Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/513426
w w w.in s i g h t o n m f g . c o m May 2015 • /INSIGHT ON MANUFACTURING | 7 EDITOR'S NOTE | NIKKI KALLIO n k a l l i o @ i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m SO YOU'RE WATCHING YOUR WORKFORCE retire, one boomer at a time. You turn to the Generation Xers on your payroll to fill those roles, and they're ready — but there aren't enough of them. You look a little further, and you've got millennials, the generation born after 1980. By 2025, they're going to make up 75 percent of the workforce, says Patrick Hopkins of Imaginasium (see Insight From, page 20). These tech-savvy multi-taskers are definitely the place to turn to help you solve your skills gap — but many of them don't know about the jobs that are out there or have a dim view of manufacturing as a career. That's where you come in. Dozens of you have already agreed to give plant tours, offer career speakers, job shadowing and/ or mentoring. Some of you are offering internships and youth apprentices, and that's one key way some New North area manufacturers are helping to prep the next- generation workforce. Just in 2014, the Wisconsin Technical College System awarded college credits to 28,078 high school students, many of those through youth apprenticeship programs, according to www.wistechcolleges.org. Lots of them are earning credit in the New North, through quickly growing programs such as those in Sheboygan County (see Cover Story, page 8). The new 2-plus-2 engineering programs, where students can start an engineering degree Looking toward the future at any of the Northeast Wisconsin Educational Resource Alliance tech colleges and finish at UW-Green Bay or UW-Oshkosh, will put a future set of engineers in area manufacturing facilities (an internship is required for graduation). There are lots of other great efforts afoot: websites that connect students with internship opportunities (like Your Future Fox Cities and Inspire Sheboygan County), organizations working with manufacturers to match students with jobs, and ongoing efforts by the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and NEW ERA. The point? Keep going. Do more. Make connections with educators and be sure they know they're welcome to come and visit your plant with their students. Go into schools and tell them about what you do and the kind of workers you're looking for. Ask your retiring workers to become mentors to young workers. These initiatives take proactive, sustained, collaborative efforts. They're working. Also, save the date for the fifth annual Manufacturing First Expo & Conference, presented by First Business Bank in partnership with the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and Insight Publications (See Events, page 25). It's coming up Oct. 21 and Oct. 22 — that's right, a two- day event this year. Of note: On Oct. 22, more than 500 area students will be visiting the expo, asking questions, wanting to know about what you do. Will you be ready for them? F