How Do You Consume MMT Content?

Royce Hix is a controller for Snider Mold Company in Meqoun, Wisconsin, who reached out to me to say that he enjoyed reading our workforce development article series and was encouraged to see the exposure for successful apprenticeship and training programs.

This caught Royce’s attention because although his primary function at Snider Mold is accounting and finance, he also works in human resources, regarding recruiting, retention and benefits. In fact, he helped reinitiate Snider’s apprenticeship program in partnership with a local technical college.

So like me you may be asking, how does a controller get involved in apprenticeship programming? I’ll let Royce explain.

“By virtue of being at a small company, our Controller role oversees all accounting, finance, and human resources functions. By extension, that includes recruiting and retention efforts. Personally, I saw a lack of ongoing apprenticeships, and no apparent intention to start up new apprentices. We had two employees show interest, so I knew it was important to get rolling sooner than later. I contacted the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, worked closely with the technical college, put together cost and production loss estimates, and gave a nice, tidy package to management for approval. It works as a training, recruiting, and retention tool all‐in‐one, which is highly valuable to me in this role and us as a company. It also took the administrative burden away from production employees, allowing journeymen mentors to focus on mentoring, and me to focus on hours tracking and other administrative tasks.”

Currently, the shop has two active apprentices who came to Snider with no prior tool and die experience. “We provide exposure to design and machining, which will open up their future career paths significantly to fill different roles within the company. They appreciate the guaranteed wage increases every 1040 hours, and the paid tuition we’offer,” Royce says.

Royce also acknowledged that having active apprentices helps him recruit higher-quality candidates. Snider is planning to start one of its tool designers in an apprenticeship program by the end of the year.

I asked Royce how he read the article series to get a feel for how the next generation working in moldmaking is consuming content.

He says after he receives our monthly email with a link to the digital edition, he saves it as a PDF to his desktop for local reading. “Since I tend to read it sporadically over the course of a week or so, I don’t like to leave it open in a browser for that long,” he explains. “Generally, I read digital and PDF-based content. Social media may link me to an article or two via LinkedIn, but I don’t generally spend a great deal of time on there.”

I wanted to dig a little deeper, so I asked why he consumes technical content that way. “Ease of use is the main reason I choose digital and PDF over print and other channels. Print media tends to accumulate on my desk, getting buried and eventually thrown in the recycling bin. Videos take too long to watch and generally require sound and prolonged attention. With digital and PDF files, I can leave them open, save the browser tab or file, and revisit it at any time for even just a minute or two. Zoom and search features are helpful to have. With PDF files especially, I can export just a page or two and email it to a colleague.”

This then begs the question of anyone reading this blog: How do you read MMT content? Email me your feedback.