A panel discussion on company culture was the centerpiece for the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s most recent Manufacturers’ Council meeting Thursday at the F.W. Weber Leadership Campus in Sand Springs. 

About 40 people attended the Arvest Bank-sponsored event, and 2024 Council Chair Colin Jones, of Slim Haney Machining, Inc., moderated the panel, which featured Sherry Bates, culture, inclusion and engagement manager at AAON, Inc.; Steve Caldwell, director of human resources at McElroy Manufacturing; and Brian Miller, president of Midwest Precision, Inc. 

The conversation ranged from the importance of communication and surveying your employees to dealing with generational gaps and an employee who needs to be fired. 

“It comes down to building trust, getting our senior leadership on board, making sure that they reiterate often that we are here,” Bates said of communication. “We do want to know your needs. We want to understand your needs.” 

Caldwell said he dislikes performance indices as a form of evaluation.

“Development doesn’t happen in a room,” he said. “It happens by experience in real time. You have to either address bad performance or good performance in real time.”

As for communication, Miller stressed it’s best to let it flow. 

“People do not pull punches; in fact, they will use a different pen or pencil and hide their name,” he said of feedback. “One of my favorite things about the survey is that most people put their name on it. That is the trust that we have earned. 

“I hear about so many things today. I hear about more things than I want to hear about, but I hear about them. People come tell me and that is only through trust that you will be protecting information or you are going to use the information to improve the situation for everybody.” 

Managing a workplace containing many generations can be difficult, Bates said. As an example, she compared the habits of a Gen Z employee (up to 27-years-old) and a Baby Boomer (60 or older). 

“There’s conflict; she’s on time, every day,” Bates said. “She’s working her eight hours like all-in. She’s focused. 

“Then, you have the Gen Z’ers who have conversations. They are watching movies while they are working. But Gen Z’ers are fast. They are technical. They can get things done a little bit quicker even though the Baby Boomers’ checks and balances may be a little better. 

“When we can bring those ideas and that collaboration together, we can celebrate that diversity. It’s all about having the conversations and helping them to understand the differences and what makes us better.”

Some of the panelists also spoke about how they approached terminations. At a previous company, Caldwell said he once had to reduce the workforce from 950 to 450. 

The bad news, he said, must “come from a place of respect…They might have screwed up pretty bad. Tell them that. But make sure they understand that there is a path out if they make some changes. Help them understand that. Use it as a teaching moment.”

Firing someone who isn’t doing the job actually can boost company morale, Miller said. 

“We have a couple of people who we’ve let go who were really long-term employees, and once they were gone, the air just releases, and the pressure just goes out and everybody starts whistling and talking and walking around like, ‘What happened?’” he said. “We removed the cancer. People don’t want to sit next to somebody who is underperforming and then be treated the same. We talk about being treated fair. Quality is a different term. Fair is something we can all pursue, and it looks different for each person.

“Having the composure to realize that each person has different needs but trying to be fair across that – not fair but equal – with their needs is a huge culture-building, trust-building exercise.” 

The Chamber sponsors bi-monthly meetings of the Manufacturers’ Council, which convenes Chamber-member manufacturers for networking and discussion on issues impacting their companies and the sector. For more information about the Manufacturers’ Council, please contact Brien Thorstenberg, the Chamber’s vice president of economic development, at 918-560-0231.