Performance Review

What if losing your best people in two years was actually the plan? At Brainerd Chemical Co., an explicit growth-for-effort agreement replaces the old promise of a 40-year career, turning departing talent into a pipeline instead of a loss.

Gregg Johnson, Director, Human Resources at Brainerd Chemical Co., walks Lawrence through the tech industry playbook he's adapting for manufacturing, why disengaged long-tenured employees create real safety risk on a chemical plant floor, and how he's rethinking training and automation for a workforce built to move on.

Topics discussed:

• Trading lifetime employment for an explicit two-to-three-year growth agreement

• Borrowing the tech industry's playbook for training and releasing talent

• Treating disengaged long-tenured employees as a genuine safety risk

• Segmenting the workforce into growth-track hires and steady performers

• Weighing whether to formalize referral networks with feeder companies

• Making corrective feedback and adaptability the top durable skill

• Automating menial tasks to keep entry-level work engaging

• Building entry-level pipelines from high school before the gap grows

  
  

Most workforce plans train for skills that expire before the ink dries. Amanda Bryson, Director, Head of Human Resources at Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, took a different approach and built a competency-first model using six core capabilities that apply from entry-level employees up through the CEO.

She walks through how a competency matrix sets different expectations by level, why she gathered feedback before rolling out the new performance model, and how automation and artificial intelligence are pushing organizations to develop adaptability over any single technical skill.

Topics discussed:

- Building a competency-first model instead of skills-first

- Applying six core competencies across every organizational level

- Setting different expectations per level with a competency matrix

- Gathering feedback before rolling out the new performance model

- Sequencing multiple training rounds to reinforce change over months

- Addressing durable skills gaps in new graduates entering work

- Connecting AI and automation to competency-based workforce planning

- Shifting from skill-training cycles to ongoing development and evaluation

At Tulsa Community Foundation, the employee retention strategy starts before someone becomes a manager. Liz Parducci, Human Resources Director at Tulsa Community Foundation, joins Lawrence Ganti on Performance Review to lay out how an organization supporting 35 entities and hiring 300 people a year builds a training infrastructure that actually keeps people.

The conversation covers how TCF targets the one to three year employee, the group with strong raw skills but no lived leadership experience, as the highest leverage point for investment. Liz explains how internship programs, an internal HR coffee chat born from orientation feedback, and a framework from a San Francisco AI conference are shaping how HR teams think about upskilling, from new manager coaching to floor-level AI access in manufacturing environments.

Topics discussed:

• Targeting the one to three year employee for upskilling

• Building people manager skills through role play and case study

• Internship programs as a long-term talent pipeline

• Why HR needs a seat at the AI table

• AI as an immediate resource for floor-level employees

• Feedback culture and creating psychological safety

• Pivoting training programs based on employee input

• HR as a bridge across 35 organizations

Union Public Schools runs its own self-funded benefits plan, the only district in Oklahoma to do so, saving families $9,000 per year in premiums compared to the state plan, with a $250 deductible and zero-copay near-site clinics. Jay Loegering, Executive Director of Human Resources at Union Public Schools, joins host Lawrence Ganti on Performance Review to break down how a public school district built a retention and talent development model that competes directly with the private sector.

Loegering spent over 30 years in HR across AEP/PSO, Whirlpool, and Cancer Care Associates before bringing private-sector thinking into public education. At Union, that translated into formal career pathway programs starting in sixth grade, a dual-enrollment early college high school program that lets students graduate with an associate's degree for $100 per semester, and trade programs in HVAC, construction, and mechanics run in direct partnership with employers like the City of Tulsa.

Topics discussed:

• How Union built Oklahoma's only self-funded district benefits plan

• Retaining teachers through collaboration, autonomy, and compensation

• Reading meters and working factory lines to understand jobs before hiring for them

• Teaching problem-solving instead of skills for jobs that don't exist yet

• Career pathway programs starting in 6th and 7th grade

• Graduating high school with an associate's degree for $100 per semester

• Employer partnerships that put students in paid internships before graduation

• The real cost of "flat" education budgets in Oklahoma

Advanced manufacturing machinists today speak 4 to 5 programming languages, apply material science in real time, and work in climate-controlled environments built around precision computing. The talent pool feeding those roles is typically a high school graduate. Steve Caldwell, VP of Human Resources at McElroy Manufacturing, has built the system that actually develops them.

Steve walks through McElroy's internal progression model: entry through the Grind Shop, a precision grinding area used as a deliberate starting point, then movement through progressively complex CNC machine centers at a pace set by the individual. He makes the case that development has to be treated as a production goal, not something that runs alongside it. On the school partnership side, McElroy has maintained intentional relationships with local tech programs since 2011, sending their own people out regularly and bringing instructors on site to create content and lead training on equipment schools cannot afford to buy. One instructor came back between semesters on a temp assignment just to stay current on the machines. Steve also covers the AI vision tool now live on their shop floor, why mass retirements colliding with the smallest incoming workforce generation in decades is a structural problem most manufacturers are still treating as a staffing cycle, and why waiting until a promotion to teach conflict resolution is already too late.

Topics Discussed

• The Grind Shop model: McElroy's structured machinist progression pathway

• Treating development as a production strategy, not a parallel initiative

• How McElroy's 14-year school partnership operates in both directions

• AI vision at the machine center and what it changes for new operators

• Why the talent scarcity threat is structural, not cyclical

• Pushing conflict resolution and accountability training to the frontline level

• Why cross training must be built into how leaders think, not just HR programs