By: Alfred Gardner, GaMEP Human Resources Project Manager

Each October, we celebrate National Manufacturing Day as a way to showcase manufacturing careers and develop the workforce of the future. The origin of the day lies in workforce development, with its initial focus geared toward education and sparking interest in technical careers. While awareness is a crucial first step to attracting employees, it takes more to retain and develop employees long-term.

In honor of Manufacturing Day, I am going to lay out the elements of what I call “true workforce development” and address those important factors below, while also citing some steps manufacturers should take to implement a workforce development plan, as well as pitfalls to avoid.

Elements of True Workforce Development

Workforce development includes training, reskilling, upskilling, and continuing education of employees. It requires the support of leadership and often involves collaboration between public and private partners.

Despite having good intentions, many companies focus on just one or two of these aspects and end up formulating workforce development plans that simply aren’t strategic. Over time, this leads to open positions, workers without the skills to fill critical roles, and turnover, as employees who don’t see a path for growth leave for other companies or careers. However, with a true workforce development plan, companies can reskill and upskill employees, reduce turnover, and keep critical roles filled.

Job Profiling and Determining Needs

True workforce development begins with understanding and determining the skills and competencies needed to meet company goals and objectives. Once there is an understanding of the skills and competencies needed, the jobs employees perform must be evaluated to determine the specific skills and competencies employees require to be successful.

One common pitfall is thinking skills and competencies are the same. While a skill is a learned ability to perform a task, competency refers to a broader, more comprehensive ability to perform a job. Skills are the building blocks and competencies are the toolkit that enables effective performance. There are tasks that cannot be completed if the individual doesn’t have the competency, so we must first determine and assess not only the skills but also the competencies needed for employee success.

Another common pitfall is not understanding the daily tasks an employee performs while doing their job, and what is required to be able to complete tasks. Take the time to talk to your employees about what their jobs entail and find out what they do on a daily basis. You can also bring supervisors into the conversation and ask them which specific skills and competencies employees need to be effective in their jobs.

Job profiling is ongoing and should be calibrated often, at minimum once every year or two, to account for changing factors. Changes in jobs offer the opportunity to reskill employees. For example, if tasks within a job change, you need to calibrate it to see if the skills required have also changed.

Assessing a company’s future needs is as important as assessing present needs. Assessing future needs not only offers an opportunity for reskilling but the chance to upskill employees. As technology changes how tasks are performed, a higher skill level may be required. Investing in reskilling and upskilling employees increases their engagement and positively impacts company culture.

Assessing Skills and Competencies of Employees

Once jobs are profiled and there is an understanding of the skills and competencies required, a process to identify skills and competency gaps of employees should be developed. For blue collar roles, I often recommend a program like ACT WorkKeys.

ACT WorkKeys is presented by the same organization that administers the ACT college-admission test and is a system of curricula that assess an individual’s skills and competency level. By completing the assessments, individuals can earn the National Career Readiness Certificate^® (NCRC), the nation’s most recognized work-readiness credential that reflects proficiency in applied math, graphic literacy, and workplace documents.

Developing Employee Skills

There are a variety of services and programs for employee development, such as vocational training and education, apprenticeships, and internal development programs. Regardless, learning and development requires company support to be successful. Many companies consider workforce learning and development a cost instead of an investment. Workforce development enhances skills, provides a sense of job security, fosters innovation, and drives growth, all of which have a positive impact on employee retention and engagement.

Collaboration between a company and a public partnership not only benefits the company but also benefits the community and its economy. If your community lacks a strong public partnership, that should not deter your company from investing in employee development. A cost-effective means of developing employees is e-learning, which can be made easily available by investing in an onsite computer lab where employees can complete online courses. For example, ACT WorkKeys offers online certificate programs. WorkKeys certificates are nationally recognized from state to state and offer a pathway for individuals who haven’t finished high school to earn a certificate as a supplemental credential proving certain skills and competency.

Tooling U is another effective e-learning educational resource for workforce development. Tooling U has a different focus than ACT WorkKeys and is best suited for lifting a workforce to a higher level of technological competence. It goes a bit deeper into skills required for manufacturing and is ideal for individuals seeking work in a specific manufacturing field.

One Size Does Not Fit All

A common mistake manufacturers make in workforce development is attempting to emulate another company’s training and development plan. No workforce development plan can ever be one-size-fits-all. It is important that the skills and competencies of roles in your organization align with those needed to meet goals and objectives. Alignment between jobs, company goals, and objectives ensures meaningful and purposeful workforce development.

The Long View of Workforce Development

I’ve collaborated with many manufacturers to implement the processes I’ve outlined, and the steps are the same whether they have 11 employees or 1100 employees.

Regardless of company size, it is essential to remember not to simply replicate another company’s workforce development plan. Evaluate your company’s goals and objectives — then determine the skills and competencies needed to achieve them.

Of course, nothing in this process happens overnight. But for companies that are looking for a lasting solution, these true workforce development strategies deliver long-term results.

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