Current estimates say that American companies employ over 17 million temporary employees across all industries. At PMG, we get asked daily why companies choose our labor solutions to address their needs in lieu of more traditional direct-hire models. Here are some of the most common answers we’ve found:

Workforce Flexibility

Many industries see a seasonal fluctuation in their business model and labor solutions provide the ability to address fluctuations with less stress for both the company and workforce. This flexibility allows them to adjust more quickly and productively to changes in their order or production cycles.

“My clients choose us for project-based work, avoiding the reputation in their area as being the company that hires then fires after their busy season.”

– Jessica, PMG Client Solutions Manager

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Short-term Replacements

Whether it is family leave, vacation, sabbaticals, or unexpected medical situations, life still happens in business. PMG’s model helps companies deal productively with the unexpected. Sometimes that may simply mean slower than wanted ramp up times. We can help with that too.

“Our company started utilizing PMG’s services to be a placeholder for our current skilled trade positions while we recruited. Although we’ve made direct hires, we would still use PMG’s technicians.”

– PMG Client

Cost Effective

Overtime costs add up, both in impact to the bottom line and to employee burnout. Many companies see reduced management and HR costs. The less time your employees spend hiring, firing, and training people, the more time they can spend on producing.

“My clients choose us because they can save significantly on direct employee overtime, while avoiding burnout and allowing their internal resources to focus on their primary job duties.”

– Justin, PMG Client Solutions Manager

Skills Gaps

The more remotely located the business, the more difficult the path is to growth. Temporary solutions give companies an easier way to walk that path and allow businesses to not be limited to their local talent pools.

“We have leveraged skilled resources from PMG to bridge gaps in production due to the lack of qualified resources in our region and to meet spikes in production.”

– PMG Client

Labor Crisis

If a company is facing a labor dispute situation, a natural disaster, or a major facility issue, temporary solutions are often the only solutions. Whether your goal is maintaining production, temporarily relocating work sites, or disaster clean up, PMG provides the contingency planning and technicians to help any manufacturer avert worst case scenarios, survive crisis, and thrive in future business.

Are you in need or interested in learning more about labor solutions?

Contact our Client Solutions Team today!

Josh Erickson, ReTool & Technical Solutions Associate

It’s no secret that manufacturing has an image problem that is preventing younger generations from not only pursuing, but even considering a career in manufacturing. At times, it can be an uphill battle to get the current generation to see the opportunities available to them. With Father’s Day right around the corner, I thought now would be a perfect time to address some of these myths and misconceptions and shine some light on manufacturing truths.

Watch our webinar Myths & Misconceptions in Manufacturing to learn more!

Jobs in Manufacturing are unsafe

Safety ratings for careers in this industry improved throughout the last century and that focus and improvement will continue throughout the next for several reasons:

Unsafe factories are unprofitable factories and profit drives improvement.
OSHA, MSHA, and other regulatory bodies. There is a greater focus, and enforcement, placed on safety in the workplace than ever before and it shows.
Robots aren’t going to take your jobs but they are already taking the dangerous ones.

Jobs in Manufacturing are dirty

Dirty Jobs is a TV show, not the reality of American production facilities.

The focus on safety from within the industry and governmental bodies naturally leads to a cleaner workplace. Clean factories are safe factories.
Modern production methods and materials often require clean room type environments by necessity.
The realities of modern hiring often require a clean environment to show. Everyone has to keep up with the Jones in the fight for new talent – even manufacturers.

Jobs in Manufacturing are low-skill, low-paying, and boring

Hello, have you heard of the Skills Gap? Its very existence refutes the unskilled point.

High skill equals high pay. This sector is seeing growth in demand AND wages and we have the skills gap to thank for that.
There is no industry where you are more likely to receive on the job training or continuing education opportunities from your employer than this one. Workforce reinvestment is a continuous driver of both wage and skill growth.
Remember robots? Their presence in the industry may be making our jobs safer and physically easier, but they are doing that primarily by replacing the LOW skilled jobs. This means, the positions requiring higher skill sets make up a disproportionately higher percentage of all sector jobs than they did in previous generations where automation was less prevalent.

Jobs in Manufacturing are unfriendly to female and minority employees

To put it plainly, manufacturing is still an industry dominated in America by white males, but that is changing.

29 percent of women in 2017 (compared to 12 percent in 2015) think the school system actively/somewhat encourages female students to pursue a career in the manufacturing industry.
42 percent of women in 2017 (compared to 24 percent in 2015) are now ready to encourage their daughter or female family member to pursue a career in their industry.
More than half of women (58 percent) have observed some positive changes in their industry’s attitude towards female professional employees, over the last five years.
Minority representation in the workforce has doubled since 1980 (from 18% to almost 40%) and Hispanic/Latino representation specifically has nearly tripled during that same time period.

Robots are going to take all the jobs

Robots will not take away all positions in manufacturing, but the ever-increasing prevalence of automation, IoT, predictive analytics, additive manufacturing, virtual/augmented/mixed reality, will change them consistently and continuously throughout your career by making those jobs

Safer
More Productive
More Interesting
Higher Paying

To learn more about the impact technology will have on manufacturing, check out our webinar Manufacturing in the future: the changes yet to come.

Josh Erickson, ReTool & Technical Solutions Associate

Meet Vanessa!

Vanessa is a Business Development Representative and joined the PMG Team about two months ago.

About me

I’m originally from California. I moved to Nashville for a softball scholarship and a chance to play at the D1 level. I absolutely fell in love with the city. Moved up to Minneapolis for about 2.5 years to work for the Twins. After three winters, I decided to fly South again! I have a yellow lab and love him more than most things. He’s the cutest little monster around and makes my days so happy!

What are your main responsibilities as a Business Development Representative?

I make phone calls and qualify leads for the Client Solutions Managers.

How did you learn about the opportunity with PMG?

MacKenzie reached out on LinkedIn. I remember I wasn’t really looking to leave my last company, but she sold me on the first call!

What do you like most about your job?

My team. We get rejected a few times a day, but I love being able to laugh with them about it and share our wins. I love a sales team that celebrates everybody’s victories!

What do you like most about working for PMG?

I love the small company feel. I’ve worked in a lot of different types of companies and, in the past two months, I’ve definitely felt like I’m at home.

What are some hobbies you do in your free time?

I like to explore Nashville. I’ve lived here for about seven years and it’s amazing how many things I haven’t done. The city keeps growing so quickly and more gets added. I also have a great group of friends who are in the know and keep inviting me to things.

Where is the best place you’ve traveled and why?

Northern Ireland. Belfast is one of my favorite cities. I love the history of Ireland and the UK. I love going to the museums and learning more each visit, plus the castles and views are incredible. The people are also incredibly nice and welcoming.

What celebrity/inspirational person do you admire the most?

I admire a lot of people, but growing up, I admired Mia Hamm and Sue Bird. They were such fierce athletes that I always wanted to play like that.

What did you want to be when growing up?

A sports broadcaster…which is hilarious because I realized after doing color commentary for my college’s volleyball team that I absolutely hated being on camera!

You’re happiest when…

…I have a margarita in one hand and my dog on the patio with me.

What advice would you give to a recent new hire at PMG?

Ask all the questions!! We have a great support system and there is not one question that will shock anybody.

What animal describes the “work you”?

An elephant. I have a pretty good memory when it comes to names, accounts and past calls.

As we hopefully wrap up this Minnesota winter season, PMG has closed out Q1 on a positive note.

PMG continued to meet and exceed quarterly performance goals for all departments and has no plans of slowing down. Rather, we continue to put plans in place to continue and sustain our growth, both in the field and the corporate office. This quarter, PMG added new hires in the Client Solutions and Business Development teams (both in office and remote) and added new team members to the support staffs for the Technical Solutions, Operations, Accounting, and PMG Energy teams. In addition, our Technical Solutions team continues to grow our onsite rosters of technicians. It’s exciting to see so many new faces in the office and at client sites and it has been beyond satisfying to see so many of these technicians hit the ground running early in their PMG careers. All of us here at PMG look forward to seeing the myriad of ways these new team members will help us continue to maintain and build upon the growth of recent years.

The first quarter of this year was not only successful in a business sense, as PMG finalized highly anticipated upgrades to corporate office infrastructure. This occurred with the installation of upgraded video and telecommunications packages in the office. This will continue to allow PMG to offer the opportunity for current employees and prospective new hires to work remotely. These upgrades included hardware and/or software changes to improve our ability to screen share, teleconference, and video conference from any and all parts of our office. It should also help bolster our in-house training, meeting, and presentation capabilities as well as streamlining our remote work capabilities.

PMG also continued to grow its benefits for employees both in the office and on-site. Some of the most noticeable changes resulted from the addition of a Mamava nursing station in the office to make the transition back to work from maternity leave as easy as possible. Non-monetary employee benefits also continue to grow because of the continued growth of our Employee Wellness program that, among other things, has started a monthly competition to inspire greater activity levels among in-office team members trying to earn various rewards. This program has been so successful in its early stages that we are seeing our Operations department start to implement similar concepts for onsite technicians.

PMG’s ReTool division has also had a successful Q1 in its effort to grow awareness of opportunities at PMG and in the manufacturing sector. This year, ReTool has already attended career fairs and employer events in nine different states and has held more than 30 onsite or virtual presentations to adult technical programs around the country. These numbers are already hitting what ReTool hoped to do in the first half of 2019.

Meanwhile, in out of office activities, PMG chose to partner with the Polar Plunge in Prior Lake, Minnesota. This year’s team doubled in participants from last year and raised over $5000.

In addition, PMG held its annual corporate holiday party, a murder mystery dinner at Wabasha Caves in St. Paul and organized several team building events for various departments.

Finally, we can’t celebrate a successful quarter here at PMG without celebrating the people who help create that success. Our Corporate Employee and Technician of the Quarter were both announced two weeks ago- Jessica B., Client Solutions Manager, and Dan O., PMG Welder. Thank you to both Jessica and Dan for everything they did this quarter (and every quarter) to help PMG stand out from the rest of this industry as a truly unique company. We couldn’t do it without you!

Josh Erickson, ReTool & Technical Solutions Associate