M Live Article- The Jobs Dilemma

I read an article by Melissa Anders from M Live  The headline is “The Jobs Dilemma”. I must say it was a great job of reporting differing opinions without trying to drive the readers to her conclusion. Nice job Melissa Anders.

There are two sub-headlines. “If Michigan graduates so many skilled students, why can’t they find work here?” and “Online job screening: Are companies missing talented applicants?” I have never had a full-page in any newspaper fall so strongly on my greatest passion; the Talent Management of Michigan Organizations.

There were many facts stated like the mismatch between available jobs and available talent, there are thousands of unfilled jobs on-line but employers say they have a hard time finding qualified candidates, some say the wages offered are too low, some say employers’ expectations are too high, etc.

The scariest statement to me was from Doug Rothwell, President and CEO of Business Leaders of Michigan. He said, “By 2018 Michigan will need to fill 1.3 million jobs, 836,000 of those requiring post-secondary education or training. At current rates we will fall hundreds of thousands short”.

Gov. Snyder said, “I don’t believe in telling people what to do, but there’s a whole other level of connectivity in terms of transparency and openness that we can do”. I agree with the Governor. Like any issue people tend to view it through their own “filter”. There is an old saying that says, “If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Every one of these statements is true. The problem is each statement is only true for a segment of the overall problem. They cannot all be solved with the same solution.

This “battle” for our State’s economy is like the battle the medical world has with cancer. We all want to conquer it, but “it” has “multiple faces” in the overview and a “singular face” with any one individual patient. I have personally learned that when dealing with health issues at the individual level, the patient needs a “patient advocate”. The patient in the “stress of battle” needs an advocate that is intimately involved with the patient but not living in the day-to-day stress of the issue. An “advocate” can help guide the patient’s decisions because they know their needs and desires deeply and are with the patient while consulting with the doctor. They are able to bring observations to both the patient and the doctor.

In my career I was given the opportunity to be the “patient advocate” for the Owner/Operator of a manufacturing company in Grand Rapids. My job was People Development Director. My responsibility was to ensure we had a well qualified, well-trained workforce available to accomplish the corporate goals in the present and into the future. I was an employee of the company, but did not have day-to-day product responsibilities that would distract my focus from Talent Management.

I believe every organization needs someone at the leadership level “driving the Talent Management bus”. If our people are our greatest resource, we need someone that has the understanding of the organizational goals and directions; someone that can project the needs 5, 10 or more years down the road. Someone that can connect to the right sources of the talent the organization will need for the future; an advocate for the entity that cannot speak for itself; the organization.

You would not put an ad on-line for your material inventory needs. Can you imagine an ad that said, “Needed 100,000# of tube stock. Anyone interested in supplying this product please call 616-123-4567”? I don’t believe you would go to Angie’s List to find an electrician to solve a major problem in your facility. Sourcing is the key to controlling the quality of any resource. We need an “advocate” to ensure we connect to the right “doctor”.

Let’s take a tip from the Corrective Action process a lot of organizations use.
1. Define your specific problem or problems. If you have more than one, separate the issues. You cannot solve a generic problem. If you are having trouble finding candidates, define what candidates. Are they Engineers? Are they Welders? Are they Nurses? You cannot solve all of them with the same solution.
2. Determine the right team to work on the problem. If you do not have the right resources in-house, “rent” them. If you were going to build a new building would you use just your staff or would you bring in contractors where needed? Your key people, along with needed outside “experts”, make a great problem solving team.
3. Determine the Root Cause of the problem, not the symptoms. Get to the Root Cause. If you can’t find the right candidates it might be a sourcing issue, or it might be your method of searching for candidates, or it might be your pay scale, etc. If you don’t find the Root Cause of the problem you cannot solve it.
4. Determine Interim Corrective Action. Determine how you can quickly control the problem. This usually means spending a little extra money, but it “stops the bleeding”.
5. Determine Permanent Corrective Action. Once you have “stopped the bleeding” determine the best method of control for the future and get your costs back in line.

I believe we need to get this conversation out of generic statements and into organizational specific statements. After all, how do you eat an elephant?