Powerful Potential of Generative AI to Improve Onboarding

The manufacturing industry is seeing extraordinary operational transformation in the digital age. Now advanced technology is helping companies solve some of the toughest workforce challenges around: how to attract, develop, and retain talent.

At Tooling U-SME’s recent tuX event, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel, Innovative and Emerging Trends Advancing Training and Development, where an outstanding group of experts shared their experience and insights on the topic. My thanks to:

• Matthew Hladki, Chief Administrative Officer, Grede
• Becca O’ Toole, Partnership Director, Cengage Group
• Megan McInroy, Head of Partnerships, Cengage Group
• Darin Coats, Operations Manager South Carolina Hub, Leadec 
• Christopher Ray, Apprenticeship Supervisor, Stihl

One especially fascinating area in workforce development centers around how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is streamlining operations, engaging employees, saving time, and boosting productivity.

Clearly, the manufacturing industry is increasingly recognizing the business value of GenAI and according to a 2023 McKinsey Report, GenAI’s impact on productivity could add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy.

We can now use deep learning for deep learning!

Artificial Intelligence & Onboarding

While the use of GenAI is still early stage for talent management, Matthew Hladki from Grede walked us through an example of its power and capabilities for onboarding.

This embrace of new technology and methods is especially noteworthy as Grede is a 100+ year old company.

As a historic American foundry, Grede is one of the longest-standing enterprises in producing highly engineered ductile, gray, and specialty iron castings. Today, Grede is one of the top metal casters in the industry, operating 10 facilities across North America and employing 3,000 team members. 

Grede is known for its investment in its people so it’s no surprise that they would be ahead of the curve when trying to find new ways to engage their current and future employees.

Grede’s Challenge

As with most manufacturers, turnover has been a challenge. Matthew said they lose the majority of people in the first six months of employment, most in the first 90 days.

“If we can get them to stay for six months, typically we can keep them,” he said. “We're really focused on activities to drive engagement, onboarding, and informing that connection.”

Of course, he noted, spending more time on these priority areas is difficult with an already full workload.

To better understand where their Human Resource (HR) Managers and HR generalists were spending their time, Grede conducted a time study. They discovered too much was spent on less value-added activities such as repeatedly answering the same questions, running turnover reports or sending the same information to every class of new hires each week.

The goal, then, was to free up the HR team to do more value-added work such as training and development, engagement, developing apprenticeship programs and finding partnerships in their community with trade schools.

AI is the Answer

“We started thinking about how, if we're focused on implementing AI in smart manufacturing to improve our operations, why can't we do the same thing to improve the efficiencies in our support functions?” said Matthew. “There are opportunities where AI can solve HR problems and help HR become more efficient.”

Matthew reinforced they aren’t eliminating jobs through AI; instead, they are letting AI handle administrative tasks to open up room to pursue more value-added activities.

“We have to figure out how to do more with the same number of resources we have today, and that's where technology and AI come in,” he said.

Last year, SME offered Grede a chance to pilot a program with Mainstay, a company that offers an AI chatbot for employee engagement.

Instead of going directly to an HR team member with questions, Grede employees can now simply ask “Moe.”

“We branded the AI chatbot as Moe, because one of the keys to technology adoption is to humanize it and make it seem less like a robot, more like a person,” Matthew said. “Moe can answer employee questions automatically.”

As part of its onboarding program, Grede is also using Moe to push out communications and surveys to gain data from new hires regarding how well the company is performing with onboarding and engagement, especially in that first 30, 60, and 90 days.

Through Moe, if Matthew and team receive feedback that an employee is not understanding their new role and the job requirement after 30 days, they can immediately send a human to follow up to determine why and provide refresher training so the new employee feels comfortable.

The pilot program was conducted at three sites. They contacted over 1,000 employees by text to their personal cell phones and achieved a 48 percent engagement rate. Only 3 percent of employees opted out.

“This is getting better every day,” Matthew said. “Moe is currently answering 62 percent of questions with no human interaction.”

This means Grede is saving an impressive 2,000 minutes of HR’s time that can be reallocated to more value-added activities.

A bonus: employees love it.

They have also initiated a program where Moe is sending text messages to new employees two days before they start, asking, “Do you still plan to show up at this day and this time?”

If the new hire responds yes, all is set. But if they say no, someone from HR calls them. Perhaps a new hire needs to adjust their start date or they don’t know the address of the plant. The HR contact can provide any information that makes them feel more comfortable and prepared for their first day.

“We are accelerating that feeling of community with Grede and decreasing the anxiety of starting work,” said Matthew.

What’s to Come

Grede is rolling the program out to all 10 of their manufacturing facilities and corporate headquarters.

Matthew said that they are going to evaluate additional tools for recruiting, payroll management, and benefits management.

“We have a goal of launching at least another three AI tools in 2025 to help improve the efficiency of our HR functions.”

It’s all about automation and scalability. AI scraping technology is also launching soon. Grede can provide the AI tool access to its employee handbook and Moe can search on its own for answers.

For instance, an employee might ask about time off after the death of a relative. Moe will automatically search Grede’s bereavement policy and send that information directly to the employee. If not found, Moe will elevate the query to an HR person who will follow up with the employee.

Matthew said that as the technology learns and becomes smarter, the percentage of questions that it can answer automatically with no human intervention will continue to increase.

“This is the beginning of our journey of utilizing technology and AI to make the HR function at Grede more effective,” he said. “We're learning.”

We are all learning, and we appreciate Matthew sharing Grede’s story which demonstrates the powerful potential of AI in workforce development. How are you using AI?

For more details on this topic, check out the presentation recap from tuX 2024! Over 100 workforce development manufacturing professionals gathered at Pittsburgh’s tuXperience Workforce Development conference. tuX promotes overall best practices in training and workforce development, encourages the adoption of advanced technologies, and furthers the success of the U.S. Manufacturing industry.

We are always available to discuss ways to improve your workforce's onboarding. Our team can design a training program that delivers improved quality and productivity, along with increased employee satisfaction and retention. Contact Tooling U-SME at 866.706.8665 to learn more.