In January, then President-elect Bush had a meeting with top executives
from some of the major technology companies in the country, including
Dell Computer, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM and Intel. One major topic that received attention was education.
Speaking on behalf of the other executives, Cisco's John Chambers said
executives raised alarms about the American workforce. Chambers went
on to say, "the jobs will move where the best-educated workforce
is,". Noting American students ranking of 19th in math and 18th
in science he said, "we believe we've got about a decade to fix
this."
A misconception is circulating in many communities that with the extremely
low unemployment levels we have today, companies are forced to take
whatever "warm body" they find. But from what I see and hear,
this is far from the truth. In today's competitive business world --
where quality, innovation, speed and customer satisfaction are a must
-- companies will move their businesses to an available labor market
before suffering a continuous business loss and corresponding reduction
in market value.
A New Competition
Today, just as communities have to compete for new businesses
and continued economic growth, so too must existing businesses
or segments compete for continued growth and opportunities within
their own companies. How do we say to the upper management of our company,
"locate that new product line here, not in Texas, or Mexico, or
Singapore"? One major way is to demonstrate to corporate management
that your organization has the ability to meet its current business
commitments. You need to be able to show that your workforce has the
skills and abilities to handle the latest technological assignments.
And that your workforce and the community have the training and development
structure in place to grow skills and knowledge significantly as the
business changes.
No high-wage, high-skill business enterprise that I see can continuously
meet the needs of the global market place without addressing the need
for continuous learning. Without a formal, internal training and development
structure and a partnership with the community, which includes all levels
of education and government, the task of continually training a large,
high-performance workforce is impossible. Though there are many systems
and relationships needed to attract, retain and educate a skilled workforce,
in this report I will mainly address what the employer can do to meet
their own requirements. Relationship Between Business Needs & Education
Performance requirements for any business are created from the company's
business needs or strategy. When we compare our desired performance
to our current performance, the resulting difference is a performance
gap or barrier. There is always some gap and it can usually be attributed
to the difference between our knowledge and skills at a given time versus
the knowledge requirements attributed to ever-changing technology, customer
requirements, markets and general core competencies. The primary role
of workforce development within an organization is to minimize the gap
between the skills required to meet these requirements and the actual
skills of our workforce. This is primarily accomplished through internal
and external course work and on-the-job training.
A second gap is created from the difference between the skills and
knowledge of the entering workforce and those required to meet business
objectives. In President Bush's economic summit, gathered CEO's identified
a lack of math, science, and technology as a major workforce gap.
Though there will always be some gap as education monitors, defines
and develops curriculum to mirror the real world, the reaction time
is the primary determinant in the size of the gap. Just as business
must reduce the cycle time of change within an organization in the development
and manufacturing of products, education must also reduce the cycle
time of curriculum and program changes to meet the needs of it's customers,
the public, including employees and employers.
How One Business Builds Workforce Capacity
At 3M, we provide knowledge and skill training to employees in two
different ways: on-the-job training (OJT) and classroom training. On-the-job
training is used to build the actual job skills the employee needs to
do his or her job. We use a structured and formal approach to OJT at
the 3M plant. We have conducted job and task analysis on most of our
processes and in conjunction with the University of Missouri-Columbia
have created "instructor guides" for trainers to use in conducting
OJT. This insures that no matter who trains an employee, he or she will
receive consistent and complete training. All departments also have
a formal operator certification, and in some cases re-certification,
program in place to insure that all employees meet the minimum qualifications
for their positions. In our rapidly changing environment, the goal of
operator certification and on-the-job training is for rapid deployment
and re-deployment of trained employees between product lines, as business
needs change. The faster an employee can move to a qualified skill level,
the faster the product line can meet it's production and yield requirements.
Classroom training at our plant consists primarily of "hard skills".
I define hard skills as those skills that can be outwardly demonstrated,
such as computer usage and knowledge of Statistical Process Control
(SPC) principles. We rarely train in skills that attempt to modify an
employee's behavior. Internal, classroom training provides individual
training in the areas of: Safety & Security; Management & Supervision;
Quality & SPC; Team & Problem Solving; Computer; and Business
Training, including oral and written communication.
We have instituted assessment testing with minimum test scores as a
requirement for applying for skilled maintenance, Laser technicians
and our new Specialty Optical Fiber technicians. These tests cover math,
reading comprehension, mechanical aptitude and critical thinking. They
test what the individual already knows and is capable of learning. Two
years ago we offered similar assessment tests, on a voluntary basis,
to allow employees to determine their math skill level. We then offered
applied technical math classes to volunteers to allow them to improve
their math scores and enable them to qualify for future positions. As
new businesses with increased knowledge and skill requirements have
been added, product managers are requiring a demonstration of skills
and knowledge through testing. Increasingly, the number of positions
available to employees who lack the necessary knowledge and skills has
diminished.
With all that we attempt to accomplish, I do not consider our business
to be an education center. We don't have the resources, capacity or
desire to fill the role of an education institution. We also cannot
make up for what may amount to a lifetime of underachievement in education.
We expect new employees, especially those who have graduated from high
school in the last five years, to have the basic knowledge and skill
requirements in math, reading comprehension, and science, when they
apply at 3M. In the past we have addressed the issue of a lack a basic
academic education that does not meet today's high technology and high
performance requirements. But, today we are most likely to refer employees
to local education institutions through our corporate tuition reimbursement
program, to provide them with the education requirements they need.
In fact, we are currently working on using the college admissions tests
as a way to qualify applicants. For those who do not meet minimum requirements,
this also provides a way to identify remedial courses, similar to college
course placement.
Where do we go from here?
An organization's ability to meet and exceed it's current, strategic
goals and requirements is the first step in demonstrating to upper management
it's capacity for expansion and new product allocation. This is best
accomplished by having the best-trained and educated workforce "globally".
To do this, employers' need to communicate to educational institutions
their future employee skill and knowledge requirements. Education must
be receptive to new ideas and developments in producing qualified candidates.
It must also mirror the business environment in increasing its speed
in implementing new programs. This in turn will provide a larger pool
of qualified applicants and reduce the employer's cost of training and
retraining qualified workers.
Employers and employees need an education system that provides degree
programs in areas required by today's businesses, at a time and location
that meets the demands of the working adult. Many companies offer tuition
reimbursement, but in most cases programs in technical areas such as
engineering and science, are not offered at a time or location accessible
to today's employed worker.
If technology and businesses are constantly changing, and the cornerstone
of any business is it's human capital, then employees must also continually
change. The education and training of current and future employees goes
beyond the training of skills to also accomplish our goals for motivation,
retention, and recruitment. I firmly believe that an American system
of business and industry, education, and government, working together
in unison can meet current and future global business standards for
quality, innovation and speed.
Send this article to a friend
Authored by: John F. Durboraw, Plant Training
& Development, 3M Company, Columbia, MO
Source: Creating Quality Newsletter, Volume
10, Number 5, May 2001
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