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Employee Engagement in Manufacturing for Plant Managers: Designing Time for Frontline Connection with Brian Herriot #162

Release Date: 02/04/2026

Your Best People Are Burning Out on Work They’re Good At | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 195

Greg Harrod noticed something strange partway through a career leading cross-functional teams in manufacturing. He was getting more and more of the work he was best at, and enjoying it less and less. That is not a workload problem. It is a sorting problem. We hand out work based on two things. Is this person good at it, and are they available. We almost never ask whether the work gives them energy or takes it away. So the most dependable person on the floor gets handed more of what they are dependable at, and nobody notices what it costs until they quit. Greg is a business coach, a Certified...

Your Veterans Want Clarity More Than Your New Hires Do | Frontline Leadership | Ep. 194

Walk into most plants and you’ll hear the same thing. The new, younger people need everything spelled out. The veterans just go do it. New research says that’s backwards. Seventy-six percent of Gen Z expect clear expectations of their performance and responsibilities. Among Boomers it’s 98 percent, and it climbs through every generation in between. The longer someone has worked, the more certain they are that clarity is the leader’s job. Trevor’s take is that the quieter half of that finding is the one to worry about. The veteran who isn’t clear will push back and ask. The new...

Silence Is Not Agreement | Psychological Safety and Manufacturing Team Leadership with Dr. Sunita Sah | Ep. 193

Dr. Sunita Sah asked nurses in a large hospital what stopped them from speaking up about medical errors. They gave her two answers. They were afraid of the repercussions, and they had learned that speaking up changed nothing. Then she asked their managers the same question. The managers did not name fear or effectiveness. They said the nurses were not taking responsibility, and did not have the skill set. Same floor, two completely different stories. That gap is why near misses go unreported in your plant. Sunita is a physician turned organizational psychologist, a professor at Cornell, and...

It Was Due Thursday and It’s Still Sitting There | Manufacturing Accountability | Ep. 192

You walk in Friday morning and the material is still sitting in quarantine. It was supposed to be relabeled and moved out Thursday, and you need that space today because corporate is walking the floor tomorrow. What happens in the next ten seconds decides the whole conversation. Trevor takes one real scenario from a manufacturing leader he was working with and runs it through all three gaps. How you show up, because how people feel determines how much they can engage with you. Whether Thursday was ever an agreement or just a date somebody said out loud. And what a real accountability...

Be Curious Rather Than Furious | Manufacturing Team Leadership and Culture with Karin Lindner | Ep. 191

Karin Lindner has spent fourteen years trying to make manufacturing attractive to the people who work in it, and she says it is still not there. Her new book, Making Manufacturing Sexy, argues that most manufacturing leaders are not leading. They are surviving, stuck in a system that rewards firefighting. Karin and Trevor both worked at Magna. In this conversation they get into what actually changes a plant, and it is not the equipment. Karin shares the coaching tagline she uses with every client, be curious rather than furious, and the story of a general manager who described himself as...

You Cannot Recruit Your Way Out of This │ Manufacturing Recruiting │ Ep. 190

What if the reason nobody applies has nothing to do with what you pay? In new research across the United States and Canada, concerns about physical safety ranked as the number one barrier to even considering a job in manufacturing. Pay came in fourth. Trevor assumed that was a perception problem, an old black-and-white picture nobody had bothered to correct. So he went looking for proof, and could not find any. The people closest to the industry name safety right alongside everybody else. What he found instead was a gap inside the plant. Employees named physical safety at forty percent....

Why Nobody Pulls the Cord with Dr. Michael Gillespie │ Leadership Decision Making │ Ep. 189

When was the last time somebody stopped your line and you thanked them for it? Toyota built the andon cord into the line decades ago and most plants still treat pulling it as a failure. Dr. Michael Gillespie, organizational psychologist at the University of South Florida and co-author of Distancing with David Marquet, studies why the person closest to a problem is often the least able to see it. Being locked inside your own point of view is the default setting, not an occasional lapse, which is how five people can walk up to one stopped line and each honestly see a different problem. Nobody is...

Nobody Inspects the Culture │ Safety Culture │ Ep. 188

You inspect for hazards every single day. When did anybody last inspect the culture? In new research across the United States and Canada, a toxic or unhealthy work culture ranked above unsafe or hazardous working conditions as a reason people would leave a new manufacturing job inside the first three months. Forty-seven percent against forty-three. Most leaders hear that and file it under the soft stuff. Trevor takes a different position. Four points apart is not two problems, it is one. Culture is a safety system. A plant where people do not speak up is a plant where near misses go...

Your Best Worker Is Already Halfway Out the Door with Darcy Eikenberg │ Employee Retention │ Ep. 187

Your best people rarely quit in a dramatic moment. They leave a little at a time, and by the time they give notice the decision was made weeks ago. Gallup ties about 75% of voluntary turnover to the manager, and our own national research found that 35% of workers open to manufacturing have never had a single one-on-one development conversation with their manager. You can't keep people you never really talk to. Darcy Eikenberg, executive coach and author of Red Cape Rescue: Save Your Career Without Leaving Your Job, joins Trevor to turn the retention problem around: instead of replacing the...

Why Your Best Technician Fails as a Supervisor | New Leader Onboarding | Ep. 186

Why do six in ten of your people feel unheard at work? Trevor goes one level up from the first-week mentor: the new leader nobody onboards. He unpacks why a badge and a shift turn your best technician into a command-and-control boss, what the study of 1,250 manufacturing workers with Crossover Solutions and The Center for Generational Kinetics says people actually want from a leader, and what to build into a new supervisor's first 30 days so the concerns keep coming. 🎁 Free: 10 great questions to ask your leadership and drive engagement → and get bonus content in our...

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Welcome to Manufacturing Greatness with Trevor Blondeel, where we work with organizations to manufacture greatness by leveraging resources you already have to achieve greater retention, productivity, and profits. To learn more, visit www.manufacturinggreatness.com and click here to subscribe to Trevor’s monthly newsletter.

Now, let’s jump in!

In this episode, Brian Herriot shares insights on manufacturing leadership, productivity, and employee engagement for Operations Managers, Production Managers, Manufacturing Managers, and Shift Supervisors.

Brian brings a practical, human-centered approach to help manufacturing leaders rethink work, leadership, and scheduling so they can build stronger teams without burning people out or lowering standards. You’ll hear why traditional shift models are breaking down, how “time freedom” shows up on the shop floor, and what leaders can do right now to improve engagement, retention, and ownership amid labor shortages and skills gaps.

This conversation connects soft skills with operational results, showing how curiosity, authentic leadership, and better communication skills directly impact manufacturing culture, workforce retention, and daily productivity.

02:10 – Frontline leadership must acknowledge that traditional manufacturing management models no longer align with modern workplace culture or employee engagement in manufacturing.

03:30 – Gen Z expects leadership in manufacturing plants to adapt to their lives, not the other way around

06:55 – Great manufacturing culture comes from seeing teams as humans first, not just labor inputs on the production line

09:10 –Employee ownership models and open-book management strengthen trust in leadership, manufacturing relationships, and accountability in manufacturing

11:25 – Manufacturing retention improves when leaders focus on team engagement in manufacturing rather than just output and efficiency

12:45 –Frontline leaders must recognize that many employees juggle multiple jobs and need coaching in manufacturing that supports life beyond the plant

14:10 – Flexible schedules, job sharing, and project-based roles can close the showing up gap while improving manufacturing innovation and retention

15:35 – Time Freedom as a Leadership Strategy
Leadership transformation happens when manufacturing leaders design roles that allow experienced workers to scale back without fully exiting

18:55 –Helping employees understand their financial future reduces anxiety and strengthens employee engagement in manufacturing

22:35 –Deeper conversations about money, time, and work build emotional intelligence, vulnerability in leadership, and a stronger coaching culture

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