older citizens and young people. Minority employee levels will surge. And managers must include in any planning an understanding of physical, cultural, language and a host of other factors, she says. Generation X workers, for instance, expect a deeper relationship with an ethical supervisor who is willing to listen.

Peter Roberts, vice president of industrial services for Goodwill Industries of South Florida Inc. in Miami, discussed how his employees assemble preprints in space leased by the non-profit to the Miami Herald.

The group of 150 workers uses five different packing machines to put together a two-part package of preprints for delivery to the field. Preprints are assembled on Herald inserting equipment placed in the Goodwill facility. The arrangement is only possible because the newspaper was willing to take a risk and try a different approach to their high turnover rates, according to Roberts.

Other newspapers can locate their local Goodwill office to discuss similar possibilities by going to www.goodwill.org.

-Bob Sims