New Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership Coming to North-Central, Ohio

by Frank Gibson, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

Conspicuously absent from worker development strategies has been the employer who says they need the qualified workers. In north-central Ohio, a new parentship has formed that will make a more directed effort of helping to develop the human assets employers need to fuel their business strategy.

Metrics within companies and throughout the nation emphasize the need for a more job-relevant and complete worker development effort; a system connected from per-hire development to post-hire maximization of worker capabilities. Some may might think this sounds like a “European-style model” of apprenticeships, and it does have that philosophical connection.  But here in the United States our educational institutions and workforce development agencies are not structurally aligned yet to accommodate that, but a regional alliance could be.

I have lived in Ohio my entire life. I’ve served in the military and witnessed the armed forces way of technical training. I worked in private manufacturing and have been involved in workforce development at the state level and while at The Ohio State University-Alber Enterprise Center and several other educational institutions. Looking at the same challenge from different angles gives one a broader perspective.

Lately, though, I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu over my déjà vu. Since the 1980s, I have witnessed an ongoing creation, destruction, realignment, reinvention of the landscape of local manufacturing, as well as all the workforce development agencies and providers trying very hard to be relevant and support them. The target hasn’t stopped moving and neither have all of the lagging inputs, but trying, to stay aligned.

Originally we were told by business leaders, academics and talk show hosts to call it “creative destruction.“ I see and understand the destruction part, but sometimes struggle to align the word “creative“ with some of it, unless it is to imply a “novel” way to shake things up. Innovation often has a positive impact, but its lingering benefits, often as well, seems to be more limited than advertised.  For some of it, perhaps “collateral and unintended destruction” is a better term based on the associated chaos and uncertainty, usually predicted but unheeded, that seems left in the wake. For as difficult as it has been not to jump aboard the latest trend “hype train” before it leaves the station, workforce development, education and employers should always factor the probability of success and unforeseen outcomes into their strategies.

Many of the workforce development, agencies, educational institutions and career centers try very hard to keep up with the instability and support local manufacturing. No sooner than they create a very aligned workforce development program to, hopefully, expedite the development of entry-level workers for that emerging sector, they find that sector either moved the targeted jobs elsewhere or moved on to another product line or new technology. It seems like such a wasteful approach when the resources are narrowing a focus on a target, but the target moves or disappears.

In addition to the problem of instability, it dawned on me in the 1990s that we were missing a very important piece of this process. Close coordination with, and openness of, employers who would be very helpful for managing better outcomes. Having seen this from the inside working for manufacturers, employers seem to be counting on local institutions to provide “plug-n-play“employees – a difficult task in an unstable market considering the time it takes for a program to be written, approved and a student to complete. Accordingly, many employers cut back on training investments internally, cut staffed trainers (if they had them) and eventually turn it into, unwittingly or not, a “roll of the dice” approach to worker training. Even if the local institutions could provide the most qualified and prepared entry-level candidate, there is no guarantee that the job would be there or that the employer would put in the effort to take a new-hire’s core and industry general skills and build on them. This is vital to guarantee the worker can rise to the level of worker capacity and capability that the employer needs, expects and wants to retain. Without the employer’s deliberate involvement, no one really wins but enormous resources are spent on a doomed-to-fail effort.

There has been a flurry of national survey results that show something is really broken in the way workers are prepared for a long-term career:

• “42% of employees who are looking to find a new job say they feel their company is not maximizing their skills and abilities.” (Deloitte)
• Among the reasons for quitting, career development is the most common for employees that leave within their first 90 days in a company. (Work Institute)
• According to LinkedIn research, “94% of workers say they would be more likely to stay at a company if it invested in their career.”

And employers are paying a hefty price:

• “A trillion dollars. That’s what U.S. businesses are losing every year due to voluntary turnover. And the most astounding part is that most of this damage is self-inflicted.” The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary — and that’s a conservative estimate. (American Machinist)
• Each resignation can cost a company up to a third of the worker’s annual salary. 67% of which often come from soft costs like reduced productivity but 33% come from hard costs like recruiting, hiring temp workers, and the like. (SHRM, 2019)
• This is echoed by a more recent study that revealed the cost of replacing an employee is equivalent to 33% of an employee’s annual salary. (Emplify, 2020)
• “For companies who experienced extended job vacancies, 81% reported it had a negative impact on their company. Among these are not getting work done (28%), disengaged or unmotivated workers (27%), low employee morale (25%), revenue loss (25%), and delivery time delays (22%).”  (Express Employment Professionals, 2020)

And these numbers do not reflect the cost to the employer of undeveloped or underdeveloped, underutilized worker capacity!

As the world of manufacturing continued to move towards needing ever-increasing profits and everything seemed like a cost to be cut – including developing a worker which should be classified as an investment – internal worker training became more informal and more haphazard. Local workforce development and educational institutions continued to try very hard to develop highly qualified, entry-level candidates, but the underlying problems are still there; not due to lack of effort and resources, but lack of alignment and relevancy. The gap continues to grow more pronounced. Companies are bought up, management changes, and any commitment to improvements in internal worker training are either shelved indefinitely or pushed aside for the time being. Employers continue to say they can’t find the workers they need.

Larger employers seem to have resources to do a better job internally of training the workers if they recognize the importance of it and commit to an effort to do it right. They also have the resources to adapt to changes faster if predisposed to do so.  Smaller and midsize firms, with the same need but lacking in resources while under pressure to grow, could certainly use help with their internal worker training needs.

In general, the resources are there but could use a better alignment. It is in the employers’ interest to play a much more active role in the connection than they have demonstrated in the past. But employers will not make the commitment until they see, clearly, how an investment in worker development directly and significantly effects their bottom line and it can be done without up-ending or impeding their primary focus, today’s business.

In North Central, Ohio, a new partnership has formed called the “North-Central Ohio, Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership centered in Upper Sandusky but reaching the surrounding counties. Its mission is to bridge the gap between the employer and the institutions that only want to serve them better by clearly defining the target, focusing on employer-based structured on-the-job training and connecting to the area institutions, agencies and programs that have something concrete to add and are committed to doing it.

This partnership will focus primarily on building and strengthening the employers’ capability and support the implementation of a “world class” training cooperative. The partnership’s central focus will be building an infrastructure around the informal, undocumented one-on-one experience previously utilized to varying degrees by employers to train new-hires and make it the deliberate capstone it needs to be.

The effort will expedite the internal training of workers and “transfer of expertise.” Technical support will be provided that will ensure that progress is made and documented, and that employers can focus on business while training is integrated into their business model. Employers are already spending a lot of time, resources, and money on this informal experience with uncertain outcomes. This approach seems to be a logical, natural fit that employers are happy to get on board with. Maximizing each worker’s capability and capacity, and therefore documented value, may counter the tendency of companies to think that laying off workers as “costs” to be reduced is the only answer. In reality, it often is a short-term solution with long-term ramifications that need a reckoning later and should be thoughtfully and empirically weighed against alternatives.

We’ll be building on a proven model of worker development by Proactive Technologies, Inc., which has partnered with educational institutions, workforce development agencies and economic development for decades. I first became acquainted with PTI in OH 1994 and have brought them into employer-based projects whenever I recognized the employer sees and understands its potential. Since my initial introduction, I have never come across a better, more reliable and documented approach and those employers who committed themselves to its approach and what it had to offer seemed to agree and benefit greatly.

This partnership’s secondary focus will provide a better connection between the local workforce development agencies, training grant funding opportunities, educational partners and specialty training providers best suited to meet each employer’s specific needs. More job-specific information will be shared with the local institutions so that they can evaluate their products and services, upgrade them if needed, to ensure accuracy and effectiveness to lead to better, more recognizable outcomes for all – even in a world where change never ends.

We intend to open-up more paths to fast-track candidates from any avenue toward an employment outcome and career opportunity. There are many potential workers in different circumstances such as K-12 career path selection and early development, dislocated workers, young and older individuals, veterans and re-entering potential workers that could, with a straight-line path to accelerate their development, keep firms with a never-ending supply of qualified and competent candidates just waiting to be trained to master the employer’s job.

Credentials will be given for employees that reach a very high bar of “full job mastery,” as well as for all of the related technical instruction that is gained along the way. For those employers who are ready, we will help them form these programs into apprenticeships whether registered or not. Employee portfolios will be dynamic, and any addition or enhancement of the employee skill-base will be documented.

We are excited about this new partnership and encourage any employer in Central Ohio that is interested in more information to contact me, Frank Gibson. We are excited about this partnership and what it can do to help employers in the area not only become the best they can be but help build the region with better job training and career development outcomes.

Watch for more information coming in the next editions of Proactive Technologies Report and local media.