Why Connecteam is the Best Employee App for Manufacturing Companies

The pandemic changed the way everything was run before. Communicating became harder with all the rules to follow. Employees were waiting for their managers to call with the latest safety updates. The manufacturing industry is changing and the right employee app can make all the difference.

Over the next few years, the manufacturing industry is expected to grow but the number of challenges a manufacturing company faces isn’t going away anytime soon. From improving efficiency to ensuring safety to increasing ROI to training employees and so much more.

We chose to round up the most common challenges the manufacturing industry faces on a regular basis and how this led hundreds of companies to choose Connecteam as their solution to overcome those challenges. We also highlight exactly how manufacturing companies utilize Connecteam.

What challenges manufacturing companies faced before Connecteam:

Ensuring All Safety Procedures Are Followed

“Updating all employees on hazards or incidents takes time that can cost us and can really put our employees in danger. We waste so much time calling employees to make sure they’re aware of certain safety protocols when it’s necessary. And scheduling meetings that work for everyone to discuss safety protocols takes too much time.”

“Whenever we update our safety protocols, we waste time printing new pages and adding it to the safety binder. Getting these updates to numerous job sites takes too long and we have no way to ensure all employees are aware of the new safety changes.”

Safety is your top priority. With Connecteam, you can ensure you meet the rules and regulations. You can add videos, images, PDFs along with your local rules and regulations. It doesn’t stop there. You can create checklists, reports and workflows which employees can fill out on the job. As you receive all the information in real-time, you are able to make changes before they become a hazard. 

Receiving Checklists and Reports From the Field Takes Too Long

“Just receiving an equipment repair report can take hours or even days, by that time everything is already stuck and it’s hard to go through it all.”

Connecteam allows you to automate daily processes and operational procedures. Instantly receive live updates from the field in a click.

These include:

• Safety checklist
• Hazard reports
• Inspection report
• Accident report
• Tool inspection checklist
• Employee injury report  
• Site opening checklist

Internal Communication Isn’t Easy

“Communicating updates and announcements to all my employees is a nightmare – whether I’m sending mass text messages or am calling people all day long, it just isn’t an efficient way to let my team know about bad weather conditions or potential hazards or even to just send an encouraging message because the team is doing great work. We have to coordinate meetings for everything which can waste a lot of time we can’t afford to lose.” 

“I have no way to track who received and read my message and sometimes it’s crucial that everyone not only gets the message but that they read it too.”

With Connecteam, you can communicate with all your team via one app. The chat feature allows you to chat with your entire team via group chat. You can also update one employee via a single chat, making it easier to keep your team safe.

Training Employees Take Too Long

“Wasting a day or even a few hours to train my employees on a new method or to learn about new machinery doesn’t make business sense. The employees dread coming to these training meetings and we hate organizing them to make sure the time and date work for everyone all the time.”

Training no longer needs to take hours. With Connecteam, add all your employee handbooks, company policies, and other business files straight into the library. The library is searchable and is accessible from any device, any time.

Creating the Perfect Schedule Doesn’t Exist

“I can spend hours creating the schedule because I’m checking everyone’s availability and time-off requests and sometimes the information I have isn’t the most updated one. If someone calls in, it’s a mess trying to find the right person to cover their shift. I lose so much time creating and updating the schedule every month.”

Connecteam allows you to schedule individual, team shifts and for onsite employees. You can set schedules ahead of time, allowing you to plan for the weeks ahead. You can easily attach notes, equipment list, location, and much more.

How Connecteam helps you tackle common challenges

1. Raising the Bar on Safety and Awareness

There is no doubt that safety is an integral part of manufacturing companies, and as such, raising awareness and standards is a very common goal for manufacturing companies using Connecteam. 

• Quick and easy reporting: whether your employees are in the shop or in the warehouse, it’s easy for them to send reports in real-time to the relevant office or supervisor for further evaluation and response. For example, reporting an incident or a hazard like a broken ladder.
• Safety digital resources: ensure all your safety protocols, tips, and resources are available in a click, plus key materials like ‘lessons learned’, incident findings, and periodical safety tips.
• Ongoing safety training: allow managers and safety officers to maintain a watchful eye on an employee’s progress. See if employees completed a course or quiz and send reminders to those who have yet to finish.
• Safety first communication: easily send distribution and communication of safety-related updates and protocols in real-time. Some examples include incident finding reports, updates to procedures, real-time updates on prohibitions, or risk factors like a closed route or rough weather conditions.

2. Daily Checklists and Reports

To maintain day-to-day operations, checklists and reports are commonly used to help reduce friction from daily activities, automate information flow, and gain better oversight on business matters and employee affairs. Common checklists and reports that manufacturing companies create on Connecteam include:

• Safety hazard observation
• Incident report
• Vehicle accident report
• Safety inspection form (for supervisors)
• Repair order ticket
• Driver checklists for loading and unloading procedures 
• Daily crane inspections
• Pre-drive checklists for forklift
• Safety inspection checklist
• Delivery acceptance checklist
• Pre-release delivery checklist
• Visitors request form
• Expense reimbursement
• Employee performance review

Additionally, all entries submitted by your employees are digitally logged, can be automatically sent to a predefined email address as a PDF copy, and can also be exported in an Excel supported format.

3. Streamlining Communication

Communicating with all your employees is key but it isn’t always easy to achieve. With Connecteam’s communication tools, it becomes easier to overcome these challenges.

• Employee Directory: find the right contact details of coworkers, managers, and more. Search by name, job role, department, and so on. 
• Chat groups and channels: to streamline day-to-day communication easily and efficiently, you can chat about the employee of the month, poor weather conditions, the best route to the job site, and more.
• Realtime push notifications and updates: for both formal and informal announcements, such as HR updates, announcements, information distribution, safety, and more.

Company protocols are instantly available

Manufacturing companies prefer to keep their most common resource material available to their employees in the click of the button to ensure compliance: 

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) 
• Safety and emergency protocols
• Employee handbook
• Code of ethics
• Sexual harassment policy
• Uniform policy

4. Human Resource Needs

HR teams and executives use Connecteam’s free HRMS software for more than just communication and employee engagement, but to also automate processes and for more control over workforce-related issues:

• Recommendations: easily recommend friends for a position at the company to help increase recruitment reach.
• Vacation/sick leave request: employees know straight away if requests were approved or denied with an automatic update. 
• Personal information form: when onboarding new employees, it’s easy to get everything you need like personal info, contact info, emergency contact, documents like tax forms /photo ID, etc.
• Updating contact information: employees can update their contact information straight on the app and you receive an update – from changes to their address, name, mobile number, email, bank account information, and more. 
• Employee satisfaction surveys or performance reviews: send surveys and track responses in real-time and maintain performance reviews on a regular basis for more accurate feedback.

5. Compliance Purposes

Ensuring that all your employees are compliant through ‘Read and sign’ forms and periodical refresher training courses is a must. What’s even more impressive is that 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 training include:

• Winter driving
• Working at height
• Sexual harassment training
• Loading safety tips
• Protocol refresher training.

6. Training Employees

By providing training via the app, you can reach all your employees on an ongoing basis. Plus, it’s easy to keep track of progress and execution of training on subjects such as:

• Health and safety training
• Driving related training 
• Sexual harassment training
• Equipment usage and maintenance
• Test and quizzes.

It isn’t just about onboarding new hires but also improving your current employees’ professional skills on a regular basis to ensure there are no knowledge gaps.

7. Job scheduling

Manufacturing companies are faced with complex scheduling needs but with Connecteam, it is an easy task to manage:

• Let line managers manage their division’s schedules directly.
• Assign employees to shifts based on different locations and customer base.
• Allowing employees to accept and reject shifts (optional – can be disabled).
• Keeping records of the clock in and out time and location with GPS stamps, and allowing for shift notes and comments for further explanation when needed.
• These records are saved as timesheets and can be reviewed by you and your employees for legitimacy.
• Timesheets are easily transferred onto payroll where processes directly integrate with QuickBooks Online and Gusto.

All in all, Connecteam helps manufacturing companies run their business, provides an easy way to communicate, a better way to let users report from the field, and to keep everyone on the same page when it comes to safety and compliance. On a higher level, Connecteam is a true all-in-one employee management solution that has many capabilities to take your business forward. Plus, with its amazing price, it’s a no-brainer.