Milliken has been on a journey of Excellence for well over 40 years which is underpinned by the Milliken Performance System (MPS). The first decade of the MPS mostly concentrated on improving our operational performance. In 2007 the MPS was given its first revision with additional pillars added to the system. Lean Enterprise was added to focus leader’s minds that MPS should be going beyond manufacturing. Since then, many of Milliken’s non-manufacturing functions such as Finance, Sales and Procurement have used the same methodologies as our Operations teams to increase value, reduce waste and make Milliken a better place to work. One such function is Human Resources (HR). Our HR teams continue to refine our people processes and provide a key foundation of support to other functions in their excellence journey.

I caught up with Emma Thomas, HR Business Partner for EMEA Floor Covering to understand how our HR teams are not only supporting enterprise wide MPS but also continually improving our HR function. “It starts with our OGSM (Objectives-Goals-Strategies-Measures) goal setting and action plan framework for our HR strategic planning. It is used across the EMEA Floor Covering organization and brings together the various functions. It enables us to focus on how we can improve the HR function, but also where we can play a key role in helping other functions and ultimately the business achieves its ambitions. Utilizing SAP Analytics Cloud Stories (A story is a document that uses charts, visualizations, images, and other objects to describe and analyze data) we can track measures such as staff absence or turnover at a touch of a button. This allows us to see trends more quickly which enables us to be more responsive and agile. Our SAP Analytics Cloud Stories dashboard also visualizes leading metrics such as risk. For example, risk of skills gaps to be created by potential retirees, so we can see where potential issues can arise and again, we can be more agile and move quickly to mitigate these risks. In addition to the delivery of our key metrics, we also have breakthrough projects that run through our OGSM.”

The introduction of Strive was a major corporate roll out. Strive, is a system and framework for goal-related activities that we introduced across the entire Milliken business over 2021 and 2022. Strive provides a structure to house and track goal-related activities across the company on a role, divisional and organizational level. Strive is our Talent (Management) Central portal where individuals can login to not only work on their personal development and performance targets and goals there are also places to visit such as Milliken Wire (company newsletter), Milliken University (company training site) and Inspire (Milliken’s recognition system).

Milliken’s Strive System Landing Page

Strive replaced Milliken’s historical personal development system and Emma shares the benefits of the new system. “Strive is a lot more interactive than our previous system. You could only really interact with your targets and goals twice a year unless your manager made changes. The new system is live throughout the year. There is still a mid-year check in, but every Milliken associate on the Strive system can interact with their (personal and performance) goals and targets throughout the year. We’ve seen associates increase their interactivity and focus on both their performance measures but also, actively working on their development goals. This has encouraged individuals to take complete ownership for their development with support from their line manager. We felt that the previous system had become a digital tick box, the Strive system is truly interactive. Associates can really take control of their careers and consider the career matrix. They can make live requests for education but also seek out courses using the Milliken University process.” Milliken University offers a wide range or courses and workshops. Some are self-learning and assessment; some are teacher led remote workshops and others are in-person physical workshops. It depends on the associates preferred learning style and the functionality and logistics of the course being offered. We also offer external certification on a case-by-case basis. Aligned to Milliken’s values and in the spirit of learning we’ve financially supported some of the children of our associates through the Milliken Associate Dependent Scholarship Program. This benefit offers dependents of full-time Milliken & Company associates renewable scholarships.

Strive not only benefits individual associates but also makes the process sleeker and more effective for the HR teams. While there are still annual deadlines, the fact that the interaction with Strive is continuous evens out the demand instead of generating a mountain of work for all just before year end. Strive not only promotes lifelong learning but also aligns to our company values and supports associate engagement. Emma notes one of the challenges of Strive and how Milliken is mitigating this. “With Strive, our associates have become rightly more aspirational in terms of their career progression. One of the challenges with this is that we have low turnover and fairly flat organizations. Some of the aspirational needs people have is a need for a change, to challenge themselves, rather than just a promotion. We have a digital pin board called DeX (Development Experience). This is where individuals can look at open roles and projects that require resourcing across the company and increases horizontal role changes and meets the needs of those associates wanting to do something different.” Historically, it is likely that we would have lost some of these people to other organizations or had frustrated associates. The opportunities that are now available to make a difference in alternative way is a real plus. Some roles, such as a MPS leader are a real opportunity for someone to get involved in all aspects of a Milliken business, both operational and non-operational. These roles provide a platform for individuals to either continue their Business Excellence career journey or go into another leadership role.

Leadership development is something that Milliken has focused on and resourced in recent years. Many organizations have a generic leadership program. Milliken recognizes that this method has limitations. To ensure continued excellence in leadership, Milliken established a series of Leadership pathways where the content is specific and targeted to the role. These pathways include Leading the Organization a pathway developed with the UVA Darden School of Business for Senior Leadership Team members. Lead Together  is a pathway for business and site level leaders, focusing on leading people, this pathway looks at leadership styles through to situational leadership. Lead in Manufacturing is a more tactical pathway focusing on the needs of front-line leaders and supervisors. Again, this pathway covers a spectrum of modules from giving and receiving feedback through to trust in the relationship (with the leader’s team). Leaders that don’t have direct reports but lead processes, such as MPS Leaders, are enrolled on the Lead by Influence pathway. Where the content is specific to leading with impact. All the leadership pathways work on a push and pull take up. Ideally, we want our leaders to pull by enrolling themselves or asking for enrollment on these pathways. Sometimes there is a need to push and invite them onto the pathways. Like with Strive, the focus is on ownership on one’s own leadership development. We also support off-the-job learning and development with local educational bodies offering apprenticeships across our businesses.

Lead in Manufacturing Hub – A Resource center for those on the pathway

Employee engagement is a huge subject with many definitions. Utrecht University group of occupational psychologists which defines ‘work engagement’ as a state of mind in which, rather than being burnt out, employees show:

• Vigour (energy, resilience and effort).
• Dedication (for example, enthusiasm, inspiration and pride).
• Absorption (concentration and being engrossed in one’s work).

A comprehensive study carried out by the Gallup Organization found that engaged employees were 17% more productive than those less engaged. Emma describes how Milliken continues to work on improving engagement on a day-to-day basis. “Our annual pulse surveys provide us with lots of direction. We also take on board the feedback we receive from the various interactions that take place every day which are really important. The Pulse survey results are linked to our OGSM, they generate actions. We can link some of the changes we’ve made in recent years to the feedback that our associates provided through the Pulse surveys. One such example is the improved pension system for all associates. There have been many others such as healthcare provisions with our partners Vitality and Sovereign.”

“We also have a M/EET (Milliken's Event and Engagement Team - a variant of an Engagement Pillar) that is made of a cross functional group of people across our sites. They are instrumental in delivering events such as our open days when associates can bring their families into the factory to show what they do (the kids especially love this!). They organize seasonal events such as the easter egg design competition and the Christmas fair which are hugely popular with our associates. We also link our social and community activities to this process. We have a charity committee that run a calendar with lots of events over the year. Events vary so that as many people as possible can engage with them such as quizzes, 10k runs, etc.”

“Our Community Week is popular, where associates go out into the community and support local initiatives. We’re constantly involving our engagement program based on the feedback we receive.”

“Much of our engagement work happens in the plants themselves. We have a plan to hold a ‘Day-in-a-Life-of’ event later this year. This will see people moving into very different roles for the day and we hope this will be both popular and insightful. An event that not only generates improvement ideas but also improves relationships. Our coffee mornings are an opportunity for our teams to meet with our business leaders and pretty much ask anything what they want! We want people to be proud to work for Milliken and it can be a challenge to link the work done in a factory, in the industrial part of the UK, to moment a customer gets to use the final product.” Our airbag factory business has a clear link with making a product that saves lives and the team there do a great job of reinforcing that, our floor covering business must think differently. “Last year we provided the carpet for the Louis Vuitton showroom and the buzz in the plant was great as the photos were in the mainstream media. Another boost for our shopfloor associates was when our Sales team spent time on the shopfloor under our ‘meet the makers’ program. We captured this on our social media channels too. So, there is lots going on and lots to still do!”

Social Media Post from the popular ‘Meet The Makers’ campaign

Utilizing technology has been key. The Inspire Recognition system is a place where associates can recognize one-another when they do something that positively reinforces one or more of our company values. It is an opportunity to privately and/ or publicly recognize those that exhibit role model behaviors. The Viva Engage platform provides Milliken associates with digital spaces where they can share information and connect with virtual communities through text, video, photos, and other content. It’s also one of the mechanisms that we use to welcome new hires and communicate the news to the wider organization, so these new associates get the welcome they deserve!

Milliken’s Inspire System Landing Page

To summarize HR excellence, it can be considered to follow two streams. One that seeks to improve the HR function and the second that focuses on how the HR function can support other areas of the business. At Milliken, our HR teams are at the heart of much of what we do. They are instrumental to creating an environment, a culture, where people can reach their potential and consistently do their best. But also, our HR teams are on a journey of excellence too. Like many other Milliken functions, they rely on the same systems to drive continuous improvement, leveraging
technology to enhance agility, boost effectiveness, eliminate waste, and ultimately support revenue growth and industry leadership.