by Larry Lynch

Recruiting and retaining employees in a job based on repetitive tasks is the Achilles’ heel of many manufacturing organizations. In this column, we share Disney best practices around hiring and retaining a dedicated and inspired workforce.

Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., is the largest single-site employer in North America, employing more than 55,000 people. With an employee population this size, Disney has turned recruitment into an art and science. 

Chances are you’re not running a theme park or hiring 200 people each day like our organization. 

But the philosophies underlying the Disney approach to recruitment and retention have application to companies of any size. It may also surprise you how many similarities Disney shares with manufacturing. For example, Walt Disney World currently has 32 unions.

Joining the show
Here, people aren’t just hired for a job. They are cast for a role in the Disney "show." Applicants are sent to a centralized casting office, just as they would be in the movie industry. Every aspect of the casting process is a presentation of the Disney culture. In essence, Disney begins the training process before a new cast member is hired.

Unlike most organizations, our employment function is "on stage." Like a Disney attraction, everything about the casting experience has been carefully scripted. The casting building is whimsical and filled with Disney references. The whimsy is designed to ease the applicants’ minds, while the history communicates our rich heritage. 

It’s all a part of the Disney culture.

Before filling out an application or participating in an interview, candidates view a film depicting what it’s like to work at Disney. 

The film also communicates conditions of employment. 

After viewing it, around 10 percent of candidates self-select out of the process. This a good thing, since those candidates likely wouldn’t have been a right fit for us. This process not only saves time and money, but it leaves the applicants feeling good about themselves and our company. 

The next step is a one-on-one interview. The interviewer bases the hiring decision on work experience, personality and educational background. By the time they go through their interview, candidates have a picture of the company’s culture and expectations.

Consider the processes you use and the messages you send to your potential employees. Do you consistently communicate conditions of employment up front? Do you create a positive environment that welcomes potential employees?

Keeping people engaged
Hiring cast members is one thing; retaining them is a different kind of challenge. We cannot rest on our laurels; we never stop searching for creative and compelling ways to communicate our culture to cast members and convey to them their work is valued. Let’s take a look at the experiences of our laundry. Called Textile Services, it’s one of hundreds of operational areas within Walt Disney World.

In the early 1990s, we were poised to dramatically increase the size of our laundry operation. Today, three laundry plants handle a combined 310,000 pounds of garments, linens and soft goods each day. Expanding the operation to this size meant recruiting more cast members and redoubling our efforts to retain the existing workforce. Of course, the challenge was greater than expected when you consider that operation’s starting point: satisfying cast members representing 15 countries and seven languages.

One of the first breakthroughs came when we became strategic about "right-fit casting." Our Casting Department conducted personality and preference tests to find the type of person who would be committed to a repetitive task. While this was a great tool for replacing cast members through attrition, the real goal was (and remains) to keep those cast members in the first place. 

Disney has always turned to the front line for ideas to improve its operations and business practices. At the laundry, we took this to the next level. The doors were opened to a new, more participative environment. We asked for their input and they delivered. They began identifying problems and advising us on delays that slowed down the work process. With this simple shift in strategy, we learned what we could enhance — within the context of budgets, safety, work conditions and efficiency. 

These cast members also faced a situation commonplace in manufacturing operations — being isolated from guest (Disney-speak for customers) areas. They had no idea how vital the seemingly mundane tasks they performed (washing, drying, folding and packaging linen) were to the company.

Showing them how their efforts affected the overall guest experience was an important hurdle we crossed. To this day, when managers travel to check the quality of linen products at resorts and costumes in the wardrobe departments, laundry cast members travel with them to see how the work is received. Consider employing this strategy in your own operation — when your people see the big picture, they see just how vital their roles are in the scheme of things.

Year after year, cast members in Textile Services continue to improve the efficiency of their department; the process improvement effort has evolved to the point where cast members are involved in nearly every facet of the operation, including developing and managing budgets, problem-solving and creating expansion plans. Remarkably, all this was accomplished with a positive effect on our bottom line.

The changes made in Textile Services pale in comparison to the job satisfaction these cast members now feel by being more involved in the overall operation. The turnover experienced in the department during the early 1990s has been reversed. Now, we have cast members from other areas seeking to transfer into Textile Services. 

Look around your plant operation. Think about Disney practices such as right-fit casting, empowering employees, listening to their needs and rewarding their contributions. Trust your employees, and you’ll find they trust you to create a positive work environment.

Larry Lynch is the director of business development for the Disney Institute. For more information on the Institute's operations or people management courses, visit www.disneyinstitute.com.

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