elcome to the 2024 IAPD Annual Convention + connecX preview issue. On behalf of the IAPD Board of Directors, Executive Committee and Staff, we are all very excited about the events we have planned for you in Louisville, KY, USA, October 7 – 10.

We’re happy to be back at the Omni Louisville Hotel. The Omni hosted our IAPD Annual Convention in 2021 and everyone in attendance seemed to really love the hotel and meeting spaces. Unfortunately, Louisville was still recovering from 2020 shutdowns and many places around the area were not open or fully staffed. In 2024, we are happy to report that everything is back up and running full steam in Louisville, and it’s a really fun city to visit again!

n 2019, IAPD convened its original Workforce Development Task Force to address our members’ existing and future workforce development needs, develop recommendations on where IAPD can provide the best value to IAPD members, resources to support our members’ recruitment and promotional efforts and ways to best promote careers in the performance plastics industry.

Through conversations with industry leaders, talent acquisition specialists, human resources departments, hiring managers and other research, the task force identified the problem IAPD member companies were facing as a talent disruption in their succession planning and, in some cases, a shortage in their workforce. As their Baby Boomer employees were retiring, not enough of the emerging workforce was entering the performance plastics industry. There were numerous potential reasons for this shortfall of talent:

• Younger employees may have a negative impression of manufacturing in general, thinking it is a dirty, polluting industry that is on a downward trajectory.
• They may have grown up with the message that all plastics are bad, and only think of the negative portrayal of plastics in the media coverage they have seen most of their lives.

The aquarium’s design presented unique challenges, requiring a seamless panoramic view without visible joints or supporting structures. This was achieved using enormous single blocks of ACRYLITE® acrylic, with the largest piece measuring 32 feet in length and nearly 9 feet in height. The acrylic panels were precisely bonded to create invisible, yet strong seams.

xperienced managers recognize that employees who are highly motivated tend to be more engaged and more productive at work. Motivated employees are also less likely to be late, absent or leave their jobs to pursue other career opportunities. Creating policies, norms and working conditions that maximize employee motivation can be challenging for managers since motivation is a complex psychological construct. Job conditions that motivate a particular person might not be motivating for another individual who has a different background and life situation.

Organizational behavior scholars have produced a vast body of literature describing motivation in the workplace. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of two classic theories of employee motivation, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory, and explore practical applications of these theories for managing and motivating a diverse workforce.

SG (Environmental, Social, Governance) scores have become increasingly important to businesses in today’s economic community. Businesses, their investors and future investors are placing greater emphasis on their manufacturers’ and suppliers’ production and business practices and are seeking transparency and accountability in these areas. An important tool for evaluating companies is through the completion of ESG questionnaires.

We are too early in this business evolution to set high marks and expect companies to fully meet all types of new ethical standards. So, scores on questionnaires will be an accumulation of collected data from a variety of sources, including your questionnaire, regulatory filings, company reports and third-party databases like Moody’s and Bloomberg. Then service businesses such as MSCI, Sustainalytics and S&P TruCost will collect, measure and present ESG ratings for public consumption.

uring the IAPD Leadership Development Conference in June in Denver, CO, USA, IAPD President Peter Delgado and Vice President Jim Richards led a strategy workshop on workforce development. With many of IAPD’s volunteers involved in the discussion, several key points were raised.

While recruiting new, young talent is key to an aging workforce; retaining that talent is also extremely important. There is nothing worse than bringing in a key member, only to have them leave for a better opportunity. So how do you retain and develop the talent you have recruited?

Developing your current employees seems like it should be simple: Keep giving them raises, keep promoting them, keep them busy.

ver the past few decades, many manufacturing operations, including tool and die making, have been outsourced to countries with lower labor costs, such as China, India and Mexico. This shift was driven by the desire to reduce production costs and maximize profits. As a result, the domestic tool making industry in the United States has shrunk significantly. Tool making is a critical early step to making a component or product a reality. This lack of domestic tooling causes the United States to rely on overseas services to produce most new components. Without the support of foreign tool makers, the domestic production supply chain lacks the ability to create new products or innovate old ones.

never thought I was college material — in fact, going to college was something I had never thought much about. Despite that, I still needed to find a career path that suited me. In 2006, I started working in a plastics warehouse. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about warehousing, or plastics for that matter. Since then, I’ve held several positions throughout my nearly two-decade-long career in the plastics industry. I have gone from warehousing, to inside sales, to purchasing, to sales engineer and, most recently, business development manager.

The start of my journey may have been considered rough — a few months into my warehouse position, I was told to pick up slack and better execute my duties. This was a tough pill to swallow, but I took my supervisor’s constructive criticism in stride. After all, I was a new hire replacing tenured, well-rounded employees that had just left the organization. This was a difficult, high-stress time, but I understood what was needed to excel in my new position. Over the next several months, I began to streamline my processes and identified what was working well and what was not. Like any job, you begin to see things differently after going through the motions daily, making corrections and improvements along the way.

rojections for the high-performance plastics market indicate a consistent growth trajectory in 2024 and beyond, indicative of an overall favorable outlook for the market. Notably, the increase in demand will necessitate the addition of skilled positions in every area of performance polymers organizations with robust professional development and continuing education programs needed to succeed. NewAge Performance Polymers (NAPP) has integrated such programming into its organizational fabric since the group’s inception; in this article NAPP shares a look into their programs to develop and mentor talent to meet the growing need for skilled positions.

Vortex Tool Company, Inc. designs and manufactures a wide variety of standard and custom high-performance router and insert cutting tools for the woodworking and plastics industries, and provides retipping and sharpening services for all makes and models. www.vortextool.com, phone (800) 355-7708.