Commercial Commentary

The winds of change are always blowing in the fenestration industry.

I mean that both literally and figuratively. Commercial insulating glass products must stand up to the toughest weather and climate challenges in the world as architects and builders grow bolder with designs, all while maintaining peak occupancy and operational efficiency. Whether it’s hot, arid environments or the coldest reaches of North America, glass needs to deliver the right performance no matter what Mother Nature throws at them. Many buildings in temperate regions must be adaptable to both hot and cold extremes. And no matter the application, commercial glazing today must deliver resiliency, durability and thermal performance for long-term success.

Manufacturers and glaziers, meanwhile, must be able to successfully deliver those reliable, resilient products while maintaining profitability and stability in their business—no matter the market conditions. Code changes, economic headwinds, design trends, raw materials supply, the availability of new technology … there’s no shortage of factors that can influence a commercial IG fabricator’s or glazier’s business. Most recently I’ve been keeping tabs on some of the major mergers and acquisitions activity that’s been taking place among some of the industry’s bigger names. Some acquisitions expand the company’s footprint into a new geographic area (e.g., Glasswerks’ acquisition of NWI). Others, like YKK AP’s recent acquisition of Erie Architectural Products, may indicate growth in a new market—in this case, fabricated, preassembled architectural products.

I bring up these examples—the performance of our products and the performance of our businesses—to illustrate a broader point: Resiliency and adaptability in the face of change are important. Whether it’s an architectural façade’s ability to keep building interiors comfortable in a variety of weather or climate conditions, or our businesses’ ability to successfully navigate marketplace fluctuations, both entities must demonstrate resiliency and adaptability for long-term success.

What does that look like in practice? Consider spacer systems, which have evolved in the past few decades from traditional metallic systems to higher-performance, warm-edge systems. These systems have demonstrated resiliency in their ability to provide long-term performance benefits to commercial glass, and adaptability in their applicability to just about any commercial glass need.

When it comes to organizational success, resiliency and adaptability apply just the same—and those qualities must be rooted in your people. I’ve written over the past few months about the importance of organizational culture, especially in the face of leadership changes, mergers and acquisitions, and an ongoing labor shortage in our industry. An organizational culture that is both resilient and adaptable is important for the successful navigation of new challenges in an evolving industry. Adaptability might mean your plant manager adjusting the manufacturing process to accommodate new technology; resiliency means remaining committed to finding the right solution even if a certain approach doesn’t work the first time. Both attributes are important for a successful culture and business.

Is your company culture resilient and adaptable? Are you utilizing technology and processes with the same attributes? It’s worth asking yourself these questions as we get moving into a new year.

Joe Erb is commercial sales specialist for Quanex Building Products.

I’ve been busy wrapping up some of my last customer meetings of the year, and before I unplug and spend some good quality time with family and friends for the holidays, I thought I’d reflect on some themes that emerged over the past few weeks.

Labor challenges continue to impact just about everyone I speak with. Turnover and retention rates are an issue—not just on the shop floor, but across sales teams and the upper levels of organizations everywhere. I touched on this in my last post and about why investing in training opportunities can be a good way to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to employees’ success. Because it’s not just about the skill sets employees can learn from training—it’s about creating a culture where your people can thrive.

Culture is important. And after some of the conversations I’ve had over the last week or so, I’m convinced it’s one of the most important qualities that can help any kind of organization retain talent and, of course, attract new talent.

I’m not alone in thinking so. Run a search and you’ll find dozens of articles detailing why a strong workplace culture can drive up engagement and retention, employee happiness and satisfaction, and employee performance. And while “culture” can feel a bit intangible or hard to define, there are a lot of tactical best practices that can contribute to how management is organized. How performance goals are set, for example. Your organization’s mission, vision and values. Benefits packages. Your dress code. Even the smallest things can have an outsized influence on people’s experience working for your company.

While there’s no true magic bullet in creating a positive culture, these are some of the things you can control. Another important quality that I’ve discovered recently is the organization’s ability to get everyone on the same page, working toward a unified mission.

An example: I recently led a few workshops for customers, helping to educate their employees on the performance attributes of our products and their contribution to their commercial insulating glass/window systems. This wasn’t just with the sales team—it was with employees from every level of the organization. For this customer, it was important that everyone was educated about and could communicate the performance benefits of their own end products.

I think the results of an effort like this are two-pronged. First, it’s important that your employees can speak intelligently about your products—no matter who they are. But secondly, it becomes a way to unite your employees and to make everyone feel like they’re playing for the same team. It helps everyone believe in their own contributions to the organization’s success and that they’re important to your organization. And that kind of unity can be a critical part of your overall culture.

These are some things worth considering as we move forward into 2020—not just a new year, but a new decade for our industry. I remain a strong believer that the glass industry’s best days are ahead of us, and whether you’re a glazier or glass manufacturer, creating strong teams full of good people will be how we get there.

Joe Erb is commercial sales specialist at Quanex Building Products.

Commercial construction continues humming along, but the colder months and the slower season are approaching. I’ve blogged in the past about a few of the more constructive ways commercial glass fabricators can spend time improving their operations, whether it’s performing some critical preventive maintenance tasks, re-evaluating plant flow or other proactive tasks to improve your business.

This year another one has come to mind after spending a couple of days on the road visiting customers. It’s a well-worn topic by now, but the labor shortage continues to impact organizations throughout our industry. Finding talented, hardworking individuals remains a challenge—and makes it all the more important that we continue investing in the people we have.

Training is one of the most important ways organizations can do that, and it’s important at every level. Equipping our people with the skills they need to succeed can lead to higher engagement and satisfaction—in turn leading to higher retention. Plus, you can trust your business is being driven forward by individuals who have the right skills to make and sell quality glass products and services for your customers.

For most of today’s commercial fenestration organizations, I see this breaking down across a couple of distinct lines:

Practical expertise for the future of manufacturing: Today’s and tomorrow’s shop floor workers need the right expertise to operate modern manufacturing equipment and to optimize the processes made possible by new technology.

That means, if your organization is making or has already made an investment in automation, taking the time to ensure all operators are familiar with using it is critical. Get everyone up to speed on the new processes, maintenance procedures and beyond. And if you’re rethinking manufacturing strategies during the slower months, everyone must fully understand the changes being made. Implementing a new software system to optimize what equipment is capable of? Train your workers on how to use the system and how to best leverage it to create new efficiencies.

This may all sound obvious, but it’s up to organizational leaders to ensure that the people making the products truly have what they need to do it properly. Thorough training for all employees interacting with new equipment or technology should be viewed as integral to that investment. Taking some of the slower months to shore up any skill gaps among your workforce can be a worthwhile use of your time this winter.

Management training to move your business forward: While the skilled labor shortages and worker turnover tend to be talked about in the context of plant floors, glazing teams and, increasingly, long-haul drivers for shipping, it’s important to remember that turnover happens at the top, too. And when it does, organizations need to be prepared with solid plans to fill those gaps.

A big part of this involves thorough succession planning and being able to identify strong talent already in your organization. There are a lot of benefits to internal hiring and promoting from within when the business conditions are right for it; it’s been shown that internal hiring can lead to higher engagement, and those hires tend to retain organizational knowledge and can get up to speed more quickly than external hires.

Training is important here, too, just as it is for any employee across the organization. If you’ve identified burgeoning talent, and you want to grow that talent to achieve bigger and better things within your organization, it’s important to provide the tools and resources that person or those people need to learn and succeed. There is no shortage of management and business training classes and courses out there, and it’s worthwhile to evaluate which ones might help the people in your organization.

The less busy winter months are a great opportunity to invest in your teams. That’s one thing to think about as we prepare for a successful year in 2020.