Make Skills Shortages a Thing of the Past

summary

The automotive manufacturing landscape is changing. The proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs) is creating new challenges for the industry in terms of new manufacturing and assembly operational processes and changes in supply chain needs. These industry pressures are only deepening the current skills gap in the industry. Connected worker technologies, focused on continuous improvement in workforce learning and development to improve onboarding, training and retraining, are addressing these challenges.

Demand for new vehicles in North America is growing. The market is expected to grow 5% to 2 million units by 2024, putting increasing pressure on today’s automakers to increase production.
But the lack of skilled workers on the shop floor is creating significant “roadblocks” in trying to meet this surge in demand. The 9% decline in manufacturing’s share of total U.S. employment since 1990 is only set to worsen. To combat these declines, manufacturers need a solution fast.

Customers want something new and they want it now!

Rapid technological progress, e.g. in the field of electric vehicles, the need to adapt to consumer preferences and new regulatory requirements make it necessary to retrain and improve the qualifications of employees in the sector.

In addition to the well-publicized supply issues associated with these new developments, another significant gap is emerging—the growing skills gap. Closing this gap will require a radically new approach to training and education.

Expanding the pool of more skilled workers

Manufacturers seeking to increase the number of skilled workers must ensure that three basic elements of workforce management are addressed.

1. Leverage digital tools: By using digital and analytics tools, organizations can understand what skills new employees need, assess knowledge retention, and estimate the return on training investment.
2. Track the future: A deep understanding of the future of your industry is key to ensuring you’re building the workforce of the future. By proactively responding to future skill needs, organizations can ensure they have the right skills to navigate disruption and drive innovation.
3. Invest in upskilling initiatives: Investments in upskilling are showing real ROI in the automotive industry. Upskill your new workforce to close the skills gap and increase efficiency and productivity.

Time to retrain – protect what you have!

Closing the skills gap isn’t just about hiring new workers! Employers are now realizing they need to invest in reskilling current workers and focus on internal training initiatives, with 8/10 U.S. manufacturers investing in workforce training.

However, traditional training and retraining routinely involves shadowing a senior operator and formal classroom instruction. The problems with either method are that shadowing will take the senior operator away from their current day-to-day roles, and formal training via PowerPoint, for example, does not promote a high level of information retention on the shop floor.

A new approach to learning and development

Training needs to unlock competencies and skills for new hires more organically, efficiently and effectively, rather than the traditional “training event” approach to workforce development. Yes, observation is practical, but it is inconsistent between each senior operator conducting training. Using a connected workforce app to facilitate training means that every new hire can be consistently trained in role-specific skills, when and where needed at the point of need.

Always on the clock

Implementing the 70:20:10 model for learning and development is a key progressive step for manufacturers worldwide:

• 70% of learning occurs through on-the-job experience.
• 20% of learning happens socially, through colleagues and friends.
• 10% of learning occurs through formal training experiences.

So, a whopping 90% comes from experiential and social learning! If experiential and social learning are not part of your training mix, you are missing an opportunity to reduce training time and costs in your factory and build skill versatility and reach.

By using connected worker apps, automakers can take an “always on” approach to learning, allowing trainees and skilled workers to independently access a wealth of training materials whenever they need them.

With this approach, it is possible to change the way learning is no longer imposed on employees, but to transform it into a new generation of employees who manage themselves and take the initiative for their own learning, while ensuring consistency across the organisation.

Formal learning is not always a priority – get creative

Integrating complementary apps on tablets and even VR headsets into the training and retraining of frontline workers is already proving successful in continuous improvement cases. Connected Worker apps offer a comprehensive solution to overcome workforce challenges and enable employees to thrive in a changing industry landscape by supporting connectivity from the top floor to the shop floor, personalizing learning, and enabling continuous retraining—job satisfaction for them, and increased resilience and long-term growth for the company.

The days of paper are long gone – now digital technology reigns supreme

Adopting a connected workforce approach will help automakers retain skills, reduce turnover rates, ensure compliance and increase productivity. Giving shop floor workers access to a tablet or Apple Vision Pro Headset, along with a connected worker software app, will support them and enable each of them to work effectively and safely, while also training them on the job for new skills.

This new system simplifies training and reduces reliance on formal training events. Instead of waiting for scheduled sessions, employees have access to training content on demand. Real-time notifications keep employees informed of updates to training materials and work instructions.

Stop treating training audits as tedious work – automate them

Moving to digital training records can also help with audits and compliance requirements. Regulatory audits, such as IATF 16949 and the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), require manufacturers to demonstrate how they train employees on quality standards and practices.

Tracking and supervising skills is time consuming and in many factories is still done in spreadsheets or worse, in papers locked away in filing cabinets! This manual process is sure to result in outdated records and the risk of auditors finding gaps in training completion.

With an automated digital skills matrix, team leaders and employees have visibility and accountability for the up-to-dateness of the training program. Management has reliable, real-time data to identify training gaps and take corrective action when needed.

Regulatory standards require automakers to create, maintain and demonstrate a culture of continuous improvement, and the tools to collect and analyze real-time data, solve problems and visualize results are designed to do just that.

Connected Workforce Technology Opens Clear Path to Smoother Work in Automotive Industry

The way employees learn and develop has changed, with experiential and community-based learning being 90% effective. The potential for a connected workforce approach for automakers is huge, think increased productivity, employee retention, satisfaction. At a time when customers are not only demanding new vehicles, but also new types of vehicles, such as electric vehicles, the connected workforce approach provides a lifeline to navigate uncertain terrain.

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