USA Company Avoids Workforce Skills Shortage
How to avoid US workforce skills shortage.
 |
| CNC Plasma Cam |
Tim Borkowski • "If you are a manufacturer and need skilled labor you will have to be pro-active and invest in your future employees. We recruit in area High Schools in a 50 mile radius of all of our Manufacturing facilities. We offer a sponsorship program where the student will get 30 hours a week of OJT will attending the local Technical school. The student pays the tuition up front so there is a personal commitment and no free rides. The students must maintain a "B" average and we monitor their attendance. After completion of a two year program we hire them full time and reimburse their tuition in six month increments for the next two years. During the two years after graduation they are assigned a mentor and a rotating schedule so that they get experience on all areas of our manufacturing floor. Our retention rate at the end of this four years is 99%. If an area High School provides us with 4 candidates or more we re-invest in that High School by donating a CNC Plasma Cam to the school so that they can expose High School students to present Technology. This has been an excellent program for us. I can't wait for someone else to educate our employees. Our Facilities are short run, safety critical fasteners and machined parts where we produce over 7,500 different jobs per month."
My own 'out of the box' idea... Local high schools, community colleges and companies team up to build a local community micro-manufacturing facility (non-profit) that produces supplies needed for local high schools and community colleges on demand. Local high school adding shelves or even an extra room? Local community micro-manufacturing facility (LCMM) can produce angle brackets to save school money, produce desk, chairs, rulers, pencil holder, hinges, etc. Because the LCMM is non-profit, doesn't have marketing and packaging expenses, raw material donated tax deductible the community saves. but most important, the student working at their LCMM learn valuable skills.
Don (Follow me on Industrial Skills Training Blog and on Twitter @IndTraining .) Be sure to add me to your Google+ circles to stay on top!
Comments