Page 30 - MetalForming December 2011

Workforce Development\E.J. Ajax and Sons
MetalForming/December 2011 www.metalformingmagazine.com
of their work through the plant,” says McGee. “I now carry a smart phone while I’m working in the fabrication department, so I can monitor e-mails from the customer and make sure their requests are tended to as quick- ly and efficiently as possible. Time is critical, as they are a short-lead-time, high mix, short run customer.
“I really enjoy having close contact with the customer,” adds McGee, “and I’d like to progress into business man- agement and sales at E.J. Ajax.”
Workforce Development on Behalf of All Employers
Erick Ajax knows an A-team employee when he sees one, and does all he can to make sure he never loses one. In an open letter to Presi- dent Obama in 2009, he wrote that the “real strength of the United States lies in its middle-skill workers...who require more than high school but less than a 4-yr. degree. These jobs employ workers who manufacture goods to a standard of quality and productivity unrivaled anywhere in the world...These are also the work- ers who are already in short supply, and who will become scarcer.”
Proving that actions speak louder than words, Ajax joined a handful of Minneapolis manufacturers to become, in 2005, a founding partner in a fast-track manufacturing-train- ing program called M-Powered. It was funded by The Hitachi Founda- tion and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, through the Manufac- turing Institute of the National Asso- ciation of Manufacturers and the Pre- cision Metalforming Association Educational Foundation. Trainees take part in a 12-week industry-spe- cific course at the technical college, and also receive career counselling, mentoring and job-placement assis- tance from HIRED. Ajax and other local metalformers participate in curricu- lum and program design, develop cri- teria for enrollment and ensure that its graduates’ capabilities match the current demand for new employees. Training occurs at Hennepin Techni-
cal College (with campuses in Eden Prairie and Brooklyn Park, MN). A three-part program that lasts typically 9 months provides students an oppor- tunity to earn $12-$14/hr. “with little or no manufacturing experience,” says the M-Powered mission statement.
M-Powered is a joint effort between Hennepin Technical College and the local workforce-development organi- zation Hired, currently funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. Hired pro- vides job-skills training and employ- ment training to Twin Cities-area low- income adults, dislocated workers, welfare-to-work people and other dis- advantaged people.
“We’ve hired a dozen graduates from the M-Powered program,” boasts Ajax, “nearly all of whom had never before worked in manufactur- ing. So far, six of those graduates have earned four year class A journey worker certification with nationally recognized NIMS metalforming-skills credentials. We even have operators teaching courses there now.”
Giving Back
Based on the notion that a trained employee represents the best invest- ment a manufacturer can make, in return the E.J. Ajax management team only asks in return employees’ commitment to strengthening the company’s bottom line. “We want them to work with their brains as well as with their hands, to develop new ideas and then actively express those ideas to their peers and to man- agement,” says Duvall. “This way we nurture an environment where employees care about the company and its success, and they realize how closely their own success is directly tied to the company’s success.”
Just how closely? Consider, for example, the company’s stellar safety record and its financial ramifications. Annual costs for workers-compensa- tion insurance averages a mere $800/ employee, compared to the indus- try standard of $2000-$4000 per year per employee. Ajax splits this savings down the middle with its employees,
Class A journey worker Dan McGee has doubled his hourly earnings since joining E.J. Ajax in 2004 as a student intern. McGee quickly moved into the toolroom, then into the firm’s fabrica- tion department where he now serves as team leader.
paying an annual incentive bonus of approximately $500 per employee per year. Ajax, discussing this benefit, adds that while the monetary bene- fits of working safely are obvious, the real payback “is knowing that our employees get to return home safely every day to their families.
“If an accident happens at work that prevents people from doing their jobs, it doesn’t only affect the work- place,” Ajax continues. “It affects their lives—the likelihood of divorce goes way up, the chance of home foreclo- sure goes way up, the chance of chemical dependency goes way up, and the chance of becoming involved in criminal activity goes way up. The human cost of a serious workplace injury is, simply, unthinkable.”
Conversely, Ajax contends, employ- ees with positive and fulfilling per- sonal lives make for better employees on the job. To that end, he encourages his frontline colleagues, as well as managers, to enroll in Dale Carnegie training, and more than 70 percent of the company’s employees have done so.
Helping to carry forth the compa- ny’s safety vision out on the shop floor is director of employee safety and sec- ond-shift supervisor Neng Yang, him- self a Dale Carnegie graduate. Hired in 2005 as an entry level Class C punch press operator, Yang underwent rig- orous training through the M-Pow-