"Take time to make time."
David Reid is a Sales Director at VEM Group one of the fastest-growing mold manufacturers in the world. They currently operate in over 5 countries to grow across borders. They have served multiple businesses including giants from Automobile, Steel, and other production houses.
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We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
David Reid: I am David Reid, sales director of VEM Tooling. And it is nice to catch up with you guys. We are all in one plastic manufacturing firm that provides the solution to each & every client of ours. Our only motive is to find the most optimal & appropriate plastic for your goal. As a result, our experienced & technical designers move towards your goal every day. Moreover, we have been in the tooling and plastic injection modeling industry for 30 years & want our customers to experience the best business.
As well as we make sure to develop our business every year. We provide creative plastic manufacturing & design, high end & lean manufacturing, & make plastic mass production easy for companies. We are also a global manufacturing company with a local footprint.
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your life and how did they impact you? How did that lead to where you are today?
David Reid: Umm… it’s really hard to find a single person who impacted my life the most. But if I have to choose one, I will say Bill Gates. He knows the importance of money & understands manufacturing according to the customer, and the environment is necessary for all the businesses. He impacted me in a lot of ways. First of all, he taught me not to be a balloon filled with ego. You see, there are a lot of people who find themselves dwindling in the maze of ego when they reach specific heights, but this guy taught me how to be a down to earth person & continue pursuing my goal & whenever you reach there how to find a new one for your rest of the life. Apart from him, there are a lot of guys who left an impact on my current personality. I liked to read about a lot of hustlers when I was young. How do they do it? What was their lifestyle? Pope Francis, Mohamad Ali, Narendra Modi, & Larry Page.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us, particularly for businesses. How did the pandemic impact your business? Please list some of the problems that you faced, and how you handled them.
David Reid: It affected us a lot; that lockdown was hard to overcome. We faced a lot of shortages of supplies and people who were working. There are a lot of employees of ours who got affected by the pandemic & some of them aren’t even here at present. I hope their souls are resting in peace now & I also wanted them to know, if they are listening to me, we are always carrying their will.
There are a lot of ways in which covid affects us. Some of the most crucial ones are: –
- Disturbed Supply chain
- Unproductive workforce
- Shortage of employees
- Shortage of funds at some points
- No sales in a certain period of the year
Well, these circumstances are only because of the pandemic & just after it is over, we are on track again. All the problems are solved, but there are some which are still affecting us & we are on it trying to solve them as soon as possible.
The pandemic led to a myriad of cultural side effects, including one that was quite unexpected that is informally known as “The Great Resignation”. Did this widespread trend affect you in any way?
David Reid: Yeah, it affected us a lot; people are leaving out of nowhere; I still cannot understand why they are going, but it is causing us a lot of trouble. When we entered this post-pandemic time, the number of resignations increased drastically. Many of our employees & workers left, and many wanted to go. I don’t know what’s happening & from where this trend generated, but it is crucial for the businesses like us who need a high workforce to work.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. How do you feel about this trend? Explain.
David Reid: I feel wrong about this trend. As you say, ‘According to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021’. We are still in need of many people to work with us to meet the supply chain as fast as possible, but you are saying some people are thinking of leaving. It is terrible, no, it is not bad, it is the worst case for us.
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. That can be quite an alarming rate. What advice would you share to increase employee retention?
David Reid: It is so sad that people at the age where they can work & use their energy to earn a significant amount are leaving. In my organization, we believe in development & it has helped us a lot throughout the years in retaining our employees. Moreover, we also believe in making a described job role for the people who need the work. So, they can understand what kind of work they need to do with us and apply according to their set of skills & interests. This technique is effective in retaining newbies in the business. Apart from all that, we always try to make sure our employees learn as much from us. So we make sure to provide them regular training, with this, they can get the increment in pay, but they also get the sense of responsibility & trust of being the part of the bug organization like us.
According to a Nature Human behavior study, In 2020, 80% of US workers reported feeling that they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them – a phenomenon known as “time poverty”. What is your take on the work-life balance? Explain.
David Reid: Time poverty is the most considerable trouble that I sometimes face. Maintaining your work life & personal life altogether is a hard job, but it is not impossible. It can be done through various methods. Throughout my experience, I developed techniques that helped me a lot to stay away from time poverty. These techniques are: –
- Always play on your strength
- Make sure to prioritize your time
- Know your peaks & downside
- Always plot some personal time to make your head clear
- Have set work hours & stay fixed to them
- Find time for your family as well as finance
- Manage your time in the long term (means plan always ahead)
- Make the workspace that can work with you
- Get into the technology. It helps a lot
- Lat but not least, take time to make time
A more recent survey by Joblist asked about 3,000 respondents if they’re actively thinking about leaving their job. That survey found that 73% of 2,099 respondents who answered this question on their employment plans are considering quitting. How are you preparing for the future to counter this potentially persistent problem?
David Reid: It isn’t new now… I am familiar with that & we are constantly working ahead to hire new people in our organization. But this time, we are making sure the people we recruit can become the pillars of our organization in the future. So we are checking them as a whole; we want them to be dedicated, trustworthy, & loyal towards our organization. And I know the people we are recruiting these days are only those kinds of people & we are soon going to recruit more in this same manner.
Thank you for all that, our readers are grateful for your insightful comments! Now, if the Great Resignation isn’t your greatest concern, what is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
David Reid: The great resignation is the biggest concern I am facing right now. Apart from that, if this issue is solved, we are already over all of our fears because our other consideration is to meet the supply chain. So, there isn’t any other problem more significant than that & I believe we are soon going to be out of this problem & can work like before.
Before we finish things off, we do have one last question. If you had 10 Million Dollars to spend in one day, what would you spend it on?
David Reid: Don’t you think it’s an easy question in this challenging time, but it indeed gives me a laugh & peace of mind for a second. If I have $10 Million to spend in a day. I will make sure to pay for my kids’ schooling & education for life. And invest all the other amount in our business.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank David Reid for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with David Reid or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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