What does the skills shortage mean for the future of work?
More than half of industry leaders see lack of labor as the most significant factor impacting competitiveness, according to Rockwell’s State of Manufacturing report. Two million manufacturing jobs could go unfulfilled this decade in the U.S. alone. This pressure is only increasing as companies around the world look to near- and on-shoring grow to bring manufacturing closer to customers and build more resiliency in supply chains. According to Tessa Myers, SVP of Intelligent Devices at Rockwell Automation, “technology is an antidote to the challenges companies are facing.”
The common concern around the introduction of technology is its impact on jobs, this argument has recurred in the transition from the horse and cart to the automobile, and from book-keeping to spreadsheets – but Myers says, in these cases, “technology creates and changes the nature of jobs.” So, whilst there are concerns tech will take all the jobs, at the moment the real focus should be more around how it can fill gaps in workforce skills. The change in jobs will place a greater onus on “analytical and critical thinking rather than repetitive tasks.” This in itself can help make in attracting talent by making the manufacturing sector a more interesting place to work.
“Technology creates and changes the nature of jobs.”
Reallocating workers from low value tasks to higher value roles, doesn’t just improve retention and employee satisfaction, but can also facilitate the reallocation of labor to meet shortfalls elsewhere.
While digital transformations are growing, fully lights out, completely automated production is unlikely to become standard anytime soon. The number of openings in manufacturing is large and growing. Like any problem solving within manufacturing, sometimes root causes are very specific one-off occurrences, but others have many root causes and can have many corrective and preventative actions. The current shortage is a longer-term trend that will not be resolved with a quick one-time solution so the resolutions must be approached from multiple angles. Automation and digital transformation are a way to help fill in gaps, improving productivity, efficiency, and allowing people to cover other areas. For organizations new to automation, it can cause higher burden up front in terms of cost but also the time and labor during the initial installation. The long-term benefits are valuable, but it can be hard to make that initial investment. It will also set a new set of challenges, in the form of learning to interact with the technology and additional maintenance. This is where creating programs for training and up skilling become critical. Not only ensuring the labor force is capable of doing the changed work, but having an established plan and support system will help with retention and making employees feel valued.
Focusing on the labor pool and employee retention is another aspect of helping with the labor shortage. Flexible schedules are also high on the list of desired work benefits. While typically this has been hard to implement within a manufacturing environment, using automation can help make the work more flexible to accommodate flexible shift options, it can make jobs easier for cross-training, and it can potentially aid in shifting the areas where people are needed to focus areas that are less time dependent. Automation and technology driven companies can help attract employees, changing the specific skills needed and potentially growing the labor pool.
