Upsher-Smith Laboratories (USL) has struggled to recruit and retain employees in a tight labor market, particularly in its operations and maintenance departments. Compounding challenges with recruiting and retention, an increasing number of new hires have little or no manufacturing experience. USL employs a very diverse operations workforce with many employees speaking English as a second or third language. USL has partnered with multiple different groups to help recruit and identify areas to recruit and retain people of color, including two partnerships with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). The company has a formal DEI plan that is part of its corporate goals. Rolled out in 2021, the plan includes hiring and recruiting metrics to ensure diverse candidate pools, Employee Resource Groups , one paid day off per year for non-dominant culture holidays, and annual surveys to ensure DEI progress is made. The plan includes 16 action items among six strategies.
USL received the Minnesota Job Skills grant in collaboration with DEED and that has allowed us to have an instructor from Hennepin Technical College (HTC) come to our facility and help guide our learners through CMAE 1535, which is a 2-credit collegiate class with a high-level overview of manufacturing. Now, because of the grant, we can also customize our curriculum and make it much more specific to USL and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Our plan is to run six cohorts over the course of the next two years. Each cohort will last 11 weeks. The cohorts will meet one day a week for three hours where they will be in a conference room in Maple Grove with an instructor from HTC. This opportunity is completely voluntary, and it is an educational experience that will enhance the professional life of our learners. As of today, we have more than 90 employees who have participated or are planning to participate in this excellent opportunity.
Furthermore, the Minnesota Job Skills grant covers all tuition, course fees, instructor costs and travel costs for employees . USL is responsible for the wages and benefits of our employees for the time they are learning (three hours a week for 11 weeks).
In addition to offering CMAE 1535, we will offer an Occupational English cohort for our multi-language employees. This is going to be taught, in coordination with the University of Minnesota , by two doctoral students who will cover industry verbiage, manufacturing specific language, documentation and review HR benefits.
This is a great investment in our people, and it shows our dedication to our employees and hopefully it will help with retention and recruitment.
Find out more about Upsher-Smith’s partnership, related training certifications and DEED’s Diversity in Manufacturing Initiative.
