The Secret to Overcoming the Industrial Sector’s Skills Gap

A lot has been written about issue of skill shortage in Industrial world. Hitachi noted in an article last year that, “The average age of employees in O&G companies is 50 years, according to the World Petroleum Council. This means that within 5 to 10 years, the bulk of the current workforce will be retiring.”

When they retire, these workers will take with them decades of knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, Millennials —who are on track to backfill this gap—have a much lower job tenure. Considering it can take up to a year to train a new plant employee, that is hardly a good investment of anyone’s time. The manufacturing sector not only faces a significant loss of human capital over the next few years, but also a gap in highly specialized workforce skills.

What’s an industrial company to do? Businesses need a strategy which is enabled by Technology to address the gaps in skills. I’m going to share a one such solution: invest in immersive competency.

Before I explain what that is, let’s take a step back and examine how today’s young workers differ from Baby Boomers. These traits have been observed across a wide variety of contexts and apply well to the industrial sector.

·        They are technologically nimble, having grown up in the Internet age.

·        They want quick and ready access to information, any time, any place. This is also a product of the Internet age, where any kind of information can be accessed instantly with the touch of a finger.

·        They are more experiential learners, having grown up in a more connected, digital world.

·        They want jobs that are personally fulfilling, that enable them to grow and learn new skills, and that keep them challenged with new and evolving responsibilities.

Now let me explain immersive competency and how it can help Millennials fill the industrial sector’s skills gap. Immersive competency is a type of workforce training that involves immersing an employee in the environment in which they will work, through simulation such as virtual and augmented reality. The employee learns by doing, by literally experiencing—and solving—the situations, problems and challenges they might face in real life.

This type of skills training works well with Millennials, who—as we have identified—respond better to experiential learning techniques, rather than passive learning methods such as listening (e.g. lectures) or visualizing (e.g. presentations).

In fact, passive learning can result in knowledge retention of no more than 30 percent after three months, whereas active learning methods such as immersive competency result in retention of 70 to 80 percent after three months. If it takes a year to train a new employee through passive learning methods, then immersive competency has the potential to reduce that to just a couple of months.

Of course, learning by doing (a form of immersive competency) in a real industrial setting can be dangerous and expensive. So, a simulation of that same environment is an ideal way to achieve the same benefits of active learning while keeping costs and risks low.

Here at Honeywell, we firmly believe that learning by doing is the best way to train the next generation of plant workers. We strive to break the barrier between learning and doing—because they should not be mutually exclusive—and make the two processes seamless. We have developed a suite of immersive competency solutions as part of Honeywell Connected Plant , to help manufacturers learn by doing—and in turn, learn while doing—from the beginning to the end of their careers.

For example, we partnered with Microsoft to develop an AR/VR headset that simulates various plant situations. Users can record and save their work to the cloud, so anyone can access that information whenever they need it. Immersive competency becomes digitally accessible to everyone, no matter where they are, whenever they need to learn more about a specific procedure or situation. The result is a continuous cycle of learning by doing, and learning while doing. (Learn more about how the headset works here.)

Remember how we noted that Millennials are technologically savvy and expect quick, easy access to information whenever they need it? This is what we had in mind.

The outcome of immersive competency is improved plant performance on every level. Workers not only get up to speed faster, but their continuous competency directly influences the plant’s performance, which is not only good for the organization as a whole, but also great for maintaining morale and motivation. Our mission is to make every worker and operator in your plant as an expert.

Immersive competency is one of the most effective ways to train Millennials working in the industrial sector. It is a critical teaching method to not only close the skills gap left by Baby Boomers’ retirement, but also enable maximum knowledge retention for new workers. With its highly experiential nature, immersive competency can be used many times throughout an employee’s career, ensuring they get trained quickly and effectively from the start, and stay engaged and interested throughout their tenure—which hopefully lasts longer than two years.

Technology would be only way to bridge large gaps in skills. There are several interventions possible and organizations would have to step out of comfort zone and adopt new organization design and new ways to work. Honeywell Connected Plant is addressing the key challenge in Industrial world with unique technology driven approach with a vision to make everyone as best expert in your plant.

How would you apply immersive competency to train your workforce? Share your thoughts below.