How Allied Alloys Built a Highly-Engaged Blue-Collar Workforce

in February 4th, 2021
Allied Alloys blue-collar employee working

Fenny Chawala is an HR army of one at Allied Alloys. She’s in charge of recruiting, hiring, payroll, benefits, and employee engagement around the clock for almost 100 employees at two different locations. Before Team Engine, Fenny was hiring twelve months out of the year due to turnover. She used all of the various job boards and got plenty of applicants, but most of them were unqualified.  Fenny had to spend days just sifting through all of these applicants to find the few qualified candidates in the bunch. She also relied heavily on walk-in applicants and would drop everything to review their application and interview them right then and there. But they didn’t always pan out, and with the pandemic, there weren’t as many people walking in. 

On top of having to focus on hiring, Fenny needed to stay on top of all of the communication at work. Communication was hard to tackle since only 50% of their employees had access to a company email. Fenny posted flyers in common areas and notified supervisors to pass along messages, but that still didn’t seem to reach every employee. Fenny said, “We knew the information was not reaching every employee. When you depend on a game of telephone, you can be certain that not all the information gets through and not all the correct information gets through.” Fenny knew there had to be a more efficient way to get the job done, but she was so busy that there wasn’t even time to think of a new hiring process, let alone communication. 

Allied Alloys statistics

With Team Engine, Fenny was able to streamline both her hiring and communication process. By using Team Engine’s smart screening process, Fenny reduced her time on resume review by 60%. With Team Engine, Fenny sets the parameters and only reviews the fraction of the applications that meet her standard. In a recent posting for a forklift operator, they received over 200 applications in just a few days, but thanks to Team Engine’s smart ranking and scoring system, Fenny could easily review the 80 that were most qualified.

Team Engine also gave Fenny a way to communicate with all of her employees, not just some of them. Many deskless employees don’t have access to email, and flyers in a break room only get noticed when workers are in the office. Instead, Team Engine helps Fenny reach all of her employees directly with text messaging. When Tropical Storm Beta flooded the Houston, TX area with over 10 inches of rain, Fenny was able to get a message out to every employee first thing in the morning letting them know to stay home for a possible late opening. Roads were impassable, and their Kirbyville location was also flooded. But, Fenny connected directly with every supervisor and employee. She sent updates all morning long through text messaging, eventually letting everyone know the facilities would be fully closed for the day. 

Communication isn’t only essential for urgent messages; it’s useful for all day-to-day activities too. Fenny told us, “People that wouldn’t normally come to HR directly or just go without getting questions answered are now texting me directly. It’s not as daunting or intimidating to send a text, and it works better for everyone’s schedules.”

Team Engine has saved Allied Alloys thousands of dollars because they no longer needed the help of staffing agencies. An HR army of one can now take on recruiting, hiring, employee engagement, and so much more. 

To learn more about how you can tackle all of these tasks on your own, read the full case study at Hire Less and Engage More.


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