Workforce Issues: A View from Wholesalers

The danger of producing any article or special issue is that, as an editor or writer, you presume to know what your audience is thinking. Because this special issue focuses on workforce matters, we wondered what was important to HARDI members.

With the help of Patricia Kutt, HARDI's director of education, we drew up three questions and sent them out to a select group of HARDI distributors. While a statistician might suggest that our poll is unscientific, I believe that anecdotally it captures a sense of what is on members' minds. After all, we've heard these topics discussed whenever wholesalers gather.

We would also like to thank those wholesalers who took the time to answer our questions. We consider input like this invaluable.

THE QUESTIONS:

Q1: What is the most important workforce issue that your company will face in the next three to five years?

For example: Skilled knowledge drain through retirements; lack of skilled labor; health insurance coverage for employees; etc.

Q2: Are you taking steps to confront your most important workforce issue(s), and if you have, what are those initiatives?

Q3: What steps is your company taking with regard to training (workforce development) to ensure success for the next generation of skilled labor?

THE RESPONSES:

A1: We are very concerned about the overwhelming rise in health insurance premiums. With the uncertainty of the future of our health care in the U.S. and a workforce that has had to push retirement back due to investment losses, it's difficult to see short-term relief of these escalating premiums! While HSA's or high deductible plans seemed to be the answer five years ago, we are now seeing those premiums catching up to PPO plans.

A2: We are staying very active politically (individually and with HARDI). We are also searching for new ways to keep our employees healthier through wellness initiatives.

A3: We have been extremely proactive for the past three years in the training arena! Most of the training we have been doing is technical in nature. We are starting to incorporate other elements, such as sales and IT (ins and outs of our computer system). We are fortunate to have a fairly young employee base, which positions Illco well for the future. We have always utilized any seasoned veterans in the company to pass on all they can to new employees.
— Bill Bergamini, president, ILLCO Inc., Countryside, IL

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A1: Getting enough training done for the existing workforce or getting enough trained workers and also succession planning.

A2: Accelerating training and keeping the door open for new talent all the time, making sure that succession planning is part of the review process and making sure that people know they have a career in our company but that input and personal commitment are needed.

A3: Use all training possible but also have a training plan in place for all levels in the organization so people can see what they need to do in order to proceed in their career.
— Peter Olierook, president & chief executive officer, Don Park LP, North York, Ontario, Canada

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A1: Currently, I would say health insurance coverage for our employees. Being an ESOP company, we pride ourselves in providing the very best coverage for our team. Health benefits continue to become a bigger chunk of our overall cost of doing business.

A2: Yes. We negotiate pretty hard every year with several benefits providers to keep the coverage up (or even) and to minimize the price increase. It's quite a process; however, it is very beneficial.

A3: Eighteen months ago, we implemented a specific employee training program for each position (i.e., warehouse, inside sales, outside sales, branch manager, purchasing) within our company. Depending on the position, these training programs include sales, management, technical, profitability and personal development courses. Progress is tracked online and programs can be added or modified based on our areas of focus.
— Michael F. Meier, general manager, Meier Supply Co. Inc., Johnson City, NY

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