The iGeneration Comes to Manufacturing (We Hope)

"This generation is industrious, ambitious and they want to move ahead. They will make an absolutely amazing manufacturing workforce."

Deanna Postlewaite, business unit manager for Lincoln Electric Virtual Welding Training, is talking about millennials, an enormous group of more than 80 million young people. It is often defined as the demographic cohort born from 1982 through 2000.

Postlewaite manages Lincoln Electric's efforts to connect with young people through a welding training system that has aspects of a video game. Schools, unions and other training facilities can use the company's VRTEX 360 to provide budding welders with training on various welding technologies in virtual environments that range from process piping in a power plant to iron work on a high-rise building site.

Postlewaite says millennials present manufacturing with an exciting opportunity to capitalize on their energy, enthusiasm and tech savvy and create a more competitive industry. There are plenty of negative views of millennials in circulation as well -- a generation with less of a work ethic, less loyalty to employers and more need to receive praise for even routine assignments. Wherever the truth lies, how manufacturers deal with this new generation could have more influence on American manufacturing's fortunes than any economic or technology trend.

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Attracting millennials becomes especially critical as the generation born in the aftermath of World War II gradually disappears from the workforce. Since January 2011, Pew Research notes, baby boomers have been retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day and will continue to do so for the next 17 years.

"What we are facing is no different than the rest of North American manufacturing. I would not say there is a huge crisis brewing, but it is something we have to pay very particular attention to," says Jack Clark, chief technology officer for Novelis, a manufacturer and recycler of aluminum with 25 operating facilities on four continents. "I do have a concern that as manufacturing comes back to the United States and the economy continues to grow, this will be more and more of an issue for us."

For much of their lives, millennials witnessed the steady erosion of the manufacturing workforce in the United States. In January 1982, the manufacturing sector employed just over 18 million. By January of this year, the number was just shy of 12 million. When millennials got any news of manufacturing, it was often of plants shutting and jobs moving offshore.

No wonder, then, that manufacturing has some serious image issues to overcome if it is to attract talented young employees. One problem, Postlewaite notes, is that parents and educators recognize the value of manufacturing -- but, heeding its recent history, they don't encourage young people to enter the industry.

"I hear a lot of people say that the younger generation doesn't have the right skills, that we've walked away from the hands-on type of learning environment like a shop class. We have, but that has been driven by us -- by parents, by educators, by the mass of people that really shape a student's mindset," she says.

Postlewaite says these same influencers have to help students see what modern manufacturing can offer them in terms of a career: "A millennial wants to see the steps. They don't want to just work as a welder. They want to work as a welder and then become a shift supervisor and then the plant manager. They want to see a career path. If we can show that manufacturing has an exciting career pathway for them, that will make a huge difference."

The stakes for manufacturing are high. Competition has never been more keen for talent at every level, from skilled machinists to engineers to company executives. Already, manufacturers' inability to find and retain talent is having a direct impact on their financial results.

A recent report from Aberdeen Group found that 63% of industrial equipment manufacturers do not have enough engineering staff to manage their current workload. Among the pressures they cite as driving their search for engineering talent is meeting company growth objectives (52%) and meeting market goals (44%).

In testimony last month before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, Sandra Westlund-Deenihan, CEO of Quality Float Works Inc., a small manufacturing firm in suburban Chicago, discussed how the skills gap had impacted her company of 25 people.

"At one point last year, I had three machinist job openings available for more than 10 months. Some quick math will tell you this translated to more than 10% of my workforce," Westlund-Deenihan told the panel. She said her firm had enough business to warrant hiring a second shift, "but I am unable to find enough people with the basic skills necessary to manufacture a quality product."

Millennials: The Great Communicators

While any attempt to characterize a whole generation will be flawed, it is safe to say that millennials bring a new level of familiarity with technology, particularly communications technology.

In fact, a Pew Research study of millennials found that 24% thought their generation was unique because of its technology use. "For example, three-quarters of millennials have created a profile on a social networking site, compared with half of Xers, 30% of Boomers and 6% of Silents. There are big generation gaps, as well, in using wireless technology, playing video games and posting self-created videos online. Millennials are also more likely than older adults to say technology makes life easier and brings family and friends closer together."

That pervasive interaction with technology, particularly cell phones and the endless information available on the Internet, has helped define millennials' expectations about the workforce, says Ron Selewach, CEO and founder of Human Resource Management Center, developers of automated candidate assessments. 

They have come to expect easily accessible information at their disposal," says Selewach. He says baby boomers often "interpret that as a challenge to our authority, but it is really not intended to be that. They just presume that information about the company, the culture, the job, the mission, the value of the job will be readily accessible to them. Traditionally, those things haven't been all that accessible."

Read how Corning's new leadership development program is helping it attract top talent.

Two years ago, Ron Wilson began blogging in part as a way to communicate with the millennials entering GE Lighting. The demographics of the business' workforce are rapidly shifting, notes Wilson, the Global Supply Chain general manager of GE Lighting. He estimates that the percentage of millennials in its manufacturing engineering and leadership ranks has doubled in the last three to four years to the mid-teens, and he expects millennials will make up one-third of that group in the next four to five years. 

GE has a program called the Operations Manager Leadership Program that is designed to engage young talent, broaden their experience and develop them into future company leaders. The two-year program gives participants four assignments, which can range from being a team leader of hourly workers on the shop floor to sourcing or manufacturing engineering.Wilson says millennials welcome this diversity of experience.

"They still are figuring out who they want to be in this manufacturing environment," says Wilson. 

That diversity fits with a change he has seen in this generation of workers. "For the millennials coming in, it is as much about the experience they are getting as it is about the job itself. They think of jobs in terms of experience." In addition, he says, "They are more participative in their development and training. They want to be more engaged with their leaders." To help with that, says Wilson, GE provides these younger employees with more exposure to senior leadership. 

As a global company, GE can also provide millennials with a diverse learning experience by offering them international assignments. "A U.S. millennial that is in our manufacturing training program may spend six months in Europe in a plant over there," says Wilson. And European hires get the same kinds of opportunities. GE also provides young workers in the second year of the leadership program an opportunity to begin a master's degree at Penn State University.

GE is also working on making sure that plant floor workers have the skills necessary to operate in increasingly sophisticated manufacturing environments. The company is working closely with community colleges to ensure curriculums match up with changing jobs. For example, at its Mattoon, Ill., plant, GE Lighting is investing in new technology and expanding capacity. It established a two-year degree as a requirement for some new jobs. While GE is hiring community college graduates, it is also offering these jobs to employees who complete an associate degree. GE partnered with Lake Land College to create classes tailored to GE's needs and offer them on-site before and after shifts. "Current employees love the idea of being able to advance their education and get a different skill set," says Wilson. "They know the workplace is changing and continuing to evolve and those skills will be important to them."

Novelis, the aluminum producer and recycler, initiated a project three years ago to examine its talent requirements and saw the need to improve its "bench strength" in its engineering and science ranks, says CTO Jack Clark. The company identified two sets of universities that could supply graduates and focused its efforts on the tier one schools. Novelis appoints a champion to represent the company at each school. The champion gets to know faculty and administrators, makes sure the company is represented at career fairs, understands the recruiting procedures at the school, and donates scholarship money.