Southwire 2022 Sustainability Report: Learning & Development

When our team members choose Southwire as their workplace, they invest in us, and we are committed to investing in them. Our goal is for team members to build meaningful and lasting Southwire careers. To do so, we provide flexible development opportunities, many of which are accessible to all team members, regardless of their location or role.

Each year we enhance our learning and development portfolio to meet the needs of our workplace and industry as they evolve. Examples of our 2022 learning and development initiatives include:

• Your Learning Your Way, an instructor-led learning and training forum aimed at supporting fundamental leadership development and building organizational capacity. The program is open to all team members. In 2022, we hosted 31 sessions covering 17 different topics ranging from power skills, like communication and adaptability, to more functional skills, like basics for Excel.
• Leaders in Training, a 12-week program for operations team members who are interested in moving into a supervisory or management position. The program helps participants gain the power skills needed to be effective leaders and progress their Southwire careers.
• Learning Academy for Frontline Leaders, a training conducted at 15 sites across the U.S. and Canada that impacted nearly 800 team members. The 2022 sessions focused on strategies for conflict resolution and tools to build emotional intelligence.
• Southwire Leadership Academy, a culture-focused development program that we resumed for the first time since 2019. The 2022 cohort included 26 high-potential leaders, 42% of whom were female and 23% of whom were from underrepresented communities.
• Executive Workshops for Southwire’s executive team members and others throughout the organization, including a workshop with executives from Gartner, who discussed how Southwire can best align with emerging talent trends to better support our business and workforce in the future, and a training from leaders at Oratium on leading action through powerful, compelling communication.

TODAY’S YOUTH, TOMORROW’S LEADERS: BUILDING OUR TALENT PIPELINE 

Experts estimate that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030, due to a manufacturing skills gap in the U.S.⁸ Southwire is working to close this gap by providing skill-building opportunities related to manufacturing and other key positions. We partner with numerous academic and technical institutions to provide early career programs that expand our vertical and regional recruitment efforts today and nurture a diverse pipeline of talent for our company and industry for the future.

Our partners include Auburn University’s 100 Women Strong and Engineering Academic Excellence programs, Georgia Tech’s Office of Minority Educational Development and the University of West Georgia. We also partner with the AUCC to provide expanded educational opportunities, scholarships, internships and job opportunities to Black and female students in the consortium’s dual-degree engineering program. In 2022, we welcomed five AUCC interns at Southwire, who joined us for events such as a career day we hosted at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Additional programs to build our talent pipeline include:

12 FOR LIFE® 

Now in its 15th year, our 12 for Life® program teams up with local school systems in Georgia and Alabama to provide employment and training inside a modified Southwire manufacturing environment, while allowing students to complete their high school diploma or GED. The program includes classroom instruction, work and life-skill building, and mentoring opportunities. Students earn wages for their work and, most importantly, develop skills they will need after graduation. The 2022 cohort included 31 students from school systems in Georgia’s Carroll, Haralson, and Heard counties and Bremen City Schools, and 26 graduates from Alabama’s Florence City Schools and Lauderdale County Schools. This marks a total of nearly 3,900 students who have completed 12 for Life® to date.

SOUTHWIRE BUSINESS LEADERS PROGRAM (SBLP) 

Our collaboration with the University of West Georgia’s Richards College of Business provides opportunities for students to work in tandem with Southwire’s leadership teams to develop real-world business and community initiatives. Examples include enhancing our internal audit process, implementing an assets tracking system in IT, creating a Southwire Speed virtual warehouse and conducting a marketing study of Southwire’s brand awareness. The third cohort of SBLP students successfully completed the program in 2022.

SOUTHWIRE MAINTENANCE APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM 

Our two-year Maintenance Apprenticeship program helps us develop a pipeline of skilled maintenance technicians by providing both classroom instruction and customized on-the-job training, which positions participants to be hired as full-time team members after the program’s completion. We were proud to welcome 15 new apprentices into the program in 2022.

“The Maintenance Apprenticeship program was a great opportunity to learn some very valuable skills that I was able to apply in the field. These skills enabled me to become a top performer amongst my peers in a rewarding profession, and my career has seen an enormous benefit from being an apprentice. I’m currently a Maintenance Supervisor with hopes of becoming a Maintenance Manager in the near future.” 

- Brandon Nunez, Maintenance Supervisor at North Campus

Learn how we’re investing in workforce readiness for manufacturing students through our $500,000 commitment to West Georgia Technical College.

Visit https://www.southwire.com/sustainability to view the full 2022 Southwire Sustainability Report.

_{8 The Manufacturing Institute, “2.1 Million Manufacturing Jobs Could Go Unfilled by 2030.” https://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/2-1- million-manufacturing-jobs-could-go-unfilled-by-2030-11330/}