Ever since leaving the military and earning a degree in the Evening MBA Program at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, Wes Wood, MBA’17, has worked toward one goal: solving workforce challenges for both businesses and workers.
After launching INvets, an organization that helps military veterans transition to civilian life and job placement, Wes had earned years of expertise in workforce development in the manufacturing and logistics sectors. As he prepared to move on from INvets, which he’s grown to a successful model that other states are replicating, Wes was well aware of the problem many Indiana manufacturers face: available workforce.
“Employing the right amount of people at the right time is a huge problem for traditional manufacturing logistics companies,” Wes explained. “There are communities with several manufacturing companies that want to grow, but the population of available workers isn’t keeping up with demand. Those communities need to find innovative workforce solutions if they want to keep these companies from looking to expand elsewhere.”
Wes connected with leaders at a new startup called Veryable. The firm offers a tool that supports manufacturing and logistics companies by allowing them to tap into a new, flexible portion of the workforce. The company wanted Wes to build partnerships with industry and community leaders that would introduce a completely new approach to workforce development and management.
“Veryable offers an interesting and impactful way to solve a problem no one else has been able to solve. And it felt like a continuation of my work at INvets,” Wes said. “Most people I talk to each day are leaders in the manufacturing and logistics sector. I understand their key business challenges, objectives, and KPIs [key performance indicators] because of the Kelley Evening MBA. It really set me up well to have a wide variety of conversations.”
Six months later, Veryable created a role for Wes in which he uses the platform to connect manufacturers throughout the country with available workers in their communities, including Indianapolis and other cities in the state. Through the Veryable app, companies can post work opportunities, one shift at a time, and available workers living nearby can select options that fit their schedules.
Wes says the platform brings the gig economy to manufacturing and logistics.
“There’s a whole portion of the workforce that has a traditional 40-hour work week, but there’s another portion that needs a combination of shifts or days. Now, workers who’ve been sidelined because they can’t do a traditional work week can choose the times and days they are available to work. This allows the company to scale their headcount daily for what they actually need without layoffs,” Wes said.
“What we’re doing at Veryable has huge implications, not only for these companies, but also for communities large and small. It unlocks a whole new part of the workforce and helps them engage in their local economy, make money, and put food on the table while local economies get more juice out of their workforce.”
Instead of competing for workers, manufacturing and logistics companies using the platform can benefit from a shared workforce. Veryable’s model also has potential to improve the representation of women in the manufacturing and logistics workforce, which often hovers around 30%.
“For 20 years, as a nation we’ve spent all kinds of funding trying to get more women into manufacturing, and the numbers have stayed the exact same since 2000. But our Veryable workforce—who exclusively work on the floor of manufacturing and logistics plants—is 52% female,” Wes said. “The flexibility helps make childcare and other common schedule constraints less of an issue and lets people choose when they want to work.”
Much like his work to fill the gap between open positions and returning military veterans, Wes’ new position at Veryable is helping change how manufacturing and logistics companies in Indiana and beyond do business. He’s leaned into his work experience and his MBA from the Kelley School to maneuver effectively among a variety of professions and industries.
“A large part of my role is focused on partnerships; figuring out a win-win two organizations can achieve by working together. Through my work at INvets and now at Veryable, I talk to business and government leaders, venture capital and private equity firms, nonprofits, and all these different industries,” Wes said. “The Kelley Evening MBA exposed me to a lot of different people and backgrounds, and it really helped me understand the lens through which they view the world. That’s often an advantage I have in these conversations.”
Wes says it’s been satisfying to see INvets grow from an idea he pitched in 2016 to a $2 million organization supporting veterans. He’s made connections through INvets that have helped veterans find work and mental health support. He’s connected companies with like-minded missions with under-served populations. He’s started consulting for other states that want to launch similar veteran organizations.
He remembers case studies from his MBA and, as a mental exercise, imagines if his work were a case study now: What would his classmates say as an outside perspective? How would his professor improve on it?
“The comprehensive education from the Kelley School makes it a lot less scary to tackle any of these projects,” Wes said. “It provided me with a broad understanding of how business works. And while that may seem simple, it allows me to connect several dots that have become very important.
“I had a finance undergraduate degree, and I was in the Army as a sniper. I didn’t know anything about manufacturing or operations. The Kelley Evening MBA really trained me to get here. It’s been very rewarding.”
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