I’ve recently been contacted by Derek Karchner of Rosenberg Communications about an initiative to find and train manufacturing workers in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The effort was spearheaded by the Manufacturing Institute of the National Association of Manufacturers and the Precision Metalforming Association and supported by The Hitachi Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation The initiative yielded several valuable lessons on the best ways that employers can work together and with local colleges to improve the skills base for local economies. Mark Popovich, a Senior Program Officer at The Hitachi Foundation, has agreed to answer some questions on the project.
1. What exactly is the Hitachi Foundation, and what is your relationship to them?
The Hitachi Foundation is an independent, nonprofit, philanthropic organization established in 1985 by Hitachi, Ltd. From our inception, the Foundation’s broad purpose has been to enhance the wellbeing of economically- and socially-isolated people. We are one of a very few foundations focusing on corporate social responsibility and the role of businesses in our communities. Towards this end, the Foundation operates three distinct programs. Each has its own mission and guidelines:
• The “Business and Communities Grants Program” – which funded the
M-Powered Project – allows the Foundation to target grants at
business-community partnerships and corporate citizenship efforts to
enhance opportunity and quality of life for economically-isolated
people.
• The “Hitachi Community Action Partnership” provides a way for
Hitachi employees to participate in community service and provide grant
support to address pressing community needs. This effort is jointly
funded by the Foundation and the participating company.
• The “Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary Service to the Community” is
presented each year to ten high school seniors from around the United
States on the basis of their community service activities.
My connection to this project and to the Foundation… I’ve worked at the Foundation since 2001. I was born, raised, educated, and started my career in Wisconsin. I have worked in a senior staff capacity for a state senator, governor, and congressman as well as the National Governors’ Association and the National Academy of Public Administration. While I’ve long been involved in economic, community development, and workforce issues, joining the Foundation intrigued me in part because of the opportunity to get closer to the employer community.
I also have strong personal connection to this project. I’m a Midwesterner at heart and am from a manufacturing family. In fact, a scholarship from the manufacturing company where my father and brother worked made it possible for me to go to college. Today, my brother is a Quality Control guy at a plastics company and my sister works third shift in a plant that used to be owned by Briggs and Stratton. After spending a number of years as a punch press operator, my brother completed the course work to go in to QC. And I am proud to say that my sister has just completed her Associates Degree. I know from direct experience about people realizing they needed to skill up and then managing work/training to get it done.
2. Why would employers and colleges be interested in learning what was done in Minneapolis?
Our workforce challenges are large and growing. Addressing them will require the effort of individuals, local communities, employers, and all the other institutions involved in human capital development. Our ability to meet human and societal needs will all be affected to a great degree by how successful we become at surmounting these workforce challenges.
As to the Twin Cities project, the simplest answer is that it offers a model for dealing with worker shortages in the manufacturing sector while also providing new opportunities for un- and underemployed people through a partnership that aligns the resources and skills of a community college, a community-based organization, and area employers.
I hope the most important lesson for all of us isn’t lost here: while they all have an interest in and resources to devote to developing a skilled workforce, neither employers, the community college, nor the community-based organization could make this program happen or work on their own. Together, they could and did get it done.
The M-Powered Project’s model demonstrates how employers can work with others to meet their workforce needs. The local partnership was headed by a consortium of local businesses. Their participation and leadership was perhaps most important to us. They partnered with the local Precision Metalforming Association, Hennepin Technical College, and HIRED — a local workforce group – to develop the program. The employers themselves participated in curriculum and program design, developed criteria for enrollment, and helped ensure that the number of students graduating from the program would match the current demand for new employees. They also brought some of their best employees in as course instructors, hosted plant tours, and regularly meet with the class to discuss the job opportunities, their companies, and this sector.
The Project offers un- and underemployed men and women a two-phased training program that prepares them for careers in the metalforming manufacturing sector. The program is a 12-week industry-specific course at the technical college. They also receive career counseling, mentoring, and job placement assistance.
It’s also worth highlighting the benefits a program like this can have on a business’ bottom line. The cost of finding and training workers is a huge burden on employers. This project doesn’t mean you’ll never have to hire or train a worker again; we know that’s not true. This project is teaching us that it’s possible to increase the pool of skilled workers and minimize the long-term costs incurred by employers to hire and train workers because the costs and resources are shared across an entire sector instead of by individual companies and organizations operating within that sector.
3. How do employers find out about programs like these, and what do they need to get started?
Frankly, that’s why we’ve reached out to you and others in the media and blogosphere.
There is a high level of awareness about the problems facing industry. But there is a real need for practical solutions. And word about effective approaches – those done through partnerships or even steps a business can take on its own – needs to be spread. And people need to know that these aren’t just pie in the sky type ideas. They’ve had impact and it’s possible to make them work.
We hope this project and the examples of E.J. Ajax & Sons and their employees will fuel a dialogue about solutions being developed on the ground, by real employers, dealing with real challenges. The M-Powered Project offers a real solution – a model for a collaborative business-community partnership to find, train, and keep good workers.
Employers respect, trust, and look to their peers for ideas and solutions. In the end, the lessons we’re learning will only go as far as people are willing to carry them. The more this project – and others like it – is discussed online, in the media, and in communities, the more likely it is that similar efforts will be undertaken in other markets and sectors.
4. What were the results of this program, and have they been replicated elsewhere?
The results are dozens of workers trained and filling jobs that they would have struggled to fill otherwise. That is added capacity for employers and more and better paychecks in the community.
The Twin Cities has been a laboratory of sorts for us. We’re in the process of communicating lessons learned which you’ll find in the story linked above. In the coming weeks, we’re releasing a Pocket Guide for employers as a reference tool to use when developing partnerships like the one in the Twin Cities.
We hope that discussion around this story on this blog, in the media, and in communities will lead to more adopting and adapting these approaches. The bottom line benefit is two fold – more productive and competitive employers and a brighter career future for workers.
5. What do you see as the long-term effect of programs like these?
The Twin Cities project seems secure as the state has put money in to it and the community college and the employers are strongly behind it. They tell us that it can meet the local workforce challenges in this sector for the foreseeable future. As the model is put into practice in other markets and, hopefully, other sectors where it’s needed, the less we’ll see stories with headlines like “Employers face worker shortages.”
6. How can we learn more?
Visit our website. You can read this story and others where partnerships and grants helped small and medium sized businesses deal with real workforce issues.
Start a dialogue with your local Chamber of Commerce and other trade groups. That can help connect you with others in your community facing the same challenges. A common vision of the challenges and promising solutions can lead to efforts to organize and act.
Followed by a List of resource hyperlinks:
• Twin Cities Story -
• Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• Precision Metalforming Association Educational Foundation
• NAM Manufacturing Institute
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