A couple of years ago, we gave a heads up to Caterpillar’s high school internship program, which was established in partnership with a local community college and the North Carolina Department of Labor’s Career and College Promise Program. What caught our eye was that the program reached down into a potential labor pool that corporate recruiters typically neglect—high school students. The idea was hatched when Cat moved a skid steer assembly plant from Mexico to Sanford, NC. The new plant basically doubled the size of Cat’s Mexico facility and created the demand for an expanded workforce. What the plant needed particularly was welders, lots of welders.
According to Korey Coon in Caterpillar’s Building Construction Products Division, the goal was to solve the company’s immediate personnel crisis, but also to establish a pipeline of motivated, trained, and experienced workers for the future.
In the Career and College Promise Program, eligible high school students can enroll in college classes at the state’s community colleges and universities while they’re still in high school and earn college credit. In the case of Cat’s Youth Apprenticeship Program, the plan called for junior and senior high school students to take tuition-free welding related classes at Central Carolina Community College three days a week and work/train at the Caterpillar plant two days a week during the school year and up to 32 hours a week during summer vacation. At the successful completion of the two-year program, the students would have a welding certificate from the college, a certificate from the Department of Labor that they had completed the youth apprenticeship, and would have accumulated 80 hours in Caterpillar’s Accelerated Training Program, applicable to an adult apprenticeship if they choose to work at Cat.
Half the graduates of Cat’s initial cohort of youth apprentices did go to work for Caterpillar at the Sanford plant. Once onboard full-time, Caterpillar tracks their work/training hours toward their adult apprenticeship. At the time of our initial report, two graduates were headed into the company’s journeyman program.
It’s no secret that finding and keeping middle-skilled workers, individuals with advanced education but not necessarily a degree, is a challenge for any number of industries. Cat’s program illustrates that there are workable strategies for developing appropriate labor pools, but it takes initiative, creativity, and commitment. What it boils down to is if the marketplace wants particular kinds of workers, it’s going to have to do its share to develop them. “We can’t expect our education and government partners to do this for us,” said Coon, back when the program began. “We have to be proactive and tell them what we need and be willing to invest in it ourselves.”
The rigorous selection process for Cat’s Youth Apprenticeship Program is indicative of the company’s serious intent—first a screening by teachers and guidance counselors, then an application, references, and a commitment to arrange for the tuition-free junior college courses. The program was designed to also include tuition reimbursement, making it possible for interested apprenticeship program graduates to study for an engineering degree while they work as welders.
Cat’s proactivity in the service of developing a qualified workforce reminded me of programs I’d heard about in other industries. Construction is in direct competition for workers with industries like water and wastewater, which are also having difficulty recruiting qualified workers for middle-skilled jobs. (According to The Harvard Business Review, labor market experts estimate that between 2010 and 2020, 25 million, or 47%, of new job openings nationally will fall into the middle-skills range.)
In populous Southern California, Cuyamaca College outside San Diego has gradually built a 24-course, six-degree/certificate program that prepares students for an industry that is becoming more and more specialized as water treatment becomes more complex, water quality regulations more rigorous, and traditional sources of water insufficient to meet demand. In an article on attracting millennials to the water industry, Don Jones, adjunct professor, and Mike Uhrhammer, senior public affairs representative at Helix Water District in La Mesa, CA, and an instructor at Cuyamaca, stress that developing a specialized workforce requires initiative and involvement on the part of organizations that operate in and serve a particular field. Cuyamaca College is currently investing half a million dollars in a hands-on learning program with an above-ground distribution system and water quality laboratory. None of this happens overnight.
While the marketing strategies may be obvious, as the Cat experience demonstrates, creating the opportunities to learn and become competent requires a great deal of working behind the scenes with a variety of partners. The water industry article authors also point out that industries struggling with middle-level recruitment should recognize that they’re not marketing jobs so much as training opportunities that will eventually make it possible for participants to live independently and pay their way as they begin a career.
Partnering with local community colleges, technical schools, and state agencies can often require suspending a for-profit orientation and thinking like an educational or public sector administrator. Community colleges always have an eye out for education and training programs that fill a marketplace need. Likewise, because many of the jobs they train for involve hands-on skills, they’re also looking for internship opportunities that can be integrated into their curriculum. They also need instructors who not only are well-versed in the subject matter of their field, but also offer models of what it looks like to work in a particular industry. In projecting your relationship with institutions on this level, it’s also important to remember that these kinds of programs need equipment and supplies. Becoming this kind of benefactor can help cement your relationship with an institution and help influence its direction to reflect industry requirements.
In California, the Community Colleges’ Division of Workforce and Economic Development actively collaborates with both employers and organized labor to develop programs that funnel high school students into the marketplace. It also administers state and federal funding for programs “that close the gap between employers’ needs and workers’ skills.” The fastest way to take advantage of these opportunities is to research local community and technical colleges and become well informed on what they offer, then contact the dean of instruction to discuss how your organization and the college can interact.
One issue that is becoming more and more of a consideration in community colleges is the need to expand beyond technical competence to produce students who are “workplace ready.” Every industry, regardless of product or orientation, is looking for recruits who have solid communication skills, know what it means to work on a team, can problem-solve, and are computer literate. Classroom instruction provides scant opportunity to develop any of the above, but apprenticeships like Cat’s youth welder program provide the kind of experience that helps participants develop into workforce-ready employees. This accounts for why colleges need assistance with hands-on training, a hallmark of many of their programs. Learning by doing increases understanding and inspires motivation. This means that in any discussion about developing workplace-based partnerships, you’ll get your foot further in the front door if you come prepared with suggestions for developing internships, paid or otherwise.
And what do the students think about all this? “I’m a hands-on type,” says one of the participants in the first flight of Cat youth apprenticeship participants. “The on-the-job training made it easier for me to gain the skills I needed.” The young man also reports that he liked working with the different types of people he met at the Cat plant and that his long-term plan was to go back to college for an engineering or business management degree.
As another student put it, “What makes this program so appealing is that you’re learning skills you’ll need for your career while you’re still going to school, and you get paid for the work you’re doing.” What could be better?
