It’s been a while since we talked about one of our hot buttons: the ongoing skills gap in manufacturing and the trades. It’s good to see that the topic is very much alive and getting continual, positive coverage in the media. Are we slowly experiencing a shift to bring young people back into skilled traded positions? Is the stigma for blue collar positions slowly lifting?
Plenty of industry leaders are doing their part to help bring awareness.
Lincoln Electric recognizes this issue and is leading the challenge to change the perception of manufacturing jobs, which as CEO Christopher Mapes points out, “When people think about welding, they typically don’t think high-tech. Instead, they picture workers with their heads enveloped in welding helmets. That’s not what welding is today…Welding is robotics. It’s metallurgy. It’s software engineering.” Read more about Lincoln’s initiatives for tackling the skill gap here.
Skilled trade’s biggest proponent, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe, who recently published, “The Way I Heard It,” believes, “The skills gap today, in my opinion, is a result of the removal of shop class and the repeated message that the best path for most people happens to be the most expensive path.”
While 40 years ago we needed more people to get into higher education, the pendulum swung so far in the direction of promoting higher education, that it has alienated an entire section of the workforce, skilled trades. With 7.3 million skilled jobs unfilled in our country (and 1.6 trillion in debt from higher education), we desperately need the pendulum to swing back.
It seems the messaging is starting to get through.
This recent article articulates how trade schools are now touting how blue-collar professionals such as plumbers, electricians and mechanics make more money than workers whose roles require a college degree.
Perhaps the trend against four-year-college degrees has begun. Many of the fastest-growing professions do not require a bachelor’s degree, and some do not even require a high-school diploma. Could the new six-figure job be trade work?
Let’s hope that more and more of our young people (or people considering a career change) look at skilled trade positions as a viable option for their career path.
If you found this post interesting, check out these additional posts on the topic:
By Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, PR Foreman, Sonnhalter
It seems especially appropriate to address the subject of “skills gap” today, the third Friday in September, which is also “National Tradesmen Day.” National Tradesmen Day is a day where we honor the men and women dedicated to maintaining the complex infrastructure of our roads, cities, water systems and power grids. The skills and knowledge of those in the trades–electricians, plumbers, masons, mechanics, carpenters and everyone in between–ensure the jobs get done and businesses, homes and entire nations keep running.
While these professionals work day in and out to maintain their skills unique to their trade, the grim reality is that every day qualified workers retire, and the demand for skilled workers grows. In fact, as the country grows, the skilled trades are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the job market today. Their skills and jobs are so valuable, in fact, that training is available in nearly every sector of the skilled trade job market.
The problem is there are fewer and fewer students pursuing an education in the trades. Instead, they have been led to believe that it’s necessary to attend a four-year college in order to get a high-paying, satisfying job. It isn’t. There are other paths to a good career.
Build Your Future, an organization that aims to be the catalyst for recruiting the next generation of craft professionals, elaborates on the advantages of a career in the skilled trades in this guest post.
By 2023, there will be 1.5 million construction jobs that need to be filled. This shortage could be detrimental to the infrastructure and construction projects in America.
As the skills gap worsens, those with a lot of knowledge and experience in the crafts will be highly sought out with high-paying opportunities. Following the idea of supply and demand, this shortage has led to stable, high-paying careers for construction professionals.
With so much opportunity in the skilled crafts arena, it makes sense to explore the many options—and become part of the much-needed team of professionals that keep our nation running smoothly with their hands, their skills, their tools and their training.
Want to read more on the subject? Check out this post:
By John Sonnhalter, founder and rainmaker journeyman, Sonnhalter
Our workforce is aging faster than we can replace them, especially in the skilled labor category.
High schools used to push college as the only viable alternative to higher education. These graduates, with their liberal arts education, come into the workforce with no vocational skills. And individuals who lack the right skills or credentials, land in careers with little or no chance for meaningful advancement.
We’ve talked for years, now, about how many of our youth are missing opportunities in the workforce because they were thinking that they had to go to college. Let’s face it, college is not for everyone and for many who go to college, they end up in jobs that have nothing to do with their major.
In recent years, the media and the rest of the world have now started to pay attention to the lack of skilled labor to fill loads of trade jobs that, by the way, pay very well (sometimes better than four-year college degrees) and don’t have big student loans to pay back! And electrician, plumber or carpenters jobs can’t be outsourced overseas!
Today’s guest blog post comes from Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). More and more industry trade groups are organizing to address the skills gap, and PMPA has certainly been in the lead of that effort. Just last year they launched MFG, an online one-year certification and job training course for its members that allows companies big and small to have a consistent, accredited training program.
Training the Next Generation: The Need for Professional Development
Establish a training program that identifies the necessary requirements to be fulfilled.
Professional development and staff training are important to the success of every shop. Professional development ensures employees maintain appropriate certifications, knowledge, safety and ethics in the professional environment. The goal of professional development is to have a qualified staff. Qualified employees have the skills needed to deliver the highest quality of service to our customers. This can be accomplished by establishing training programs, workshops and ongoing educational opportunities. This benefits the company as a whole by improving productivity, culture and customer loyalty while helping employees achieve their highest and best performance.
Establish a Training Program
Establish a training program that identifies the necessary requirements to be fulfilled. Safety training, technical competency and performance techniques are all possible deliverables. By providing this kind of training, the company can feel comfortable knowing they have improved staff knowledge leading to improved performance from their employees. Better performance means improved safety, quality and customer satisfaction. Training improves competency, so it improves performance and trust. Improved trust improves teamwork. Everybody wins. Why would you choose not to establish a training program?
Administer the Training Program
Identifying training needs is the first step. Administering a program to provide the training, testing that it has been effectively learned, and tracking training accomplishments are the next steps. Any course materials should be accredited to recognized national standards such as National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS), of which PMPA is a founding member, or the Department of Labor Apprenticeship. Implement the training through your people, or rely on a provider of training that can assure the accreditation of the material and also monitor the completion of each training course by each learner. Training can be provided by a face-to-face demonstration of skills on the job by mentors in the shop, while other materials can be provided via an online forum. The online materials and the students’ progress are tracked through the online portal.
Evaluate the Effectiveness of Training
In order to ensure that the training is helping the trainees and the organizations reach their goals, a means to evaluate its effectiveness needs to take place. This can be done by managers or by a professional development committee. Feedback from trainees, their team leads and data from the online portal can help the team further refine their training offerings and methodology. Assessing trainee performance is just as important as identifying passing scores on quizzes and tests. Most employees will pass the coursework, but feedback will help the company refine the training to clarify materials that seem unclear or difficult to master, as well as develop a plan to ensure that each employee has multiple opportunities to meet the requirements of the standard.
Evaluate the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Program
It is not enough to evaluate the training. It is just as important to evaluate the efficiency, effectiveness and impact that the training provided had on the employees and its impact on the company’s overall performance. Less downtime? Shorter setup times? More independent decision making on the shop floor? Better team-work as trained employees become more trusted employees? What do these mean in terms of uptime, operational fulfillment and bottom line profitability?
What is the Cost of Training?
Better yet, what is the cost of not training? What is the benefit of having qualified personnel, a qualified program and a qualified and aligned team? What is the value of having a standard work of best practices in your shop? How can you get to standard work and best practices without some training means to create that knowledge throughout your shop? Which of your performers could not benefit from some additional training?
How important is funding? Funding is what it takes to bridge the gap between your company’s current performance and your aspiration to be the highest performing shop serving your customers. Appropriate funding is necessary to ensure that training is effective, authoritative and appropriate. Without funding, inappropriate training or lack of training may result in misinformation, some staff remaining uninformed and possibly working dangerously because they have not been trained to recognize unsafe practices.
Overcoming Our Shared Challenges
The challenges we share revolve around the ability to remain consistent in the approach to training and developing personnel. They can be overcome by establishing, administering and evaluating the training that we provide, as well as our program that provides it. Planning, persistence and teamwork are keys to getting this done. When an individual is trained, they feel comfortable with information and guidelines, and thus, become successful as they positively impact those with whom they work.
There is no doubt that all our companies need and can benefit from professional development. There are many resources that will help an individual to grow and develop both professionally and personally. All companies claim to have the ability to communicate, document and provide instruction on the skill sets needed. If we are to achieve our desired professional development outcomes, we must be a savvy shopper and keep our eye on the goal.
By Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent, Sonnhalter
The mainstream media continues to wake up to the skills gap in the trades, as this recent report from CBS Sunday Morning proves. The report was spurred by the lack of skilled tradespeople specifically surrounding hurricane clean up, however it continued to shed light on the issue. A large part of increased recognition is the result of two people featured in the piece: Norm Abram of This Old House and Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs.
Both, as individuals and as part of their shows, these two have been “fighting the good fight” on the skills gap. Fighting against media bias, educational neglect and pop culture stereotypes of the trades.
Make sure to check out the last part of the video though, as the progress Lehigh Career & Technical Institute has made acts as an inspiring end to the continuing story.
The mainstream media continues to wake up to the skills gap in the trades, as this recent report from