As employers continue to grapple with the talent shortage, some manufacturers are having success hiring more non-traditional candidates and using innovative and inclusive methods in their recruitment.  Non-traditional candidates are people with relevant skills who may not meet traditional job requirements. Education and experience are often overlooked and maybe even excluded when sorting through resumes or applications. This could include the neurodivergent community, justice-impacted or returning citizens, people with disabilities, youth between 18-24 who didn’t go to college, limited English speakers, and others.

It’s probably never happened to you, but have you ever found that you don’t get good and useful feedback from your staff, teammates, leadership, and maybe even family or friends? You ask, then… crickets? It may be that you’ve trained them that way.

This is an original article from the NIST Manufacturing Innovation Blog.

Up and down busy streets nationwide, the same six-word banners stand outside in front of hundreds of businesses. Affixed to poles on front lawns or hanging above entrance doors, these inescapable banners, while the numbers may vary, almost always have the same wording:

How important is it to bring Millennials into your workforce? Let’s put it this way: Like an unstoppable speeding train, the future is coming up fast. Couple that with the fact that the future belongs to those who adapt advanced manufacturing technologies. Will yours be the company running to catch the train after it has left the station?

On the heels of the global pandemic comes yet another challenge for manufacturers to face: The coming of the “smart factory”. The factory that requires you to upskill your workers just to stay afloat and will leave you and your employees behind if you don’t start planning now. Right now.

This is an original article from JFF’s Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning.

What Is Work-Based Learning?

Work-based learning refers to meaningful training that takes place at work, usually under the direction of employer coaches and managers, and has been shown to produce high value for both companies and workers.

People are an organization’s most valuable, variable, and rewarding resource for managers in any business. Developing this resource in a positive workplace environment to create a culture of excellence is not magic, but... when it clicks, it is magical, and the rewards can be majestic. OUR people, OUR Team.

It has been a little over a year since the beginning of the pandemic. As you are rebounding from the global crisis, thinking back to the past year, what a great challenge that was. Now, as you continue to operate with the pandemic, what is next? What steps are you taking to protect your company? To strengthen and to make sure you stay competitive during this chaotic time? The Cook County Bureau of Economic Development and IMEC wondered the same thing, therefore we reached out to manufacturers seeking answers. Using a 10-questions survey aligning with the US Commerce NIST Baldridge Performance Excellence Framework, over 1000 manufacturers responded with their priorities. In which, over half responded with ‘Creating Growth Opportunities’ as the number one priority.

With more than 10,000 Baby Boomers entering retirement each day, organizations will spend more time contemplating how best to capture and retain departing talent. Combine this need with how quickly workforce, customer requirements, and buying behaviors are changing, you have a perfect talent retention storm.

Now that you’ve taken time to investigate the idea on implementing stay interviews to help retain your workforce, to the next step is to explore the types of skills you will need as an interviewer. Being a successful leader includes holding meaningful conversations - a skill that requires effort and practice. Instead, there are a handful of proven skills that transform the ordinary into extraordinary.