Greg Dickie, president at Atlantic Windows, shared details of the company’s successful leadership development program in the plant.

Want to move from shop floor to supervisor? An educational session held at WinDoor today told attendees how they could do just that. And they heard from two employees at Atlantic Windows who successfully went through the company’s leadership development program.

Representatives from Atlantic Windows detailed the company’s leadership development strategy, which has been extremely successful in promoting employees from the ground up with tremendous results.

“Everything is built off safety, quality and efficiency,” said Greg Dickie, president of Atlantic Windows. He said employees can start on the floor as production associate, then move to lead hand, who would then report to a second in command who takes care of the flow and deals with safety, quality and other issues. The last stop up the ladder is supervisor.

Two Atlantic employees told how they started at the company with summer jobs and now, 24 and 25 years later, they are both leaders at the company.

Dickie offered some valuable advice that has worked for them as they promote from within.

The Don’ts:

• Don’t promote the employees with the highest output.
• Don’t assume they can manage people because they know how to build a product.
• Don’t assume they can’t manage people because they can’t build a product.
• Don’t assume they know all the policies and procedures.
• Don’t assume they know what their roles entail.

The Do’s:

• Do create a job description and provide it to the candidates.
• Do develop interviews and performance assessments in line with the job descriptions.
• Do provide internal and external training.
• Do routinely review and discuss policies and procedures, especially around safety and discipline.
• Do coach and mentor.
• Do provide a no-fear environment so leaders can take risks and ask questions in order to develop.

WinDoor continues through Thursday. Check dwmmag.com for all the news from the event.