President's Message: Invest in Yourself and Your Employees

SBCA offers a lot of valuable opportunities to grow

In our industry, it’s so easy to get busy and narrowly focus on the challenges right in front of us each day. In that environment, often we forget to invest in our people and teams as much as we need. Fortunately, that’s where SBCA can be a valuable partner to every component manufacturer (CM). SBCA has developed a wide range of industry-specific training programs and tools that take all the guesswork and effort out of finding the right resources for your employees.

For example, being a good steward of a company’s financial resources shouldn’t be limited to just management and accounting, it should be everyone’s responsibility. That’s why SBCA worked with an industry veteran to develop the Financial Concepts Training program, and why the association is offering it to members at no charge. The content within these online training modules ranges from foundational concepts in the early modules to more complex strategies later in the program. Some members have had great success going through each section as a whole team and discussing how the concepts apply to their areas of responsibility.

The Financial Concepts Training program is just one of the many training courses offered through SBCA’s Learning Management System (LMS). Whether you are looking for rudimentary training for new truss designers, production line workers, drivers, or safety personnel, SBCA has a program perfectly suited to our industry. Investing in our employees is vital to our long-term success, so don’t pass up these great online resources.

Another way to invest in our employees is to get them engaged in face-to-face SBCA events. In September, we witnessed the biggest turnout at BCMC | FS since 2006. It is the industry’s premier event for relationship-building, gaining new ideas, and connecting with our supply chain, but it’s not SBCA’s only live event. Throughout the year, SBCA also hosts three Open Quarterly Meetings (OQMs) to bring CMs from across the country together to network, gain insights into current industry trends, and develop more resources and tools to improve the whole industry.

I was recently having lunch with one of my management teams and we were discussing our competitors. There’s a perception that exposing your people to others in the industry through face-to-face events, whether they are BCMC, OQMs, or local SBCA chapter meetings, will lead to them being poached away. The reality is your employees are more susceptible to being lured away if you aren’t fully investing in them and giving them a path and encouragement to grow.

I have seen so many individuals thrive through their attendance at OQMs and chapter meetings, me included. Having a chance to meet people outside your company that do what you do and build connections with others to help problem solve and talk through potential market opportunities, is invaluable to our growth as effective contributors in the workplace. My career would definitely not have the trajectory it has had if it wasn’t for my employer’s willingness to send me to SBCA events and encourage me to learn everything I could from other CMs.

The more connected we are as an industry, the better equipped we are to take on the challenges facing us in the market. I assume you are in a similar place as our company with regard to finding solutions to the shortage of qualified candidates to fill all your hiring needs. Virtually every employer has this problem, which means the competition for promising applicants is fierce in most communities. This is one of the reasons why our industry needs to continue innovating quickly and embracing more automated manufacturing solutions.

One of the three main pillars of SBCA’s strategic plan is to foster innovation in our industry. While individual companies need to navigate all the options to find the best solution for them, SBCA can help by attracting more options into the industry for CMs to choose from. Whether it’s in the form of software development and artificial intelligence (AI), robotic production equipment, or automated material handling, our industry needs more solutions. Many of them likely already exist, they just aren’t focused on our niche industry. SBCA will be seeking them out and showing them the potential opportunities that exist in our industry.

SBCA has an exciting year ahead of it, and I’m humbled to have the chance to lead it. I want to thank Gene Frogale for his excellent leadership over the past two years, as well as the entire SBCA Executive Committee for their unwavering commitment to the association and the industry. I also want to the thank the entire Board of Directors for their service, as well as our talented staff, we couldn’t offer all these great resources, tools, and networking events without their knowledge and hard work.

Invest in yourself and your employees in 2024. Check out all the resources SBCA has to offer in its LMS, and attend an OQM this coming year and see what it’s all about.

Jeff Taake, SBCA President