“The most important step I took was to identify the positions within the company that were the most key and the most difficult to hire, and that would require the most time on the job to learn the position,” Sarniak-Tanzola says.
“Once I did that, I began hiring people to work with the staff that was already here, so that they would start to train them,” she says. “And yes, that costs money — that’s two people in one position — but it was worth it.”
Over the next decade, nearly every position turned over. Today JSG has millennials in key positions. The vice president of sales is 32. The leading engineer is 24. The general manager is 29. That’s critical because Sarniak-Tanzola says you can weather market blips with the right people.
With such a young, bright group, she says all she has to do is hold them accountable, which is actually something they want.
“If you do not hold people accountable, I don’t care how much of everything else you do, it will fail,” Sarniak-Tanzola says.
You need to ask: when are they going to get it done, how they are going to do it, what result do they want and did they get the result. You must be the person always asking why.
“To sit someone down and say, ‘You’re not doing what you said you would do’ is a very difficult thing,” Sarniak-Tanzola says.
It invites conflict, but conflict isn’t bad, she says. Conflict is growth; if everyone agrees, where do you go?
Improved efficiency
Sarniak-Tanzola’s previous experience also let her appreciate processes, like continuous improvements to production. JSG went from yields that averaged between 60 and 75 to 80 and 95.
“My people are a big part of that,” Sarniak-Tanzola says. “We truly all work well together, so I believe in surrounding myself with very smart people, and then we work as a team.”
It helped that Sarniak-Tanzola had fresh eyes. She and her young staff had just studied manufacturing values, so they saw areas for improvement.
For example, she says it could have taken three hours for an issue to be noticed in another part of the production process. Now, large lights or tags of red, green or yellow let people know where they stand. Products are typically quality assured four times before going out the door.
If you put a hammer on the wall, add a black shadow around it so you know it’s missing, she says. Simple things like that can add efficiency.
