Next Generation Won't Settle

The Manufacturing Skills Gap Tells Only Half the Story

While manufacturers focus on the widely reported skills gap—with studies showing that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030 (Deloitte)—we're missing a crucial reality: even qualified young workers choose to walk away from industrial careers. Here's what the data reveals about why.

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Supply and Demand

The first reason is simple math. Employers compete for a small applicant pool, which means it’s an “employee market.”  The next generation has more choices, and the supply/demand imbalance won’t change in the next decade.  And the trend of Millennials having fewer children means this is a long-term problem.

But it’s not just math; the next generation demands an upgrade in career satisfaction.

The Industrial Workplace Expectations Gap

Recent surveys of engineering and technical graduates show stark contrasts between expectations and reality:

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Technology Integration

• 89% expect digital tools for daily operations, but only 34% of manufacturing facilities offer modern digital interfaces
• 92% want mobile access to work systems; only 28% of plants provide it
• 87% expect AI-assisted maintenance systems, while just 22% of facilities have implemented them
• 78% want augmented reality training; only 15% of industrial employers offer it

What these statistics mean for industrial businesses is that the next generation doesn’t want to be told that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This is how we’ve always done it, kid.”

The fact they are so comfortable with technology is an advantage for your company to leverage.  Technology allows companies to do more with less.  AND…driven employees who know how to leverage it mean that the solution to the talent war may just be that employers who focus on talent and technology won’t need as many employees per dollar of revenue.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and the talent war is an opportunity to increase performance and profit before your competitors do.

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Career Development in Manufacturing

• 73% of young industrial workers expect promotion opportunities within 2 years
• Only 31% of manufacturing companies offer accelerated advancement paths
• 82% want cross-functional training, but just 35% of plants provide structured programs
• 77% expect regular mentorship; only 41% of facilities have formal mentoring systems

The next generation may have romantic and sometimes entitlement-sounding expectations, but they’re not entirely wrong. One way to interpret these expectations is that they want to know what “winning” looks like, and most companies fail to clearly connect individual roles with company success.

The most successful leaders excel at this, so they get more from their team.  So rather than pushing back, take on the challenge to up your leadership game.

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Industrial Workplace Flexibility

Traditional manufacturing constraints are clashing with new expectations:

• 76% want flexible shift options; only 23% of plants offer them
• 68% expect hybrid roles combining floor and office work
• 81% want input in process improvement; only 37% of facilities have formal programs
• 74% expect remote monitoring opportunities; only 28% of plants have implemented them

Some or all of these statistics strike many employers as annoying, but consider this:  They mostly want what you want!

• They want to understand the WHOLE business, and don’t you wish more office employees understood floor and field reality and vice versa?
• They want process improvement!  Haven’t you been dying for employees to want this as badly as you do?
• They want more transparency in performance data, and so should you.

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Take Aways

After working with and visiting various industrial-based businesses, we see some themes that industrial leaders can leverage to win the talent war.

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Perception vs Reality: A communication problem

While the industrial sector may lag in technology implementation, especially regarding team coordination, many, perhaps most, industrial businesses ARE leveraging technology in many aspects of their operation.  Yet most companies need to communicate better for next-gen applicants to realize and believe this is the case.

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Impatience vs Patience

Young people have fresh eyes and idealism.  Are they (were we?) impatient to innovate at their age?  Yes, of course.  And do they sometimes lack the wisdom to know which battles to fight and how hard?  Yes again.  But their fresh eyes and idealism are worth leveraging.  Let’s face it: sometimes, we must be reminded that things shouldn’t stay as they’ve always been.  Their perspective and enthusiasm, properly channeled, means growth, efficiency, and profit for you and an excellent career for them.

Coach your team to open their minds and not default to comments like, “You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.”  Keep in mind that we older leaders should still be learning, too.

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Skills vs Character

Given the choice, most business leaders will tell you that they’ll take character over skills any day because a person with exemplary character can learn skills, but skilled people often can’t learn character.  Meanwhile, job requirements frequently default to skills and experience hurdles that weed out A-level talent that could become secret weapons.

Craft job descriptions to seek the character you need and avoid being a slave to assumptions about degrees and specific years of experience.  Let’s face it: You’ve met plenty of people with decades of “experience and fancy degrees” who simply don’t cut it.

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Incremental Change vs Reinvention

It’s common to focus on incremental improvements to business culture. However, these initiatives typically yield little or no impact. The reason is that what got you where you are won’t get you where you want to go.  

Put another way, sometimes you must start with a white sheet of paper and reinvent as if you didn’t know how “we have always done things here.”  It may hurt your ego sometimes, but fresh eyes and “dumb questions” are worth entertaining.  Just think of how many ideas you have for other businesses those leaders are blind to.

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The Industrial Advantage

The next-gen workforce has had a courtside seat watching their parents and other supposedly successful adults.  And what do they see?  Too many adults are grinding away in workplaces that suck the life out of them.

When it comes down to it, they want to feel a sense of accomplishment, a strong connection with the people they work with, and a feeling that their work contributes to a bigger picture than just order numbers and a P&L.

When you look at what the next generation wants, you’ll see that jobs outside the industrial sector are generally not doing a better job fulfilling them.  The next generation simply perceives that nonindustrial businesses are more advanced culturally.  This is simply not true.  But perception is reality until their assumptions are challenged with compelling proof.

In many ways, industrial jobs have an advantage over their digital white-collar competition. Your work produces physical and visual results that can be tremendously satisfying. The people who do the work are often some of the most practical salt of the earth. Your product or service is what makes the American lifestyle possible.

Industrial careers check those three boxes exceptionally well, but their teachers and society are not telling them this!

No type of work is for everyone, and industrial work isn’t for everyone either, but many “someones” would be a great fit if they only knew how great your industry and company are. And you won’t overcome their lack of awareness by posting job ads to the masses.

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The Next-Gen Workforce is Persuadable

For years, students have been indoctrinated to scorn the industrial sector in favor of white-collar tech and other jobs. They simply haven’t heard many or perhaps any positive stories about it.  Most high school and college teachers and career counselors aren’t going to fix this problem for you any time soon.

Humans go through a predictable sequence to take different actions: Unaware, Aware, Understanding, Believing, and Acting.

Most of the candidates you need are simply unaware of the greatness in industrial careers.. Using authentic video storytelling coupled with social media, you can get their attention and help them believe what you believe, dramatically increasing their likelihood of acting. This will increase the quantity and quality of talent you will meet.

Take the bull by the horns and invest in getting your story out there where it can be seen. 

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Industry and Next Gen need each other 

All industrial work is becoming increasingly complex. That complexity comes down to coordinating human beings to get stuff done. This takes more than technical skills; it takes heart and leadership skills. All industrial businesses could use a strong dose of this kind of talent, even if it means starting at the bottom.

Believe it or not, A-level next-gen talent desperately wants to work with ambitious, visionary leaders who want to transform how they do business.

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The Cost of Not Adapting

The talent war is real, changes in the next-gen workforce are real, and so is the increased pace of complexity.

And that’s why…

• 65% of young industrial workers leave within 3 years
• Training investment losses average $45,000 per departure
• Production efficiency drops 23% during frequent turnovers
• Innovation rates are 47% lower in facilities with high turnover

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The Industrial Evolution Is Non-Negotiable

The data is clear: the next generation of industrial workers has fundamentally different expectations, and they're backed by market leverage. With manufacturing already facing skilled labor shortages, organizations can't afford to ignore these demands.

This isn't just about attraction and retention - it's about building the future of manufacturing. The next generation is unwilling to settle for outdated industrial practices and desperately wants to help you transform them for the better. The question isn't whether to evolve but how quickly you can make it happen.

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“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knows victory nor defeat.”

-Teddy Roosevelt

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