Reluctant to Reshore Due to Apparent Shortage of Skilled Labor? Don’t Be
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
These are uncertain times for some manufactures with supply chains that transcend borders to countries subject to punitive tariffs, and/or social, political and economic unrest. Knowing where to invest time and precious resources isn’t as clear as it was a couple of decades ago, yet that is the situation many are in.
We all remember how quickly companies relocated part (in some cases all) of their operations, and/or prodded their suppliers to do the same, to lower wage, lower regulation and lower property cost environments – regardless of the transport costs, and risks of regional instability and supply chain disruption. As those economies developed and the associated operational costs increased, those perceived savings continued to erode. And as regional instability rose, many employers started to strategize their next move.
click here to expandOne over-hyped and inaccurate factor in the U.S. is the shortage of skilled labor, which some workers see as a veiled attempt to justify importing labor who will take the job for significantly less. There are plenty of skilled labor available who were displaced during the Crash of 2008, or recently displaced by the trade wars, and who had to change career course to feed their families. Many of these workers are still waiting, and could be quickly and easily “re-tooled” for today’s manufacturing jobs with a focused structured on-the-job training program. Some are kept from seeking out these opportunities by wages and benefits for the job they once had now offered at 50% – hardly enough to attract skilled candidates back- not to mention for retaining a “skilled worker.”
Some see this as a sort of hypocrisy; the publicized, frantic search for “skilled” and “talented” workers, while offering these skilled workers less for the job they once held with that employer or a similar employer in the industry. So, for now, many of those workers that are that skilled and talented abandoned the career of their choice for the career that pays the bills. Read More
Have You Captured The Expertise of Your Critical Hourly and Salary Positions?
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Starting in the late 1980’s, employers became increasingly concerned with succession planning; ensuring salary workers were being groomed to replace critical senior employees in the event of retirement or voluntary/involuntary separation. It was realized that the potential disruption – direct and the ripple effects – caused by an unplanned void in the leadership chain might be perceived as a threat to shareholder value. Shareholders, too, wanted assurances that maximizing a firm’s performance was not tied to one or two invaluable people.
Compounding the concern was the realization that the workforce was aging at all levels, and that retirements were a certainty. Prior to the Crash of 2008, employer’s concern over this was amplified by anecdotal reports from other employers already experiencing the impact. A movement toward a remedy began to take shape, and not just for high ranking salary positions, but technically critical salary positions and even hourly positions that with a loss of one or a few technical experts might disrupt operations and impair a firm’s viability.
click here to expandFor decades prior to the Crash of 2008, Proactive Technologies, Inc. worked with a lot of employers by job/task analyzing their critical job classifications – initially hourly positions but a growing salary class of positions as well. This approach “captured the expertise” of the aging workers to use it to develop the tools which would allow the company to train nearly anyone with a sufficient core skill base, replicating experts as needed.
Then the Crash of 2008 happened and employers found themselves unexpectedly and unwillingly accelerating the loss of technical experts at all levels. For employers late to the game, there was no longer time to capture expertise; it had already left the building.
In a Plant Services 2019 Workforce Survey report, almost 50% of employers surveyed answered that knowledge capture/transfer was one of their “organization’s biggest workforce challenges” – a number rapidly growing. Read More
The US DOL Wants States To Expand Apprenticeships. Will, and Can, Community Colleges Support Truly Employer-Focused Apprenticeships?
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 an article entitled, “A New Breed of Apprenticeships,” several community colleges were celebrated for their vision in expanding apprenticeship programs to non-traditional areas, in this case healthcare.
In reviewing the article’s “Five Key Elements” of an employer-based apprenticeship, I wonder if the understanding exists of what is most important to the employer. Something that isn’t “front-and-center” as an element is the need to ensure that the apprenticeship program, at a minimum, results in a worker who has mastered all of the tasks for the apprenticeship employer host’s job classification. Without that assurance, the employer will be underwhelmed, if not disappointed, and may disband the program leaving current apprentices without a program to finish and those who targeted the program without the special status they were expecting.
click here to expandThe article’s author rightly pointed out that apprenticeships have been around for around 4,000 years. They were built around the job classification in the beginning because that is all that there was. There were no community college for core and industry-general skill development; just a subject matter expert transferring expertise to a fresh recruit. It was effective because training was one-on-one in relatively low- traffic work environments. Expertise, tribal knowledge, work wisdom and known safety rules were all transferred while transferring each task’s best practice, so there was no doubt how these components fit together.
This approach became more difficult to manage as enterprises grew in size, scope and complexity. For profit-motivated employers, a 10 or 15 year apprenticeship was unthinkable. Labor unions tried to focus training more into an 8 or 9 year apprenticeship, but it was still hard to administrate and non-union shops showed no interest at all.
In general, employers drifted father and farther from the concept of expert-to-novice expertise transfer, opting instead for the very informal, unstructured and occasional one-on-one prevalent in most firms. Never mind the obvious contradiction with other contemporary management strategies such as LEAN, Total Quality Management and Continuous Improvement applied to capital investments. Most employers seemed to settle on the “hope for the best” strategy when it came to human assets, hoping further that the local educational institutions would come up with a solution while they raced forward to be competitive – dragging this anchor behind them. Read More
Proactive Technologies Announces Significant Turnkey Project Discount Program – October 15th – December 20th, 2019!
“No-Risk” Discount Pilot Program – Witness Approach for One of Your Specific Job Classifications Before You Decide to Expand
by Proactive Technologies, Inc. Staff
Due to the success of our last discount offers, and many requests from companies that could not act before the end of the last discount offer early this year, Proactive Technologies Inc. is once again offering a generous discount offer of up to 40% to employers from October 15th to December 20th, 2019! The accelerated transfer of expertise™ approach is a tremendous offer without the discount but with it, it can help any employer to:
click here to expand• quickly and completely train the skilled workers they need;
• realize an increase in worker capacity, work quantity/quality and compliance with quality programs such as ISO9001:2015, TS16949, AS9100D, NADCAP, etc., as well as engineering specifications and safety;
• reduce the internal costs of training;
New-hires and incumbent workers to full job mastery and higher levels of return on worker investment (ROWI).
The task-based, structured on-the-job training infrastructure is perfect for apprenticeships; instead of marking the calendar for “time-in-job,” job-relevant tasks are mastered and documented. As if anyone needs one more reason (i.e. in addition to live online presentations, onsite presentations) to decide whether to move forward with structured on-the-job training to boost their training strategy: Read More
Read the full November, 2019 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
Proactive Technologies, Inc.®; PROTECH; Human Resource Management for Tomorrow...Today!® and logo;