In many cases the shortage of skilled labor may be caused more by very narrowly defined job descriptions and a lack of imagination than by any real shortage.
We set up expectations and define jobs based more on what we want (or think we want) than on what is realistically available.
Many of us say that we cannot find qualified C# programmers, for example, when we all know that there are very few people with good skills in this area. We are left with two choices: wait to find a disgruntled one that we can steal from some other employer or decide to do something to change the supply by developing training programs or taking on apprentices.
Many emerging jobs require a new perspective, rather than an entirely new skill set. An interior designer could easily do the new job of home stager – someone who decorates your house prior to selling it — but for a much lower price. Many skills for jobs in the health care arena can be learned quickly, but are all based on a common set of skills around patient care, communication, and appreciation for and understanding of technology. The real challenge is perpective, atttiude and sometimes the willingness to work for less.
Developing People is a Requirement for Success
I spent many years working in the semiconductor industry when it faced a labor shortage of skilled process engineers and equipment operators. We eventually devised training programs that took basic electrical engineers and developed them into capable process engineers quickly. IBM trained thousands of programmers throughout the 1960s and 1970s to meet its own huge needs. At the same time, IBM and other companies quietly worked with academic institutions to develop today’s academic computer curricula.
This training and development does not have to be of the same type that a person would receive at an ordinary academic institution. In a most every case, corporate training can concentrate on skills that are needed right now and forego the theoretical, the basics, and the nice to have but not critical things. Whether or not a person goes back at some point to get those basics remains a question, but I believe that efficient training can address the labor shortage issue quickly.
In both world wars, the U.S. Armed Forces have reverted to intensive training programs to fill critical positions. They have learned that this can be as efficient a process as having a huge standing army. The trick is in accepting that there is a responsibility on the part of employers to develop the people they need. Employers should be willing to provide the training and development for the jobs they have a need to get done. Waiting for the school system or the government to do your job for you has never been a very good strategy.
We Need To Expand the Labor Pool
Many available people are older or retired and have skills that have become obsolete or are not needed right now. However, these people could be retrained for some of the open positions if we took a different attitude. Unfortunately most of us, or most of our employers anyway, would rather spend money on search fees, agency fees, administrative overhead, and advertising rather than on intensively training people with decent basic skills. Granted we cannot train people for every job because many of them do require experience, or time in the saddle, as they say, in order to be successful. However, I think we could significantly lessen the labor shortage if we were willing to be a bit wider in our job expectations and definitions.
This is why I constantly argue for integrated staffing and development because I believe their functions are inextricably intertwined. It is very difficult to do one without doing the other. If we are to look at recruiting has a process, we are going to have to incorporate development into our staffing thinking and staffing into our training thinking.
Whether this is done through merging departments, or whether it is done simply through good collaboration doesn’t really matter. What is critical is that there is a dialogue between the two functions. . If you work in a small company where there are no separate training and recruiting functions, then this becomes even easier for you to do.
You need to always think whether an open position is better trained for or hired for. Is it a job that would be impossible to train someone for in a reasonable period of time, or is it a job that someone could be trained to do fairly quickly?
When management and recruiters both develop a broader understanding of the issues and step up to the fact that in many cases skilled people are just not available at a reasonable cost, then developing people becomes sensible and cost effective.
There are no labor shortages or surpluses – there are just shortages of imagination and an unwillingness to accept responsibility for filling our own needs.
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Re health care, my wife recently spent a couple of months in a hospital and then a skilled nursing facility. From what I could tell the primary skill in the SNF was the ability to turn off the little light that went on when a patient rang for help. It became a contest to see how long the patient could endure with no help but only the illusion of possible help. Clearly there needs to be more training, but there also needs to be an educational system that focuses on the need to learn to learn early in life instead of merely learning to regurgitate. Check John Taylor Gatto for more.
Court
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Amen to this article. 101 baseline insight from decades ago: developing people is not only sensible and cost effective, but integral for survival. I weary of complaints surrounding “I can’t find any XY and Z skills in the marketplace” in light of the fact that since success leaves clues, the very individuals who would succeed at XY and Z are probably the ones sitting in the same building based on their past demonstrated abilities to learn, adapt, and master the mission critical skills, languages, applications, principles, “we’re taking on a new direction” du jour. If only leaders with insight and foresight looked far enough down the highway to see what was coming, and looked deep enough inside the internal talent pool to spot the early adaptors. Might the “Future of Talent” surround you?
“There are no labor shortages or surpluses – there are just shortages of imagination and an unwillingness to accept responsibility for filling our own needs.” Should someone, say a recruiter or HR practitioner, beg to differ, the myriad of what I call “me too” job ads via the well traveled “old school media” or the Web 2.0′d paths featuring the all of the proverbial “knowledge, skill, and abilities” dribble with none of the sizzle or psychological “why does anyone prefer to work there” inclusion will keep many voting in favor of “SHORTAGE.”
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Absolutely right-on!!
The 3 million jobs going unfilled earlier this year (in the US, reported in 5/11 Business Week) fall principally within your “imagination shortage” — employers want 150% of what they need and realize that with a buyer’s market, they will probably find it. It’s unfathomable that employers would rather pay for outplacement services than development.
I’m convinced that until people track to the “asset” side of the ledger rather than the “expense” side, much will not change. Organizations maintain their buildings and equipment much, much better than their people. Software upgrades are automatically rolled into the budget, yet the brains to utilize the technology to the benefit of the organization are expendable and interchangeable and seldom ‘maintained.’
From another perspective, it’s past time that people took on responsibility for their own career growth and direction. This can be done inside organizations, and certainly on one’s own. When people know their talents and best areas of contribution, they have a value proposition that is tough to ignore. As it is now, most people do not know how and where they can contribute…they wait to be told by a manager, they wait to be picked. And so, as they grow stale with out-of-date skills, they become more mired, less flexible and easy to label as expendable.
Employers’ mind sets are bogged down in ‘someone else needs to pay for retraining the employees we need’–preferably a government program or a college subsidized by government money. This is bolstered by economic development efforts that focus on having “employer ready” workforces that will step into an employer’s labor needs. While I realize that communities need businesses with steady work, this seems an example of putting the cart before the horse.
Thanks so much for a well-fashioned statement with a very valid view of the “employment crisis.”
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