WorkKeys^® Plays Major Role in Finding Quality Employees for Subaru Plant Expansion

It’s an enviable problem to have: more than 22,000 applicants for 1,000 new jobs.

That’s the situation Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA) in Lafayette faced earlier this year when the company added a production line for Toyota Camry sedans to its plant.

It marked the largest single job creation initiative in Greater Lafayette in nearly 20 years. The company is investing approximately $230 million to install Camry manufacturing processes on an existing production line, which will be capable of producing nearly 100,000 vehicles annually. SIA is the only Subaru auto assembly plant in the United States.

ACT’s WorkKeys played a significant role in the process of identifying qualified workers for the new jobs and in filling openings at other companies that lost employees to SIA.

“We needed to find highly motivated people with a good work ethic,” said Brad Rhorer, employment group leader for SIA. “We build a premium vehicle, which requires a very high standard of quality, so we had to find a match to that standard in our future associates.”

Rhorer said SIA was expecting about 10,000 to 15,000 applicants for the positions. But the company wasn’t all that surprised by the huge response, considering the reasons prospects give for applying: salary and benefits, career opportunities, excellent work environment, and stable reputation of the company.

Those are among the reasons Darrel Wilson applied for the new jobs. He said it “feels pretty good” to be selected out of the thousands of people who applied for the positions. He thought WorkKeys accurately assessed his skills.

By late fall, SIA will have added nearly 1,000 new employees to a facility that employed 2,230 before the expansion. There were more than 22,300 applicants, according to Deborah Waymire, chief operations officer, Tecumseh Area Partnership (TAP) in Lafayette.

To meet this hiring challenge, SIA once again turned to Lafayette’s WorkOne system to lead the process. In 1987—when SIA built the plant in Lafayette—TAP and the Lafayette office of Indiana Department of Workforce Development recruited more than 50,000 applicants and provided workplace assessments for 1,700 positions. This time, TAP and WorkOne officials established a new screening and assessment center—known as the Regional Employment Assessment Center for Hiring (REACH)—to fill jobs at SIA and other WorkKeys companies.

“Our goal was to help SIA find quality workers who would make the company competitive in the global economy,” said Waymire.

Competition for the positions was intense, she said. The company offers a potential hourly wage of up to $23 and an excellent benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision coverage, a retirement plan, a 401(k) plan, and on-site recreation and child development centers.

Through the REACH Center, workforce officials screened applicants using job profiles and WorkKeys assessments. Chris Waymire, senior vice president of capacity building and organizational development for TAP, developed job profiles for four of the top new positions, including production associate, expediter, team leader, and maintenance associate. Production associates accounted for the majority of the new positions. Production associates must work in a “very fast-paced environment requiring strict attention to detail.”

SIA’s hiring system was a highly selective, rigorous process. Here’s how it worked:

• Applicants completed an online customized application form. TAP officials revised the company’s standard application, assigning weighted values to each skill needed for the position.
• The system scored applicants as they completed the application, so results were given in “real time.” TAP offered online feedback to those who didn’t meet qualifications and also referred them to other companies.
• TAP invited approximately 5,000 applicants to the REACH Center to take the WorkKeys skills assessments. The Indiana Department of Workforce Development conducted the assessments at its WorkOne offices in Lafayette, Indianapolis, Gary, and Evansville.
• Those who attained threshold scores on WorkKeys were invited to participate in the next stage of the hiring process conducted by Ivy Tech Community College on-site at SIA.
• Those who made it this far then completed an internal process at SIA. This included a ten-year employment verification and other background checks. A two-person team interviewed each applicant.
• SIA’s employment management team then reviewed the list of applicants who were recommended by the interview teams.

WorkKeys helped SIA narrow the field of qualified applicants. “It tests for some of the main qualifications we require in our employees,” said Rhorer.

WorkKeys works, said Chris Waymire, because it helps businesses find and train the right people, strengthen the applicant pool, increase employee production, get the most from training dollars, and reduce turnover.

In addition to the Toyota Camry, SIA produces Legacy, Outback, and Tribeca models for Subaru.

It is one of the highest-wage manufacturers in the Lafayette area, according to Kevin McNamara, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. The 2.3 million-square foot facility performs all integrated operations, from stamping to final assembly.