Manufacturer Breaks the Mold by Reducing Turnover by More Than 70%

The Challenge

Revere Plastics Systems, a manufacturer of plastic injection molding, is planning to double in size by 2023. In 2019, the Novi, Michigan-based company brought in a new Vice President of Human Resources Kristi Stuetzer to help make this plan a reality, and she immediately began to look at new HR and payroll solutions.

Revere Plastics has been around for nearly 70 years. With their eyes and goals focused on bold growth, they needed a new technology platform that could help them achieve and exceed their expectations. The Midwest is known for its manufacturing production plants and dealing with both competitive landscapes and low retention. As such, Revere Plastics needed to put more focus on molding a winning culture. “The number one thing we're working on is culture and how we show we value everyone wherever they are at in the company,” says Kristi. “We're on a journey of empowering their voice and making them feel confident to speak up.”

Reaching and engaging employees is often a struggle, especially when workers don't work at computers and desks, but Revere's 1,200 employees are also spread across eight different locations. “We’re finding quite a few of our employees don’t have smartphones,” says Kristi. “We're operating from a communication deficit.”

Furthermore, retaining their best employees is an ongoing struggle. “Our profit margins are razor thin, and that means that we have to be as efficient as possible. I would say 85% of our company is hourly,” explains Kristi. “We're competing with larger chain companies for talent, and it's very difficult to find, engage, and keep talent. We want to develop and grow our people.”

The Solution

Kristi and her team selected Paylocity to help address these concerns and began leveraging core tools, like HR & Payroll and Onboarding, to optimize and
streamline those functions. Revere hires about 10 people per week, so automating the Recruiting and Onboarding process saves the HR team nearly 11 hours a week.

Kristi is also focused on slowing turnover by building culture and making sure employees feel appreciated using tools like Impressions. “It's important that everyone understands what they mean to us in the role they play and how much of a difference they make to our customers.”

With a lot of the staff lacking access to smartphones or company email addresses, reaching all employees has been an ongoing challenge. Revere rolled out a newsletter using Paylocity’s social collaboration and communication tool, Community. “Paylocity is key for us, because we can roll out announcements in Community. It's definitely our number one way of getting information to everyone. Also, birthdays or work anniversaries are displayed in the activity feed, and our CEO will comment on the post. Our people love that.”

The Results

By leveraging Paylocity tools to increase communications with Community, offer peer-to-peer recognition with Impressions, collect direct feedback to apply to decision-making, and give employees access to training with the Learning Management System, Revere has seen a substantially more engaged workforce. “There's been a lot of education that has gone into the fight for building a strong culture so we can retain people. We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to decrease our turnover by 70% in such a short time!”

Kristi stresses the impact peer-to-peer recognition and communication, including video Impressions, have made on that reduced turnover rate. “We have a gentleman who started in May,” says Kristi. “He manages one of our smallest plants and has given more impressions than any other manager in the company. And we have managers that have given more than 1,000 impressions. It’s crazy.”

Kristi and the leadership team embraced Community, but it especially helped spotlight a need during the pandemic. They maintained connection while also
delivering important communication through the platform.

"Our scores are above industry benchmarks and correlate with some of the initiatives we launched to build culture and drive engagement,” says Kristi. “In three short months, our internal net promoter score (NPS) surveys went from 1% completion to 40%. We're also saving nearly $23,000 by automating our communication and engagement process, and that is huge.”