ALOM Honored for Cultural Transformation by 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards

ALOM, the global supply chain management company, has been selected as a winner in the 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards in the category of Achieving Excellence Through Cultural Transformation by the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) Manufacturing Leadership Council. ALOM is being honored for implementing programs to build and develop a highly engaged workforce by emphasizing its inclusive, values-driven corporate culture as a competitive differentiator.

ALOM will be recognized at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala on June 29, 2022, at the JW Marriott in Marco Island, Fla. The gala is the culminating event for Rethink: The Manufacturing Leadership Council Summit.

ALOM recognized the looming talent crisis early and took significant steps to ensure that the company could maintain its competitive edge in recruiting and retaining talented staff. When pandemic-related workforce shortages impacted other companies, ALOM’s proactive strategies were well into the implementation stages. Several years before the pandemic, top management set a strategic goal to be an Employer of Choice, being able to attract and retain exceptional talent.

“I joined ALOM because of its strong mission-driven culture,” said Paul Vagadori, Head of People for ALOM. “Our culture is built on demonstrated values of belonging, collaboration, diversity and performance excellence. This has fueled exceptional team spirit and alignment, resulting in a dedicated and highly engaged workforce. To support this, we have created a learning environment that inspires innovation, professional and personal growth, and high performance, while embedding our culture of respect, trust, and inclusion for each other and our community in everything we do.”

Like most expanding companies, workforce recruitment and employee retention has become increasingly important to ALOM. In an effort to address the growing talent gap caused by fewer workers joining the manufacturing industry to replace retiring veterans, ALOM elevated the importance and effectiveness of recruitment and retention to a strategic priority in 2018.

“At a time when the talent crisis is a critical issue for so many companies, ALOM is fortunate to have a strong, skilled, and dedicated workforce,” said President and CEO Hannah Kain. “When I founded ALOM 25 years ago, my goal was to lead the supply chain industry by building a top-performing, all-inclusive team. Over time, an inclusive, service-driven performance culture took shape, fueling exceptional growth and resulting in a dedicated and highly engaged workforce. This award recognizes the success we have achieved in transforming and extending our culture to a new generation of workers that has enabled our employees, the company, and our clients to grow and excel.”

ALOM conceived a culturally transformational approach to address this challenge: the DOING initiative, which stands for Development, Opportunity, INclusion, and Growth. DOING ensures that ALOM’s ethical ideology and core values are delivered at every touch point of employee engagement – recruiting, developing, training, rewarding, and empowering its workforce – and that this is replicated in new locations as the company expands.

The DOING initiative accelerated in 2021 to address ALOM’s need for increased hiring to meet client program growth requirements. While other companies were focused on mitigating the impacts of the “Great Resignation,” a movement triggered by the philosophical or physical impact of COVID-19 that spurred employees to leave their jobs or exit the workforce entirely, ALOM focused on continued growth and upskilling.

ALOM technology has supported the implementation of DOING at every stage. Two successful, high-impact examples are:

• -ALOM University, an online system customized for each employee to develop skills and nurture their personal development, as well as for every ALOM job role, to deliver educational and training content, effectively onboard new employees, prepare staff for promotion, and ensure completion of required supervisory, data security, and/or safety training.

• -Automated Applicant Tracking to integrate high visibility job postings on recruitment portals, resume screening, and candidate engagement/interview scheduling functions. 

The DOING initiative has delivered exceptional results. In 2021, ALOM successfully established itself as the Employer of Choice in an extremely competitive labor market, increasing its workforce headcount by 70 percent with a six percent decrease in employee attrition (2021 vs. pre-pandemic year 2018) and a 65 percent reduction in recruitment days to fill open positions.

“To reach this next generation of industry leaders, ALOM must demonstrate how our principles are aligned, why we are making a positive difference in the world, and why each and every employee matters to our shared mission,” Vagadori concluded.

The Manufacturing Leadership Awards honor manufacturing companies and individual manufacturing leaders that are shaping the future of global manufacturing through digital transformation. Winning projects and individual manufacturing leaders have demonstrated achievement across a wide range of categories and are chosen by a panel of expert judges for results that have delivered clear and compelling value, return on investment, and other tangible outcomes.