Human Solutions · 2026-03-17 · 31 min
Manufacturing is one of those environments that exposes every gap in your HR infrastructure fast. When you're covering three shifts, managing safety committees, handling workers' comp, and trying to get information to people who don't have a company email address, "strategic HR" starts to feel like a luxury. This episode, Terry Cook and Stacey Wenczel join Pete to talk about what it actually looks like to do HR in a plant environment - the strain, the workarounds, and the risks that quietly accumulate when no one's watching. The conversation covers a lot of ground: how shift supervisors end up doing de facto HR work on overnight shifts and why that creates its own resentment and risk; why safety committees work best when someone who doesn't work in an area is the one walking through it; and how accommodation requests in physically demanding roles force a more honest conversation about essential job functions than most HR professionals are used to having. Terry also demystifies donning and doffing - the question of whether the time employees spend putting on and taking off protective equipment is compensable - and why the location of your time clock matters more than you'd think.
Workplace Investigations with Sarah Piscatelli and Tom Jones59 / 100
Pre-Hiring Assessments: Smarter Hiring or Hidden Risk?
Orientation & Onboarding with Kyle Pardo & Annette Dupree
Taking Family Leave: What People Wish They Knew with Sarah Piscatelli and Mary McNally
Recalibration 2025: Federal Contractors, Remote Work, and the Morale Crisis