Brian Enders, Assembly Leader at BW Papersystems in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has 60 team members in his span of care. His duties consist of scheduling day-to-day tasks, troubleshooting problems, keeping people on task, maintaining a positive culture and everything in between.
But when Brian first joined BW almost 15 years ago, he wasn’t in a leadership position. Throughout his BW journey, he progressed from working in the stockroom to becoming the Parts Flow Leader before his promotion to his current role of Assembly Leader.
Brian knows the feeling of accomplishment in achieving career goals firsthand, and he empowers those he leads to chase their dreams as well.
“My biggest thing is fulfillment at work and outside of work, that you want to come to work every day and you're proud to be a BW team member,” Brian said. “To me, that's the biggest thing, the fulfillment of your position.”
BW Papersystems builds corrugators and corrugated finishing equipment; folio-size, cut-size, and digital-size sheeters that companies use to convert paper, board, and other materials into boxes, folding cartons, ream-wrapped paper for copy machines, and passports. In this type of industrial manufacturing environment, there are many different types of roles that use many different skills.
People must put in the work before they become happy with their work. Getting to a point of complete career contentment doesn’t come without deep self-reflection, so Brian lets his team members take the lead during their development discussions, making sure their talents and abilities can come to the surface.
"‘What do you want to do?’” Brian asks. “‘Not five years from now; five minutes from now. Do you like what you're doing?’”
Too often in business, people aren’t given the support they need to succeed for themselves. Instead, they are seen as functions for someone else’s success: an assembler assembles, a salesperson sells, a bookkeeper keeps the books.
We must realize that people are more than the role they were hired to do. Everyone is someone’s precious child, and their talents can span far beyond what is outlined in a job description.
“To me, the culture is you're a person,” Brian said. “And boy, I can't stress in today's society, when people come in there, how much that means to somebody, coming from these other places that treat you as a number, especially in Sheboygan. There's a lot of manufacturing.”
However, people can’t thrive in their positions unless they feel secure. People and performance aren’t dissonant; they’re harmonious. As CEO Bob Chapman often says, a robust business model is a Ferrari engine, and a positive workplace culture is 85 octane fuel. While a sports car can run without premium fuel, it’s not going to go very fast.
“I’ve been in manufacturing a long time,” Brian said. “Pay is great. To me, security is way more important, that you can feel like you can buy a house, a car, provide for your family, college fund, whatever it is.”
Barry-Wehmiller is not in business to simply sell machines. We’re in business so that all our team members can be part of something bigger. So they can be part of a business that creates both economic and human value.
“I think BW's culture is, bar none, the best,” Brian said.
Better Work. Better World. is a video series designed to shine a
light on team members throughout the global Barry-Wehmiller
organization. Watch the video through the link above to hear more.