One person can very rarely convince a crowd to change directions or course. It typically take a chorus of those in agreement before the masses will move away from the normal inertia on status quo thinking before making a serious changes. So when I strived to tell the world 10 years ago about the maintenance and skills crises, many ignored, scoffed, or just exclaimed that I was an alarmist.
As the boomers are now retiring at a gradual but increasing larger rate that some are calling the Boomer Tsunami. Also that companies are readily investing in automation to gain a competitive advantage over just cheap labor, they are experiencing infant mortality of their new equipment becausse the equipment capabilities exceed the skills of their current workforce and that new workers have serious deficiencies in basicn technical skills, soft skills, and work ethics.
With the statistics from NAM and other outlets claiming over 600,000 unfilled jobs, with over 60,000 returning vets coming to a volatile economy, now the national media outlets are beginning to see first hand that we do have a skills gap and that more educational resources need to be directed to correct these challenges.
Also in the middle of these challenges are some companies are being accussed of exploiting the real crises and creating a false crisis by not compsnsating the workforce at adequate levels. That may be true in some situations, but the vast majority are fairly rewarding their workforce and compensating decent wages and benefits for skilled functions. Due to increased regulations from OSHA and EPA, workplace safety is the number one worker benefit. Most operations are much easier to work in than previous generation conditions.
However, we still fight the stigmas and stereotype that hinder highly capable resources from pursuing the skills needed to fill the gap and build an adequate talent pool to address the gaps.
However, the media chorus is emerging and masses are begining to take notice now that major media outlets like Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes, USA today, NY Times Tom Friedman and others to be added later are finally taking notice and discussing these issues in depth
What more do you think needs to be done to address these crises?