YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – By offering nontraditional work schedules, cool office decor, mentoring and opportunities for community impact, companies are trying to attract next generation workers.
With young employees in mind, Steelite International designed its headquarters in downtown Youngstown with modern furnishings and high ceilings.
It’s “more of an upscale industrial look in the building, so people feel like they’re coming to a very modern place to work,” says President and CEO John Miles.
Ensuring people have workstations where they can either stand or sit is another element incorporated into the design to appeal to younger workers.
Joanna Forbes, a management and marketing lecturer in the Youngstown State University Williamson College of Business Administration, sees many juniors and seniors in her classes. She says many of them who are job hunting want flexibility.
“That whole you’ve got to be there by 8:30 and you’re at your desk till 5 – it’s not what they’re interested in anymore,” she says.
The freedom to come in between 8 and 9 a.m., for example, is more appealing. They want an employer that trusts them, Forbes adds.
When she reads her evaluations from students, a recurring comment is that students appreciate that Forbes treats them like adults and trusts them to get their work done.
“Of course, I have deadlines and grades and all that good stuff, but I know that’s something that they’re interested in, that they work somewhere where they’re not feeling like they’re being micromanaged or babysat,” she says. “They want that freedom, that flexibility.”
Younger people also want paid time off and career mobility, Forbes says.
“Also, they’re really big on tuition reimbursement, so that’s the other thing that they’re looking for,” she adds.
Manufacturing
Alex Hertzer, executive director of the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, says manufacturers are working with career and technical centers to engage with young people at an earlier age.
Many students aren’t interested in working on the plant floor or don’t know what that involves, he says.
“Manufacturers, even in my time in the last four years, have increasingly become more and more open to not just recruiting from the career and tech centers, but actually having those students work for them, like in their junior year,” he says. Some people come to a company “as early as 16 years old, actually coming into the facility, starting to foster that relationship and starting to help them build into the culture of the facility.”
Those employers aren’t just going to the machine shops at the centers to find prospective employees. “They might be going to power mechanics or aviation – anywhere where kids are actively working with their hands, troubleshooting, problem solving in some sort of a mechanical or electrical way,” he explains, adding that indicates interest in a career in which they work with their hands.
Companies also are going into traditional high schools that provide training and education in manufacturing fields, Hertzer says.
And to appeal to more workers, including younger people, companies offer varied shifts. He points to one Youngstown company where some employees work three 12-hour shifts while others work the standard five eight-hour shifts.
A company in Columbiana provides six six-hour shifts as well as more standard working schedules. Shorter shifts may appeal to a single parent who has to drop off and pick up children for school, Hertzer points out.
Even though different employer amenities attract some young people, money still talks, he says. “You can make good money in manufacturing, and when your older brother is driving a new F-150, all those things start to add up too,” he adds.
Relaxed Atmosphere
Besides decor, Steelite provides a relaxed environment for employees, with casual dress and free refreshments.
“One of the big things that we think people appreciate is the value added,” Miles says. “So, we, for example, have done the Google system. All of the snacks, all the beverages – everything – are free. Every floor has its own kitchen. Every kitchen is stocked.”
The kitchens include healthy snacks and varieties that are less so. Water, tea and soft drinks are available and each floor has an upscale coffee machine.
“I think that that is a big thing for employees,” Miles explains. “If they have to run out of the house and they haven’t had something to eat, they can come here and there’s fresh fruit and there’s snacks and all those things available to them. They can go and get a cup of coffee. They don’t need to go to Starbucks on the way. And it’s a quality product.”
Each floor offers quiet rooms employees may use to avoid distractions or to read a book during lunch. Amphitheater seating areas and conference rooms provide meeting spaces for teams.
The company also provides regular state of the company meetings where managers talk to employees about the company’s financial performance, challenges and opportunities to improve, Miles says.
Pathways
Forbes says young people appreciate transparency as well. That applies to salary structures, career pathways and opportunities for learning and development.
Hertzer says MVMC focuses on mapping out a position where a worker may begin a career in manufacturing before moving on to other positions.
“That’s a lot of the work that MVMC does is creating those career pathways, especially for those midskilled positions, the machinists, the welders, the industrial maintenance,” he says.
The coalition also offers preapprenticeship programs for high school students that lead to employment as well as the Work Advance program. The latter is through the Excellence Training Center at Youngstown State University.
Work Advance is a four-week, fast-paced, full-time training program that’s offered every six weeks.
“That program is specifically designed to recruit, essentially, people who have little or no manufacturing experience,” Hertzer says.
That could include people from underrepresented communities. The program includes hard skills, soft skills and introductory courses. It helps fill the gap for manufacturers of entry-level jobs.
Several years ago, workers were attracted to a company and those companies didn’t have to recruit. Companies rested on their laurels by providing good salaries, the executive director points out.
More recently, job fairs and resource fairs have become well attended by companies looking for workers.
Something More
Forbes says many younger people want a company that enables them to do more than earn a paycheck.
“It has to be something where it’s not just a 9 to 5 punch in, punch out,” she says.
Young people want more than work experience. They’re interested in the ability to volunteer, and if a company gets involved in the community, Forbes notes.
“Those are things that young people are interested in as well,” she says.
Miles says Steelite puts an emphasis on a sense of overall community.
The company sponsored a bocce tournament last year, raising $20,000 that it donated to charitable organizations in the Valley. The company also collects donations for a women’s shelter through an angel tree at Christmas time. When a gas explosion damaged the Realty Tower downtown in May 2024, employees voted to donate money in the company’s charity fund to help those displaced residents.
“I think the more things that you can do that help your employees understand that you’re there working for someone who is really trying to be a contributing member of the community that they’re in, I think, helps them to feel proud, and a sense that they’re working for a company that’s just not making money and not giving anything back,” Miles says.
Pictured at top: Alex Hertzer, Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, says the coalition is working to retain talent.