By: Sunnie Rock, Recruitment Marketing Lead

We’ve all heard the phrase “It takes a village”, right? The phrase is used when implying that many people are needed to accomplish the same goal and are aligned to achieve the best possible outcome. This approach is how we are all need in building the next generation of skilled craft workers to keep the Manufacturing Industry thriving.

As a business, manufacturing is critical to not only our success, but for the safety of our troops. To us, manufacturing is serious business and we rely on the skills of our manufacturing employees.

Let’s talk welders. In-demand is putting it lightly. The shortage of skilled welders has impacted the Manufacturing Industry hard. To add another layer of challenge, we have complex welding requirements due to the nature of our business. We knew we had to make changes in how we recruit and hire welders to not only fill current positions, but to build a pipeline for future work. That’s where the village comes in.

Our Outreach team dug in and rallied a village to achieve our hiring goals. First stop, hiring managers to define needs and gain participation. Second, identify the right schools and organizations that are developing the talent we need and how we can partner. The team also enlisted help from our community investment team to allocate funds to support this goal. Third, hire welders.

As the author of this writing, I was curious what this looked like? How did this village conquer their shared goal? I knew it wasn’t as simple as 1, 2, 3. The Outreach team shared this example.

Recently we invited Hobart Institute of Welding Technology, one of our trade school partners, for a visit to one of our manufacturing sites in which many Hobart graduates were now working. It’s more than just hiring graduates, it’s a partnership. Just last year we [BAE Systems] made a donation to Hobart to purchase a weld pipe platform for their weld students’ to gain more hands-on experience. Students use blueprints to build projects and with fabrication and pipe welding. And now those students are applying that knowledge in their work today, with us.

Money doesn’t solve everything. A contributing part of this successful partnership is identifying needs of both sides [Hobart and BAE Systems] and working together to solve them. We set aside time to meet with the hiring managers to see how things were going with the graduates – were they prepared for the job, any areas that need more training, etc. As a result, we are able to influence course training and in the end, makes their students even more marketable.

The visit also provided an opportunity for the Hobart team to meet with their former students and see the work being done. It was another opportunity to get real-life feedback from what they learned at Hobart and how it applies to their day-to-day work.

It really does take a village.

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