Learning, Unfortunately, The Hard Way
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Employers are being tested these days on their ability to respond to a rapidly changing world and maintain operational continuity. While we should have been better prepared to weather the Crash of 2008, who could have imagined that a pandemic would so disrupt the world’s supply chain, and realign consumer needs and preferences so fast and furiously, that even previously successful business operations would be pushed toward shuttering?
I am sure we all thought that after the Economic Crash of 2008 and its horrible aftermath that we had left those days of extreme reaction behind us. But here we are with another test to see who was paying attention.
For some firms, just-in-time manufacturing and extreme Lean engineering made it difficult to ride out the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Without having warehouses of inventory to call up while the supply chains straighten themselves out, the effects are immediate and debilitating. Many firms frantically attempted to reinvent themselves, in some cases in the most extreme way, without a clearly defined market or consumer, while other firms found themselves “checkmated” nearly overnight.
Now we are faced with a pending trade war, which has yet to define itself. But at a minimum it presents employers with new challenges that will reveal how it has prepared itself. The employer’s workforce usually the first to be disrupted if hunkering down is required. However, lost in this decision is the amount of investment made to develop the expertise being voluntarily relinquished. Also lost is the cost of replacement and the burden to the organization trying to stabilize itself and grow while struggling with finding, and having to train, quality replacement workers.
click here to expandDecision Making While Swimming in Divergent Views
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
It seems like we’re all overwhelmed these days. Bad news, natural, disasters, man-made, disasters, and fears of upcoming meteorites, diseases, hurricanes, and government shenanigans. Even the nightly news has nine stories of current and pending disasters followed by one story of a little boy who found a marble, separated by commercials telling us to “ask our doctor” if this new drug is right for us.
What’s different today is that there is no escape from it. It comes through social media platforms on our phones, our computers, it plays on the radio, network and cable news, it comes from massive industries of political and financial pundits, and paid influencers of many kinds. Second-hand versions of that information come from our coworkers, our neighbors, our friends, and even our clergy.
It is difficult these days to extract the information we need from these sources and make the best, most proper decision in response. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by having to do so, yet that’s what we do both in life and in business; we make decisions based on the information we receive, and hopefully make good ones.
click here to expandApprenticeships: Be Careful Not To Minimize Integrity To Spike The Numbers
by Dr. Dave Just, formally Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education at Community Colleges in MA, OH, PA, SC. Currently President of K&D Consulting
In December of 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new rule on apprenticeships provide additional pathways to certification. The final rule specified that program sponsors could offer three different ways for apprentices to complete a registered apprenticeship program:
- Traditional, time-based approach, which requires the apprentice to complete a specific number of on-the-job (OJT) and RTI hours;
- Competency-based approach, which requires the apprentice to demonstrate competency in the defined subject areas and requires OJT and RTI; and
- Hybrid approach, which requires the apprentice to complete a minimum number of OJT and RTI hours and demonstrate competency in the defined subject areas.
Are Private Equity Portfolios and Hedge Funds the New Monopolies? Will They Be the Driver For, or Barrier To,
Manufacturing Reshoring to U.S.?
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
As with any journey, remembering how you got there is important to knowing how to get back. Since the 1980’s, Americans have been taken on a wild adventure with the restructuring of the world’s economies and trading relationships. Good paying manufacturing jobs in the U.S. were outsourced to lower wage labor markets and replaced with low-paying service jobs. When workers had questions, they were given answers to reassure them that good times and prosperity will come. After an inordinate amount of patience shown and the experiment seeming to have institutionalized worker’s losses for someone else’s gain, Americans have rightfully become restless as if their and their family’s welfare and future are at stake. On top of everything else the social safety net that Americans pay into and rely upon, which has worked since the Great Depression of 1929 – 39, is now in the process of being dismantled, maybe privatized. This is a good time for business and government leaders to revisit Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs if they are sincerely having trouble understanding why Americans are distressed.
In college, I attended many economic courses while working on my undergraduate degree. A lot of what I learned was elaborated upon during my pursuit of an MBA, but with a business slant. Many of the economic theories that were espoused then seemed to explain the norms of how the economy worked in the past and was working then, and why certain government interventions, when used sparingly and strategically, were sometimes necessary and later proved appropriate.
Today, it appears that economic norms have been cast aside, and government rules and regulations weakened or not enforced, as the concentration of capital moves entire U.S. and World markets and industries in the direction that benefits the concentrated capital markets. The rest of us seem to be low-level pawns in a life-altering game that we are only allowed to participate in so long as we have money to play. There are brief periods of calm and spotty poor and middle-class well-being, snatched away (along with any gains made) between the roller coaster bottoms, which seem to be cycling increasingly closer. For the vast majority of Americans, economic stability is only a memory and erosion of society, democracy and the capitalist system portend a potential dark future for us all.
click here to expandRead the full April, 2025 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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