This is your 'How To Build My Company App' if you are a manufacturing company. We gathered examples of best practices from leading companies in the market to help you identify what can be relevant for your company - check it out!
Manufacturing companies use Connecteam for:
Raising Safety Standards and Awareness
Day-to-Day Digital Reporting and Checklists
Streamlining Communication to Deskless Employees
Making SOPs and Company Protocols Available
Human Resources needs
Compliance Purposes
Training
1. Raising Safety Standards and Awareness
Safety first: Safety plays a key role for manufacturing companies, and as such, raising awareness and standards is a very common goal for manufacturing companies using Connecteam. Best practices include:
Quick and easy reporting - making it easy for all employees, whether on the warehouse, shop or on the road, to report in realtime, and automatically send this to the relevant officer/supervisor for further evaluation and response.
Safety digital resources - making all safety protocols, tips and resources available in a click, as well as 'lessons learned', incident findings, and periodical safety tips.
Ongoing safety trainings - allowing managers and safety officers to keep close track of progress on an individual level.
Safety first communication - distribution and communication of safety related updates and protocols. Some examples may include incident finding reports, updates to procedures, real-time updates on prohibitions or risk factors such as a closed route or rough weather conditions.
2. Day-to-day Digital Checklists and Reports
As day-to-day operations are a core element for manufacturing companies, checklists and reports are commonly used to reduce friction from day-to-day activities, automate information flow, improve response time, and gain better oversight. Here are some popular examples:
Safety hazard observation
Incident report
Vehicle accident report
Safety inspection form (for supervisors)
Repair order ticket (equipment / forklift / crane )
Driver checklists for loading / unloading procedures
Daily crane inspections
Pre-drive checklists for forklift.
QA checklist
Safety inspection checklist
Delivery acceptance checklist
Pre-release delivery checklist
Visitors request form
Expense reimbursement
Employee performance review
All entries submitted by employees are always digitally logged, can be automatically sent to a predefined email address as a PDF copy and can be exported in an Excel supported format.
3. Streamlining Communication
Communicating with teams is critical but not easy to achieve in a dynamic manufacturing environment. Some of the communication methods and tools used to overcome this challenge include:
Chat groups and channels - to streamline day-to-day communication easily and efficiently.
Employee directory - making it easy to find the contact details of team members, with full permission management.
Realtime push notifications and updates: for both formal and informal announcements. Wether on the company level, or on the line manager level.
A few examples include:
4. Making SOPs and Company protocols available
The most common resource manufacturing companies make available on the app for their employees:
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Safety and emergency protocols
Employee handbook
Code of ethics
Sexual harassment policy
Uniform policy
5. Human Resource Needs
HR teams and executives in manufacturing companies leverage Connecteam for additional capabilities beyond communication and employee engagement, but also for automating of process and for better control over workforce related issues:
Recommendations - making it easy for the workforce to recommend friends for a position which helps increase their recruitment reach.
Vacation/sick leave request management - users receive an automatic update if requests were denied or approved.
Personal information form for on-boarding new employees (personal info, contact info, emergency contact, documents such as tax forms /photo ID etc.)
Updating contact information (Address /name / mobile/ email /bank account change)
Employee satisfaction surveys or performance reviews.
7. Compliance purposes
Connecteam is used by manufacturing companies for compliance purposes. 'Read and sign' forms are common, as well as periodical refresher training courses. All documents are logged and automatically sent as a PDF copy to predefined email(s) that can be customized per each form, and users can export a summary report at any time.
Read and sign documents include:
Employee handbook acknowledgment
Uniform agreement
Sexual harassment policy
Incident findings report
Other read and sign documents.
Periodical refresher trainings include:
Winter driving
Working at height
Sexual harassment training
Loading safety tips
Protocol refresher training.
8. Training
In-app training is mostly used to reach every single employee and keep track of progress and execution of trainings on subjects such as:
Health and safety training
Driving related trainings
Sexual harassment training
Equipment usage and maintenance
Test and quizzes.
9. Job scheduling
Manufacturing companies often require the ability to manage complex scheduling needs, and utilize Connecteam to do that:
Job scheduling:
Letting line managers manage their divisions schedules directly.
Assigning employees to shifts based on different locations and customer base.
Keeping records of check-in / check-out time and location, and allowing for shift notes and comments.
Allowing employees to accept/reject shifts (optional - can be disabled).