Bridging the Skills Gap

There’s a nationwide shortage of qualified manufacturing workers. See what Pennsylvania’s industry is doing about it.

By Evan Pattak

For well over a decade, the National Association of Manufacturers and its partners have been studying the state of the art in America's manufacturing sector and arriving at a similar conclusion with each survey: the gap between the skills manufacturers need and the talent available is broad. But with its 2005 Skills Gap Report, NAM sounded a particularly shrill alert:

“The Skills Gap Surveys have recorded an alarming trend: The largest manufacturing country in the world can barely find the skilled employees it needs to remain competitive in a global economy.”

Just in case anybody missed the point, NAM restated it in even starker terms:

“Plainly said, unless solutions to the skills gap issues are acted upon with great focus and determination, this country will likely be left behind in the global competitive race.”
The survey, undertaken by NAM in association with Deloitte Consulting LLP and NAM's think tank, the Manufacturing Institute's Center for Workforce Success, spanned more than 800 manufacturers and uncovered the continuation of tendencies first noticed many years before. For one, manufacturers are struggling to find skilled workers:

“. . . 90 percent of respondents indicated a moderate to severe shortage of qualified skilled production employees . . . Skills shortages are having a widespread impact on manufacturers' abilities to achieve production levels, increase productivity, and meet customer demand.”

Moreover, the scarcity of qualified candidates is just as acute at the entry level, where manufacturers can't seem to engage people with the most rudimentary skills. Notes the survey:

“ . . . more than one-third of respondents also claimed shortages of unskilled production employees . . . the most frequently cited concern is inadequate basic employability skills, including attendance, timeliness and work ethic.”

Identifying and hiring the right people - at the top and bottom levels - is such a severe problem that at least 10 percent of the total positions at participating companies remain unfilled.

Compounding these difficulties is employers' stubborn reliance on traditional methods of worker satisfaction, such as wages and benefits, rather than more contemporary tools, including training, challenging positions, career paths and empowerment.

“There is a growing disconnect between what today's workforce wants and what employers traditionally offer,” the report says. “The phrases used to describe the disconnect are familiar - lack of employee management, loss of company loyalty, and the need for a new employer/employee 'deal' . . . Against this backdrop, it is somewhat surprising to note that only 13 percent of respondents indicated that one of the reasons they provide training to employees today is a way to attract new workers.”

To add insult to injury, the report notes that workforce investment boards, created by a 1998 act of Congress to help bridge the skills gap, have had limited impact:

“ . . . a very large percentage of respondents either has never heard of the government workforce programs or has never been contacted by workforce investment boards.”

None of this is particularly fresh or eye-opening. But, Stacey Jarrett Wagner, Managing Director of the Center for Workforce Success who designed and managed the survey, observes that while the findings of recent research haven't changed much, the world has. The emergence of China and India, in particular, with massive, well-trained workforces that can undercut the prices of U.S. competitors, is particularly significant.

“It’s like getting fat,” Wagner says. “You eat a little bit too much, you don't pay attention to your cholesterol, the next thing you know, you have a heart attack. We've seen the same sort of thing in the last 10 or 15 years of Skills Gap surveys. We didn't start dieting five years ago when we needed to. Having a smart, innovative workforce continues to be our strong suit, but the new entrants into the workforce offer few technical skills, and they're driving prices down.”

Part of the problem is the quantity and quality of training, both in-school and on-the-job. We're not doing enough of it, and what we're offering may be passé

“My golly, a lot of what gets taught in skills these days is for right after World War II,” Wagner says. “More sophisticated skills - analytical abilities, problem-solving, communications in the written and spoken word, technical skills - are becoming the baseline.

“We need to find ways to work and learn at the same time. That can mean training at the work site, training at local community colleges or technical schools. We have to include training in the business strategy. There's a lot of research that shows that if you offer employees more opportunities for training and advancement, they are very likely to stay with you.”

Not helping at all is the lingering image of manufacturing as a dead-end career played out on dimly lit, hazardous stages. It's a funhouse picture that persists despite the infusion of advanced technology into much of the manufacturing base.

“A lot of images about manufacturing are wholly outdated,” Wagner says. “It's not dark, dirty, dangerous. You won't wear a hair net on the floor. It's not like that anymore. There's a stronger use of technology, nicer, well-lighted environments, more emphasis on personal responsibility, career ladders. But we haven't conveyed that.”

The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors the national scene, but the state is attacking the problem on a number of simultaneous fronts. Says Fred Dedrick, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board:

“We are clearly cognizant of the fact that we have to do a lot more to make sure our manufacturers have the workers they need to be competitive in the future. We're doing a lot. We need to do more. But Pennsylvania's manufacturers are an incredibly impressive group. I think we've turned the corner to helping our companies understand how they can compete on a global basis.”

The NAM report recommends these approaches to narrowing the skills gap:

• Provide more incumbent worker training.
• Develop partnerships that include the public, private and education sectors.
• Sharpen curricula in elementary and high schools, community colleges and career-oriented institutions so that schools are preparing students for the most essential positions.
• Shine and buff manufacturing's dreary image.

Here's a look at the state's efforts in these key areas:

INCUMBENT WORKER TRAINING

The Skills Gap report indicates that, while the nation's manufacturers are allocating more time and money to training current workers, they're not completely sold on the potential. Seventy-three percent of respondents offer training because it's a “business necessity,” but only 13 percent see it as a tool for attracting new workers.

There's no such uncertainty about training in Pennsylvania. Through Gov. Ed Rendell's Job Ready Pennsylvania package, the Commonwealth is providing $15 million to support incumbent worker training programs. For the most part, these funds are targeted to industry clusters, where joint efforts among groups of manufacturers can produce more bang for the buck. But the efforts of single companies to improve the skills base of their employees won't be ignored.

“If there's a group of employers working together to improve their competitive situation, and they identify a skills gap within their own company, we have a program to address that,” Dedrick says.

Manufacturers these days are running so lean that removing workers from their tasks for training purposes can have adverse short-term consequences, such as the inability to meet production goals and customer needs. To ameliorate that problem, the state offers ready-made training modules that can minimize worker down time. Says Sandi Vito, Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry:

“[Participating manufacturers] don't have to create training programs on their own. They may lose some production time, but they don't need full-fledged HR people to develop and implement the training. Also, there's the ability to send one or two people at a time as opposed to shutting down the whole line.”

INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS

Most state-supported incumbent worker training programs involve such partnerships - and the relationships can extend far beyond that. In southwestern Pennsylvania, for example, the state is working with four workforce investment boards, Duquesne University and economic development organizations on a strategic plan to support manufacturing in a 10-county area.

The Food Processing Education and Training Partnership, based in the south-central portion of the state, includes more than 15 food processing companies from a 10-county area that are collaborating to align their training needs with educational resources.

The Central Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board has pulled together a consortium of modular/manufacturing housing and plastics producers to focus on a comprehensive worker retention strategy. In Lancaster, the workforce investment board has undertaken a similar initiative for the food packaging industry.

As these nascent partnerships grow, they'll reach out to include the educational community.

“As we put together these partnerships,” Dedrick says, “we will better understand workforce needs, and therefore, we'll be better able to communicate to our education partners what occupations they should focus on.”

MORE RELEVANT CURRICULA

Here, the state is aiming high. It wants to transform the way people are prepared for manufacturing careers.

“The days of a linear education path, where you move from school to an employer and up the career ladder, are gone,” Vito says. “We need a system of lifelong education. It's as true in manufacturing as it is in business and financial services. . . Pennsylvania remains one of the few states that doesn't have standards around what types of math and science skills one needs to graduate. We need to fix that.”

Among the most potentially far-reaching initiatives is Project 720 - so named because students typically spend 720 days in high school. Participating students receive not only strong academic preparation, but they also spend a generous amount of their time on-site with business partners.

“We want to totally revamp high schools, hold them to much higher standards,” Vito says. “We hope to pilot innovative ideas in each participating district and expand to more schools.”

The state recently pumped an additional $4.7 million into Project 720 to double the number of school districts involved to 80, and it introduced a companion $2 million program to provide schools with grants for equipment updates.

A SHARPER IMAGE

“What we need,” Dedrick says, only half-jokingly, “is a Hollywood producer to create a CSI of Manufacturing. What CSI has done for science and biology is tremendous. It's a fascinating thing. That's really the way to educate people. Only a small percentage of our kids ever see the inside of a manufacturing facility. We have to get the message out differently.”

Even if Hollywood doesn't come calling, the state is working on a script, so to speak. In Philadelphia, Kensington High School and Mastbaum Tech are among institutions that have partnered with Lockheed Martin on an initiative that brings students to the plant - and trains young workers for the company. Students spend part of their school days at the factory and become candidates for Lockheed jobs. If the company hires them, it will finance their ongoing study for degrees, whether associate or baccalaureate.

“It's exposure combined with education,” Vito says. “Parents learn to become more comfortable with it. The face of manufacturing looks much different to them. The more we can expose students and parents to the new world of manufacturing, the more likely we are to change the old image.”

With so much activity on so many related fronts, it seems likely that Pennsylvania will, at the very least, narrow the skills gap in manufacturing. But the clock, Stacey Jarrett Wagner reminds, is ticking.

“Manufacturing really was the job for anyone who wanted it,” she says. “It was the creator of the American middle class. It was Norman Rockwell. Now we're understanding that we have to learn to speak three languages and be very flexible. It's difficult psychologically. We all would like it to be the manufacturing of the 1950s, but it's not that. In fact, it's way better, but we have to make people understand that.

“There is a sense of urgency. Now we need to capitalize on it.”