Five ideas for being a better worker.

“People who need people, they’re the luckiest people in the world,” or so the song goes. If that’s true, though, why do I feel so unlucky?

For many years, colleagues from virtually every industry imaginable have agreed their Number One need, desire, concern and frustration is finding good people to hire. Regardless of job level or education experience, hiring qualified people is possibly the biggest challenge industry faces globally.

In my little corner of the world, which happens to be close to some of the most prestigious universities and colleges in the world, executives in companies of all sizes tell me the mantra is, “Where are the good people?” (Note: No one asks, “Where are the people?” The operative word here is “good.”)
To be sure, colleagues share remarkably similar stories about people who have been hired only to be fired in short order. Such occurrences were once rare, but today are too often the rule. Based on personal experience and countless shared stories, I have identified five issues that individually or collectively are common in today’s job applicants:

1. Everyone likes manufactured things but no one wants to be a manufacturer. The image of manufacturing is that of a dirty sweatshop. Yet enter any plant, be it semiconductors or steel or automobiles or circuit boards, and the reality is companies are modern, computerized and clean, and require smart, engaged team players. When recruiting and interviewing, refute the negative image and highlight the opportunities. For job seekers who believe manufacturing is a dead-end job, consider the latest gadget you use – the phone or tablet or even the car – and what it takes to make it. Spoiler alert: There’s real career opportunity in manufacturing!

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How much of your budget goes to protect you from the companies that are supposed to be protecting you?

Over the past several years I have heard, learned, discussed and agonized over cybersecurity more than I would have ever imagined in my wildest dreams a decade ago. And I have invested a massive amount of money in cyber and all other types of security during this time to be safe (hopefully). When I moan and groan about the staggering cost, cultural change to our operating environment, and considerable training all employees must undergo to relearn basic computer tasks, the response I hear – usually from vendors or some other third-party – is “that’s the cost of being in business these days.”

Yes, being in business has underlying fixed costs that may change but never decline. These days some of those costs are to harden IT infrastructure and put in place systems, equipment and procedures to primarily safeguard data, and sometimes maybe even employees. Several years ago, attempting to explain as simply as possible to employees the need to prepare for cyber attacks, I drew a comparison to the pirate attacks of lore. At the time, piracy was commonplace on the coast of Somalia. Some hacker, I suggested, from a nation/state was ready to kidnap a Captain Phillips, take his ship and plunder its cargo. Indeed, I know of companies held ransom for Bitcoin losing control and access to all their IT infrastructure and basically being unable to operate systems or even shopfloor equipment.

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Communications interfaces rely on handshakes, but software and simplicity no longer go hand-in-hand.

“Plug-and-play” seems a simple, efficient concept, a beautiful merger of elegant design and high technology. What happened to it?

I forget exactly when I first heard the term plug-and-play, but it was sometime back in the late 1980s. As I recall, consumer electronics had something to do with it – perhaps a VCR player that connected to a TV. Or possibly it was tied to early personal computers, where the various accessories could be mixed and matched, so any brand of monitor, printer or keyboard could be added interchangeably to the system. Wherever the phrase came from, the meaning was universal: You could replace one part of a system with a new or different component, and the system would operate without a hitch.

In business the term seemed to morph in two directions. In administrative office environments, the term was associated with updates or upgrades to software. Transitioning spreadsheet software such as Lotus 1-2-3 to, say, Quattro Pro was seamless, thanks to the elegant design of similar operating commands. Just upload the new software onto your computer and begin using it. Meanwhile, on the manufacturing floor, a new piece of capital equipment could be dropped into the process flow and hooked up, and it fit seamlessly with the existing machines. Voila! New replaced old. Simple, easy, painless.

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Solving the age-old dilemma between design and manufacturing.

Developing a new product or process – or even aggressively refining them – is a juggle of “wants” and “needs.” As manufacturers in an industry that constantly pushes the envelopes of performance, real estate, and – yes! – cost, our industry is precisely where the rubber meets the road in reconciling needs and wants.

Manufacturing is a curious profession that often relies on older equipment, processes and employee skills to produce cutting-edge “new” products. The catalyst is, of course, people: people who design and people who take those designs and make functioning product. As smart, talented, dedicated and thoughtful as these people may be, however, they often fail to communicate the needs vs. the wants.

Indeed, it can be hard to know what’s on the other side of the hill.

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