Keeping Your Team Engaged: Effective Strategies for Industrial Environments

Employee engagement isn’t just a corporate buzzword, it’s the foundation that drives performance, efficiency, safety, and accountability in industrial environments. When teams are truly engaged, they don’t just show up for work; they care about the outcomes, take ownership of their roles, and contribute to a culture where everyone succeeds together.

Brandon Stanchock, CEO of SWF Industrial, has spent years developing practical approaches to team engagement that go far beyond traditional employee satisfaction surveys. His philosophy centers on a simple yet powerful principle: engagement stems from purpose and genuine care for people as individuals.

“I think it’s the care factor. Why should they care? It’s purpose-driven.” Stanchock explains.

“Allowing the team to define that purpose instead of the executives brings out the best in everyone.”

At SWF, this philosophy translates into their mission: “To build a company where success never comes at the cost of character, care, or people.” This commitment, rooted in their Three C’s philosophy of Character, Commitment, and Creativity, shapes every decision about how they structure work, recognize achievements, and build relationships with team members.

Why Engagement Matters in Industrial Careers

In manufacturing and fabrication, disengaged employees create risks that extend far beyond productivity metrics. Safety incidents, quality problems, and inefficient processes often trace back to teams that aren’t fully invested in their work.

“You can make people do things, but there’s going to be a tax on that. That tax is probably going to be very low efficiency, major grumbling, quality issues, and potentially safety issues because people’s heads aren’t in the game,” Stanchock notes.

This reality makes engagement particularly critical in industrial settings where coordination, attention to detail, and mutual accountability are essential to building an award-winning safety culture and successful operations.

Boosting Morale: Practical Approaches That Work

SWF has developed several concrete strategies for keeping teams engaged, each addressing different aspects of what makes people care about their work. These aren’t elaborate programs requiring significant investments, they’re practical approaches that emerged from understanding what actually motivates people in industrial environments.

A Book Club That Builds Connection

One of SWF’s most unexpected engagement initiatives started when Stanchock realized he needed to get back to reading. After picking up Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” in November 2023, he discovered perspectives that challenged his leadership assumptions.

“I started reading it and I found that a lot of things I thought I was good at, I wasn’t. So, I asked a small group of people if they’d be interested in reading it as well,” he recalls.

What began as six people has grown into a company-wide program with participation fluctuating between 22 and 36 employees across field, shop, and office roles. The book club offers both “talking” and “non-talking” formats, accommodating different personality types while creating cross-departmental interaction.

“I would say it is the cheapest team collaboration, leadership, and self-help training you can buy,” Stanchock explains.

The real value emerges from diverse perspectives during discussions. “You’re getting six different perspectives for thirty minutes, twice a week. You’re also helping people understand each other while building relationships between people who rarely get to speak or work together,” Stanchock notes.

This personal connection fosters empathy and understanding of coworkers, which in turn leads to better workplace relationships. When someone doesn’t show up on a snowy day, coworkers understand it’s not laziness, it’s a parent dealing with six kids whose school got canceled.

Recent selections have included Atomic Habits, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and, upcoming, Emotional Intelligence 2.0.

Recognizing and Rewarding Good Work

SWF has developed a comprehensive approach to recognition that goes beyond annual reviews or sporadic bonuses.

“We have a company bonus structure right now, which is turning into an incentive plan next year, which will have clear metrics and KPIs within five or six different areas, one of them being quality, one of them being culture,” Stanchock explains.

Beyond formal recognition, SWF maintains flexibility for spot recognition—everything from gift cards for going above and beyond to free lunches when the team achieves incident-free months. They also leverage vendor relationships, collecting promotional items to distribute at company events.

Family Days and Company Outings

SWF alternates between family-focused events and employee-only gatherings, recognizing that both serve different purposes. Family events allow employees to share their workplace with loved ones, creating understanding and pride.

“Last year we had our family day at the shop. We had caricatures, face painting, and bounce houses in the parking lot for the kids. We had the shop open so everybody could show their families where they work…” Stanchock describes.

Participation rates consistently hover around 79%, remarkable for voluntary events.

Opportunities Usually Reserved for Executives

Most notably, SWF extends corporate functions, golf outings, and professional events to all employees rather than limiting them to management. When invitations arrive, they create Google Forms for interested employees to sign up, using random selection if demand exceeds available spots.

When asked why SWF offers these opportunities to employees and not just executives, Stanchock’s reply was simple:

“I’m surprised that more people don’t. It’s such an easy win.”

“We have a lot of golfers in the shop and giving them a day off to go golfing for free can make a big impact,” he continued, “So why not?”

This policy is one of several examples of SWF’s broader employment practices. Treating everyone on the team as trusted representatives rather than potential liabilities or a number.

Building Culture Through Trust and Transparency

SWF’s engagement approach treats culture as something practical rather than mystical, aligning with their broader philosophy on building culture in manufacturing. Stanchock rejects the notion that culture-building requires complex initiatives or expensive consultants.

“I think we keep categorizing this as this giant initiative that’s like a mythical beast when it’s really just, would that annoy you? If the answer is yes, change it. It is not hard to make things better or easier…” he explains.

This philosophy led to the elimination of their point system, a traditional attendance tracking method. The biggest complaint from an early employee survey was that it took five years to eliminate the program due to management concerns about attendance.

The result? Retention improved without creating attendance problems.

The experience reinforced a core principle: “If you act like an adult, you will be treated like one.” Stanchock tells his team.

The approach works because it addresses the fundamental problem with most workplace rules:

“We make rules for the 99% to avoid and eliminate problems instead of just dealing with the 1%.”

Recognizing When Morale Needs Attention

Effective engagement requires recognizing when team morale dips and responding transparently. At SWF, this means acknowledging when leadership makes mistakes and involving employees in finding solutions.

“We’re pretty transparent when people are upset,” Stanchock explains. He describes a situation where management took on a project before having the promised team discussion: “We moved too quickly and took on a project before we had the sit-down, and the team was very upset with that, which they had every right to be.”

Rather than defending the decision, leadership facilitated an open conversation about options, including the possibility of returning the purchase order. “Many people shy away from that because those conversations can be uncomfortable, especially when management has to admit that they made a bad decision.” he explains.

This transparency connects directly to SWF’s broader change management philosophy of dealing with challenges in real-time.

Leadership Lessons for Sustainable Engagement

For leaders seeking to improve team engagement, Stanchock offers straightforward advice: listen more and micromanage less. “If you are the leader, you need to listen more. I think it’s tough not to micromanage,” he emphasizes.

Trust becomes foundational, but it requires verification systems, according to Stanchock:

“Get to a point where you can actually trust your teams to do their job, but have the KPIs to prove that they are.”

One of the most valuable leadership insights came from the first book club, where Dale Carnegie writes: “You could meet someone for the first time, talk to them for an hour. You could say 2 minutes’ worth of words, and they will deem it the best conversation they’ve ever had. Because most people want to talk about themselves.”

The Long View: Engagement as Continuous Investment

The most important insight from SWF’s experience is that engagement isn’t a project with an end date. “It’s culture. It’s continuous improvement forever. You could probably never reach the finish line for engagement,” Stanchock explains.

The investment pays dividends across multiple dimensions:

“If you get it right, it’ll boost innovation, accountability, and efficiency. And safety. All the things you want.”

For companies in industrial environments, the stakes make this investment particularly critical. When engagement breaks down, the consequences extend beyond productivity to safety, quality, and retention—areas where problems create compounding costs.

Building Success Without Sacrificing People

SWF Industrial’s approach demonstrates that manufacturing companies can create workplace cultures where people thrive without compromising operational excellence. Their successful culture shows that engagement initiatives don’t require massive budgets. Instead, they need consistent commitment to treating people with respect, providing growth opportunities, and maintaining transparency.

The key lies in recognizing that engagement stems from purpose, not perks.

While book clubs, family events, and recognition programs support engagement, they work because they’re expressions of deeper values about caring for people as whole individuals.

As Stanchock puts it, the goal is “to build a company where success never comes at the cost of character, care, or people.” For industrial companies seeking sustainable success, this philosophy offers a roadmap for creating engagement that drives both performance and retention.

The result is a workplace where people don’t just show up, they genuinely care about outcomes, support one another, and contribute to collective success. In industrial environments where safety, quality, and efficiency matter most, that kind of engagement isn’t just nice to have.

It’s essential for building something extraordinary together.