Are You Winning the Workforce Preparation War?
Opinion Column
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| John Shifflett |
Make no mistake. You, along with the rest of the United States, are in a war for the most competitive workforce. And, we are not winning. Unless your business is directly engaged in helping our education system understand the needed craft and business skills of the future and preparing our children accordingly, you’re part of the losing equation. And you’re most likely not making progress in the battle.
Workforce preparation and readiness is a competition about survival, success, and winning. Today my business, and yours, is spending an incredible amount of resources to prepare our future workforce. Whether it’s for in-house company training, externally provided training, or just “follow Joe” on the job training (OJT), we are spending both visible and “invisible” resources and labor dollars to get our workforce prepared to help us win the business competition. Consider how long it takes you to develop manufacturing craftsmen to be capable and confident to carry out work on their own with high quality and great speed. The learning curve isn’t free…what does it cost you?
Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) has been fortunate to have a number of forward-thinking education partners willing to work with us to prepare the future workforce as part of their education. With Virginia’s community college system and our local partner at Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC), pre-employment training has reduced the new hire learning curve cost dramatically. For example, OJT time for new welders was reduced by 33 percent, and the normal attrition rate was cut in half for those new welders who had participated in pre-employment welder training at TNCC. This yields significant savings in workforce preparation for us, great careers for our new employees, and successful graduates of TNCC’s certificate program. This is a true win–win–win scenario.
The Newport News Public Schools (NNPS) and other local school systems are working with us in the federally funded Career Pathways program to develop students’ interests in, and preparation for, careers in shipbuilding and manufacturing. We are poised to hire an additional 10,000 new employees over the next five years and need to find all possible ways to make connections with potential future workers. In Career Pathways, NNS collaborates with NNPS to provide speakers, club activities sponsors, and group leaders for projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) which help elementary and middle school students learn how their school work relates to really great careers. Career Pathways extends into high school with worksite visits, job shadowing, and internships, which help students understand and visualize themselves in shipbuilding and manufacturing careers.
I encourage you to begin today to connect with and support your local education system. Get involved now, for their future, and for yours. It’s time and effort profitably spent.
John Shifflett is the director of leadership, professional, and technical development for Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, in Newport News, VA.
AME publishes opinion columns that challenge us to think “outside our box.” Although opinions expressed are solely those of the authors, AME believes that exposure to new ideas helps to give readers a more complete understanding of the challenges and opportunities that manufacturing faces.
