A Manufacturer People Love To Work For | With Halsey Cook Jr.

Thank you, Lou. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you to Newsweek for making this possible, and also to Facebook and LinkedIn for streaming this to our associates and anybody interested all around the world. So I'm sure I'll have a number of our associates from Milliken on the line today, and just right up front, say thank you for everything you do, showing up every day at work to make this a great company. I can't take credit for that — it's what we do as a group of seven, eight thousand people all together every day. So thank you for that.

Yeah, I'll back up a little bit. It's been — one of the funnest parts of my job is to see some external recognition for things that we set out to put in place, which we knew mattered a lot. But we weren't going for the award, as you know, we can't make application for this award, it has to kind of happen organically, word of mouth, peer reviews. So the journey really started about five years ago when we decided to — well, let me back up, the journey really started 158 years ago when the company was founded by Seth Milliken in Maine as a general store. And we are now in our fifth generation of a family-owned business, and many of the Milliken family are on the board and still very much involved in the business. But there was a foundation of great values inside the company, and when I came in as CEO, I set out to do something that I hadn't had the opportunity to do in my career, which is to really lay the framework for a vision and purpose statement for the company, and then articulate some values that we wanted to make the company known for, and then on top of that build a business strategy where everything lined up — where the products we were making, with the way we treated each other and worked as teams, the way we went about realizing the strategy that we put in place was all in alignment, that there was no disconnect in the 'say-do' — who you are versus what you're doing — type of thing. So we've tried to use that as a guiding principle. And our purpose statement, 'Together we strive to positively impact the world around us for generations to come,' speaks to the work that we think is important and has meaning, it speaks to the way we want to leave the world a better place than it is now, it speaks to the multi-generational aspects of privately held businesses. And we articulated five values at the same time, Lou, that we wanted to be how we are doing the work, after we'd articulated that why we come to work. And those values were integrity, excellence, sustainability, innovation, and people. And I'll just rest there for a second on the people part of it, because what we realized was that all of those other values require the people to get them done. Integrity — being the way you conduct business, what you do when people aren't looking, stopping if something doesn't feel right, speaking up if something isn't right. Excellence — coming from high-performing teams. Innovation — coming from curious minds making inspired solutions. And being a leader in sustainability — all that took people doing the right things day in, day out, working together towards common goals. So it's a long prelude here to just a big thank you to Newsweek, because this external validation I think really tells us that we got it right. So five years into this journey since we set that groundwork, we're really seeing evidence in the business results and in the actual metrics inside of our company, whether it has to do with new product sales or the way we run our plants and the number of new green belts we have, the metrics we have and the awards we get also in diversity and inclusion. So that's what it means to us. I mean, it's something that you work hard and it's nice when you see the results. As a leadership position, it is great.

Yeah, you know, I've spent — I'm going to say 80 percent or more of my career working in a manufacturing environment. And I think one of the things you have to be careful of is that there's the headquarters office environment, which is often separate and apart from the actual production environment. And as we looked into our associate metrics around virtually everything — retention, turnover, job satisfaction, engagement, which is a super important thing to keep in touch with, how much people want to show up and want to be part of what's going on — we saw in the early days of our programs kind of a divergence, where it was happening a little bit more in the office environment and so we were seeing progress on those metrics, but we were not seeing it in the manufacturing area. And there was a moment — it was probably about three years ago, it was really coming out of the pandemic, because remember that during the pandemic a lot of people started working from home and most of our office associates did actually go and start working from home. But plants don't run without people, and so we had to put up a lot of protective materials and do testing, and it was a tough environment to be in the manufacturing arena. And for anyone on the team who does work in our plants, again I just want to say thank you. The daily miracle of how we get all of this product out of 44 plants around the world never ceases to amaze me, and so thank you for your efforts there. But we came to a place where we realized that life was tougher inside the plant in terms of dealing with COVID. You had to show up every day, and we wanted to take some proactive steps. So we launched the TEAM initiative — Together Empowering Associates in Manufacturing — and started to put a lot more emphasis on what was going on for literally 80 percent of the associates in our company who are working in our 44 plants around the world. So we moved forward with a lot of our communications and we put up digital signage and we started celebrating the wins around the company, and especially during COVID, we moved into PPE equipment with our textile and started making more chemical solutions for disinfection. And so we were very much engaged in trying to find solutions for a lot of the challenges put to us during COVID. And so we started celebrating that system-wide. We put in place some career centers because another piece of feedback we had was that we weren't seeing a career path. We had a different career path pattern that did not take you to management if you were an associate with a high school degree. So we started the AMP program — Aspire to Management — and so that's where the acronym comes from. That is a pathway for our hourly production associates to get to management positions inside of the plant. And there was an awful lot of training done also around unconscious bias and the ways in which you behave can create situations in terms of communication and teamwork on the floor. And I'd say the final thing was we really went in and found the folks that seemed most keen to move into leadership and started mentoring programs. So we got a number of our up-and-comers a mentor inside the company. I'm not doing complete service to the comprehensive nature of what we tried to do and are still doing, because this is a long journey. I don't know if it ever ends because you're going to have new people coming in, and we're going to make acquisitions and have to integrate new plants, and tools will get better. But we've really changed the life of our associates. All their data is available on the phone — their benefits, their pay stubs. So we digitized an awful lot of what it meant to be an associate and really started focusing on associate engagement and net promoter score, which is something we measure not only for our customers but also for our associates. So we've got enthusiastic promoters for the company, but we also have detractors. And so we look at those and try to analyze where we need to focus in order to make sure we've got a highly engaged and satisfied workforce.

Yeah, Lou, you know, I'd add to that — there's also that aspect that's been really important in our journey around trying to be authentic, because people can tell when you're just trying to get them to fill out the survey in the right way. You've really got to listen to what they're saying about areas of dissatisfaction or things that bother them, just the things that make it hard to do their job, or troublesome — relationships at work. I guess what I'm saying is the tone of these is something that I really try and keep an eye on, so that it doesn't become so programmatic and systematic and everything is around process. There's got to be that human element to it. And so I'm really proud of the team for coming up with some of the things — they'll have just an ice cream social, some things just to get people out of their offices or off the line and come together and just be a team and have a little bit of social time together. And those things seem to pay big dividends as well. So I just wanted to raise that — the tone from the top I'm really trying to set is that, you know, be authentic, let's be real, let's talk about what's really going on inside of our plants. And I think that's paid some dividends too.

Yeah, so INSPIRE is a program — it's actually an app-based program where if somebody does something that you say, 'Hey, that's great, you are really living our values each and every day, that is excellence, that is integrity, that is innovation,' you can go ahead and recognize them. So it's an electronic shout-out and everybody can see it, and there's a $25 gift certificate that could be awarded as well if they thought it was particularly great. It empowers people to take the opportunity to say thank you in a little bit more formal way, and we've had about 7,000 of those thank-yous in the last year. So you talk about trying to catch people doing the right thing — this is a great and simple and fast way to do that. And then the Milliken Honors is an annual event and it feels kind of like the Academy Awards — there's lights flying around and we give 16 awards, which again are based on the values. So there's the Do the Right Thing award, there's an innovation award, awards around diversity and inclusion, definitely awards around innovation. And so to really put people up on a pedestal and give them an opportunity to walk up on stage and receive that award — it's turned into probably my favorite day of the year inside the company because people reach deep into the organization. Myself and my direct reports are not eligible for the awards, just to give you a sense. We are really trying to get down to the team and integrated teams really working business problems, and people who've demonstrated over multiple periods, multiple years, the consistency around customer service or environmental concerns and what they've achieved. We have hundreds of nominations — I think this year was over 300 nominations — and then we give the 16 awards. And just to kind of understand, there were actually 126 people who received an award. So the 16 awards have on average a team of up to 10 people, and some of them are individuals. We might have an award that could even be for a brand new startup of a new line in a plant — it could be 15 or 18 people who receive the award. And I just think they're really powerful because we talk about operationalizing our values — so it can't just be an idea. Sustainability just can't be an idea, it has to be a set of programs. And this gives us the opportunity to really give a shout-out to people who have gone that extra step, whether it's around financial excellence, or excellence in quality, or an innovative new material that's going to help save lives by being fire-resistant. So those are, I would say, really the core of our recognition programs. And of course, in addition to that, we've got an awful lot of educational programs and other things we do, and community service to try and keep people engaged. But I think that Honors award has been really the special sauce inside the company, and it's a relatively new thing — I think five, seven years we've been doing the Honors award.

You asked me for a favorite one — there was one thing we've been trying to get going. I'm sorry to cut you off, Lou, but I didn't answer your whole question. There was an award given for some robotic solutions that we put in place down in LaGrange, Georgia, in our floor covering business, where they came up with some really nifty labor-saving devices and things. We've been on a digital journey for a few years now, and what I loved about this award was it didn't come as an idea from a central group that was driving an enterprise-wide digital program — they really facilitated it — but it came from the operators on the floor. And some really great productivity and labor savings, which in this environment where we're all short of staff, was probably my favorite award of the year.

Well, they're separate. The one I'm talking about was on an existing line, but it was the application of digital tools for a changeover and labor saving. And then there's another great example where we've had inspection of our cloth using optical eyes and artificial intelligence to recognize flaws, so that we can catch them before they go out to customers. That is part of a new range that we've put in place, the Apollo range. And so it's been happening very organically. We've got some key leaders who are passionate about it, and as these ideas bubble up, they are doing tests and learns, and then we try and put them out on broader scales to more instances and more plants. So that is something that I think has grown organically, and I think it's connected to this award insofar as we're really trying to facilitate and get the best ideas coming out and then give people a chance to try and make them real. I actually was walking in thinking, what am I going to say in this interview, and obviously I've not run out of words so far. But I said, 'Hey, Sarah' — this associate's name was Sarah — we had a meeting this morning, and I said, 'Do you think we really deserve this award? Is this the type of company that deserves this award? Are you having that experience?' And she said, 'Absolutely.' And I said, 'Why?' And she said, 'Because I'm given the resources to try and do my job well, I make a contribution, that contribution is valued, I like the people I'm doing it with, and I feel like I'm developing my career.' And I just thought, wow — isn't that the kind of place everybody wants to work? So what we're trying to do is to get that dynamic going everywhere in the company, and letting the right and best ideas come up organically.

Well, and useful for us. I think it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we could do and going to have to do. These jobs in manufacturing become tougher and tougher. We have more and more competition — there's big distribution warehouses for large multinational distribution companies. Amazon and Walmart are entering the space with million-square-foot or bigger warehouses and rail spurs and huge logistics centers, and all of those things compete with manufacturing jobs. And we're in the upstate of South Carolina — we're also in North Carolina and Georgia and many other places around the world, but the concentration of our manufacturing is really in the upstate of South Carolina. And it's the third fastest-growing state in the country. This area has attracted big players in the automotive industry — BMW just announced their electrical vehicle plant is going to be here in addition to their largest SUV plant in the world. We've got lots of people moving to the state, it's a long list of people that I could mention. And so we're going to have to do it all. We're going to have to be an attractive place to work, we're going to have to develop the people we have. We've been running chronically — during COVID it was almost 10 percent short of our desired employment levels. Now it's maybe one percent, so we have closed that gap. But you just don't see a lot of people moving into manufacturing, and so there's a lot of work to be done also with technical centers and the community colleges, and even working on Second Chance programs with a couple of different partners — people leaving the penal system — and giving them the opportunity to have a career. So everybody's welcome in terms of trying to be a contributor. In addition, we're going to have to come up with a lot more digital tools. We're focusing first on the unsafe and injury-prone areas. So visual inspection around a fast-moving line of textiles can be a dangerous place, and then the heavy lifts on material. So the digital journey as well as the developmental journey, I think, are the only way for manufacturing to really succeed long-term in the U.S.

Well, I'll just say — if anybody's considering that, please apply. We're anxious to have you and honored to have you consider Milliken as a great place to work. It's an environment where we really do take the time to orient and acclimate people to our culture. We have a certain way of doing things in terms of being performance-driven but also team-oriented, collaborating, working solutions, being open to things you haven't thought of. And so we're looking for that type of curiosity from people coming in about how we can make things better. We are fundamentally an innovation company as well, so we've got a large technical community that are constantly looking at problems and trying to figure out how there could be a better solution. I think it's part of our DNA to be open, hardworking, curious, and inclusive. And I think when you get that combination of things together, anything's possible.

It's been my pleasure, Lou, and good luck — love your series. And again, a thank you to Newsweek, LinkedIn, and Facebook for making all this possible. Thank you.