Proactive Technologies Report – December, 2022

Considering the U.S. has been warning about the “skills gap” for over 40 years, the amount of money lost – spent on accommodating, or wrongly addressing, the symptom – the total cumulative loss could be in the significant trillions of dollars…not to mention the resources misapplied. And millions of workers who want, and wanted, to work in a career and employers that could/could have employed them were, both, left empty.

This history has led some to suggest the skills gap is a farce. Even if your concerns aren’t that extreme, one has to wonder why with all of the money spent, the resources applied and the employers and trainees impacted, we seem to still be struggling with a skills gap that started to reveal itself in the 1980’s.

The fact of the matter is that employers have been just as unfocused and ambivalent about defining the problem as government has been zealous about having the only “solution.” While employers say they need and expect workers that can “hit the ground running,” “think outside the box,” “have skills for the jobs of tomorrow” and all of the other buzzwords and phrases circulating, what they really need is workers that can perform their unique tasks and processes, on their unique equipment, in their unique environment within their unique pay structure in a world of change. Not only do employers lack a clear definition of the job as it exists today, internal and external forces never allow a job to fully materialize before it is significantly changed by design or by changes in technology, or relocated out of the education system’s service area. Read More

It is bewildering why management would spend the time and money, and risk employee morale time and again, on a employee measurement that isn’t.

Conceptually, the performance review has a purpose. It is to measure employee performance during a review period, identify areas of weakness and strength, and offer guidance on how an employee can improve on shortcomings and expand potential. But that is only possible if it is accurate to the job classification against which an individual is measured.

Several decades ago, performance review criteria became a template – one form fits all. In order for that to be possible, the metrics had to become more general, such as whether the individual “works well with others,” “completes projects on time,” “shows initiative.” At best, these types of measures leave the reviewed wondering whose job performance is being discussed. At worst, these subjective measures leave a lot of latitude for the reviewer who sometimes deliberately or inadvertently punishes an otherwise good performing employee. Read More

“Futile” since, concurrent with this transformation, government was compounding this disruption with trade agreements and incentives to a smaller and smaller concentration of corporations that encouraged the exportation of the jobs that education programs were targeting. Additionally, employers imported workers to fill these positions (through visa programs) who would perform the same work at a fraction of the established compensation levels – many of whom attended the same U.S. education institutions.

We unfortunately know now that what followed was a rapid churning of jobs that used to provide income security and fulfilling careers to all levels of the workforce and made it nearly impossible for anyone to enroll in a 2 or 4-year education program confident there will be jobs waiting for them upon graduation. Read More

For some firms, just-in-time manufacturing and extreme lean engineering has made it difficult to ride out the economic effects of the 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.

Those that survived had to scramble to stock their shelves, staff and restaff their organizations while reconsidering every aspect of their operation. The economy and its current inflationary effects are straining workers – who might have just been given a raise – once again, who find it increasingly difficult to support themselves. Companies supported by private equity or who are publicly traded find themselves forced to quarterly cut costs – no matter how practical or short-term – to appease their boards of directors. Continuing a decade’s-old practice of denial, of employees being considered a “cost” no matter the employer’s years of investment in developing them nor the wealth of knowledge and skills expertise each represents, are first in line to be discarded.

As pawns in this transformation, workers – some with extreme experience – are vulnerable to being reconsidered out of the equation along with the newly hired. Read More