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Changing Workforce Leads to New Training Approaches
This week’s featured white paper, Changing Workforce Demographics Transform Manufacturing, was written by Maurice Wilkins of ARC Advisory Group. In the paper, Maurice discusses the retiring workforce, employee retention, and attracting and training young engineers. Unfortunately, many manufacturers have not responded quickly enough to the upcoming talent shortage facing the automation industry.
A large percentage of North America’s automation talent pool will be retiring in the next 10 - 15 years. And there are very few young engineers entering automation. Why? Because young technical professionals simply don’t know that our profession exists. Universities are unaware of automation, so you can’t get a degree in it. Those who are automation or control engineers somehow, somewhere, stumbled upon automation as their careers progressed.
ISA is tackling this dilemma head on. According to Patrick Gouhin, Executive Director and CEO of ISA, they are introducing automation to various Congressmen and Congresswomen, making them aware of just how big our industry is and how much it affects manufacturing as a whole. With the backing of Congress, ISA will be able to get the attention of major universities who will want to offer degree programs for this upcoming high-demand profession. These are all good and necessary efforts, but this is not a quick process and we may not begin seeing beneficial results for years.
Many engineers have often complained, and rightfully so, that the salaries in automation are too low. Low salaries are just another side-effect of this low-profile profession. However, I maintain that as the supply of available engineers decreases, the demand will increase. It’s simple economics. And this demand will drive up salaries and help to attract young engineers.
If manufacturers haven’t yet felt the skills-shortage pressures, they will soon. So where does that leave us? How do we fill the gap? Training! While ISA is addressing the big-picture of automation with Congress and universities, manufacturers need to improve and expand their training programs. There are a few organizations that offer in-depth, multi-disciplined training, including ISA Education & Training. Since there can be significant costs associated with training, some training organizations are looking at alternative approaches and technologies.
IDC Technologies, a training organization based in Perth, Australia with offices all over the world, is conducting research on the impact of the new e-learning technologies on industrial automation engineers. Their research involves a global survey of attitudes to blended learning (a mix of online and classroom instruction) in the engineering and industrial automation workplace. This research will show them ways to increase training opportunities, significantly improve the quality of training for engineers, technicians and other technical professionals, and significantly reduce training costs.
I urge you to take part in this survey. As an incentive, IDC is offering a complimentary 180 page Best Practice in Industrial Automation e-book (worth $40) and a complimentary 90 minute Industrial Automation e-learning course (worth $99) later in the year, which they will advise you about by email. A copy of the survey results will also be made available to you. Complete the survey.
This is an industry-wide problem that requires industry-wide action and collaboration. What can your company do to contribute? Share your comments, thoughts and suggestions on this editorial in the Forums at My.Automation.com. Note: Registration is required for forum participation, but anyone can view the forum.
Enjoy the rest of this eNews!
Rick Zabel
Vice President, Publisher |
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