Employer’s Missed Opportunity for a Dream Workforce

It’s been a growing disconnect, starting several decades ago and continuing to present a major obstacle to an organization’s longevity, stability, adaptability, and competitiveness. Employers seemingly neglecting their irreplaceable role in workforce development. It has always been unrealistic to expect others to be able to train the workers each employer needs when the processes are unique, their equipment is unique or unique in how they use it, their facilities and safety requirements are unique, and their expectations are unique.

In an article entitled, “Robots Without Mechanics: Why Our Education Pipeline Is Failing the Automation Economy,” by Aaron Prather, the author critiques employers making the capital investment in expensive robots without making the investment to train the technicians to maintain them. “The engineer who originally integrated the system left six months ago. Two experienced technicians retired. The remaining team is juggling alarms while supervisors debate whether to reroute orders to another facility.”

“Over the past decade, business leaders and policymakers have made an unmistakable bet on automation.” “The capital flows reflect this confidence. Companies are spending billions modernizing factories and logistics networks. Public incentives for robotics, AI, and manufacturing innovation are becoming central pillars of industrial policy… At the same time, demographic trends are working in the opposite direction. Industrial workforces are aging. Skilled technicians are retiring faster than they can be replaced. Labor shortages in logistics and manufacturing remain persistent.”

Prather offers solutions for the employer, educational institutions and state workforce development agencies. “Companies need to rethink how they structure and value automation talent. First, organizations should create explicit categories for automation operations or automation reliability within their workforce planning. These roles should have defined career paths rather than being treated as extensions of general maintenance staff. Second, companies should build structured development pathways. Workers should be able to progress from machine operators to robot “wranglers,” then to technicians and integration specialists. Cross-training programs can expose high-potential employees to automation projects early in their careers. Compensation and recognition systems must also reflect the value these roles create. Reduced downtime, faster system ramp-ups, and smoother deployments generate measurable financial benefits. Finally, automation projects should not be approved without workforce plans. Every major automation investment should answer basic questions: Where will the necessary skills come from? How many people are required? How will they be retained?”

He described the dilemma and contradiction exactly. I would only add that is is not just robotic technicians that are lacking in quality training efforts. It’s regular maintenance technicians, machine operators, press operators, shipping and receiving, quality control,… Any job in a manufacturing facility. It’s not limited to just the production floor, it also applies to the back office positions, such as scheduling, material handling, planning and accounting, and even first-level supervision. I have witnessed this in employer-based worker development projects I have participated in with Proactive Technologies, Inc. since the mid-1990s – trying to bring employers back to the basic principles of common-sense worker development strategies from which they seemingly drifted away from with nothing better to replace it.

The typical way an most employers train the workers they need is by pairing them up with a resident expert, who will transfer expertise informally, unstructured, and undocumented. If the resident expert is on their way out due to retirement or separation, and that information hasn’t been captured to be used in the training of new-hire or internal replacements, the employer weakens that department’s capabilities and adds additional risks. The more widespread the neglect, the greater the degradation to the overall operation.

It is such a simple solution to take a step back, capture all of the best practices for the critical tasks expected of the new hire so that it can be used to expedite the training process and ensure job mastery. Anything less works against the employer’s interest and weakens the possibility that the new-hire or internal transfer might be transformed into a fully competent worker; self-confident and secure in their position and contributing to the operation in the way the employer originally expected.

Employers, too often neglect this very important function of employment and opt to “hope and dream” their way trough it, praying somebody else will do their training work for them. That hasn’t worked for the last 30 or 40 years, and we are still putting the pressure on educational institutions to magically deliver fully trained workers when the best they can deliver are workers with a strong, core and general-technical skill base upon which the employer can build quickly if they are so equipped and inclined. The primary reason that counting on recent graduates to close the gap is a seriously flawed strategy is this fact: “Studies summarized by the National Safety Council show that workers forget up to 70% of newly learned information within 24 hours if it is not applied. After one week, retention can drop below 10%. Long refresher courses delivered once a year are among the least effective ways to preserve safety-critical skills.”

What’s worse is we have all experienced this so it shouldn’t be a surprise, yet all eyes are on education to deliver candidates that can “hit the ground running.” When the new-hire can’t meet those expectations, they either voluntarily move on in search of more defined employment opportunities or employers drive them out when cutting costs. For that reason alone, not to mention how infrequently educational curricula is maintained current and relevant, education can never deliver what employers dream by themselves.  Employers need to step-up and deliver the training on tasks and processes unique to them and not in any textbook. If it is, it probably is not being done anymore.

I could never understand why this hasn’t become front and center in the discussion of workforce development. Unequivocally, it is in the employer’s interest to invest time, effort and resources in their employee’s development and continuous improvement. Employers need to pay a good wage to retain good workers but assured, by their training efforts, they are getting a good ROI. Instead, it’s been a revolving door that never closes. The media still beats the same drum because it has become a reflex action from employers. Our members of government get rallied to that cause since it is the only one heard, but the “wait-and-see” or “let someone else do it” solutions never deliver.”

Pragmatic solutions are needed, not a race to be seen at the front of the pact chasing manufactured and well-financed marketing “trends.” The AI hype will pass when Wall Street formally recognizes the bubble, and investors abandon it for the next rally. It will fade into its proper and useful role just like virtual reality solutions for training, internet-of-things and teachers being replaced by web-based learning. And employers will still be saying “they just can’t find the skilled workers they need.” If we are lucky, a counter-movement of more realists will emerge and influence employers to return to the obvious and proven, yet neglected, solutions for workforce development.