RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 29 sonnel are fewer and management is stretching them much further, to the point where our “Next Generation Workforce” no longer has that person close by as they work or operate independently. As a consequence, there is nobody available to stop them or question their next step. No worker-col- league is there to make sure they’re actions harmonize with the company’s practices and procedures at all times. In the last decade we’ve seen a rise in incidents in the workplace where safety and technical skills are required; I attribute it to our new workforces not being held accountable by their frontline leaders and those leaders not checking that proper practices and procedures are being followed. At the same time, these new frontline leaders are struggling to establish a true culture of safety where our next generation workers feel free to speak up as they are not provided the support they need from their management. About 25 years ago the majority of the world’s industrial countries moved to competency management whenever safety and technical skills were needed to conduct work. In America, we still mainly just “train” our workers and send them out into our facilities, warehouses, and factories. We assume we’ve done all that is needed for them to be successful in their job roles. I hope you’ll take another look at your next generation workforce and the leaders who manage them for you. Resolve to make an investment into their skills and capa- bility going forward. I believe the ROI surprise you. Authors Daryl Brister Shea Capability & Compliance Solutions Owner / Partner daryl.brister@sheaccs.com References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Dr. Gustavo Grodnitzk - https://drgustavo.com, used with permission. Mike McRae, Science Alert, Jun 3, 2017 Experts Think This Is How Long We Have Before AI Takes All of Our Jobs. IHS Global Inc., March 2016, Minority and Female Employment in the Oil & Natural Gas and Petrochemical Industries, 2015-2035 Deloitte / MFI, November 2018, The jobs are here, but where are the people?, Key findings on the skills gap and future of work study. Sociotechnical Model created by Jim Wetherbee; NASA 5 time space shuttle commander, Director of space flight operational readiness, used with permission. Controlling Risk in a dangerous world: Capt. Jim Wetherbee, USN, (RET), Morgan James Publis- hers, Copyright 2017. U.K.’s Office of Rail Regulation (ORR); Developing and Maintaining Staff Competence, Publis- hed by the U.K. Health and Safety Executive, 2002. Noel Burch; Gordon Training Institute 1970s, 4 Stages of Learning Model. www.gordontraining. com/free-workplace-articles/learning-a-new. 1. Time - vacation, holidays, sick days. Look at how other companies are being creative with “time.” PTO - Paid time off for personal time, but set ceiling or allow comp. time cap. LWOP - Leave without Pay, again set cap. DTO - Discretionary Time Off tied to performance, studies show they take less time off. 2. Flexibility - having a flex schedule, 4-day work week, Job sharing, Self-manage teams, Self-directed teams. Accountability precedes Flexibility - have to measure performance with matrix/reward. 3. Growth - Interesting to learn, Relaxed/Friendly culture, Idea sharing, Career advancement, take on responsi- bility. No longer have a “corporate ladder” - to millen- nials that is tall and narrow and only one person at a time gets to climb up it. Consider a “corporate lat- tice” - this is wide and accessible to all and allows for cross-training with no promotions, staying at same pay until competency is proven and opportunity is created to move up. 4. Relationships - Great boss/supervisors, Take interest in the ENTIRE world, Provide and REQUEST feedback, Be a friend at work, Opportunities for socialization, Social networking. *Money is a threshold, not a cost. Competency bosses will keep you next generation in place. Millennials are not job hoppers, they are boss shoppers. 5. Cause - Changing the world, Changing human expe- rience in the world, Being a part of something bigger than themselves, Having a sense of purpose. Millenni- als want to work for companies that have meaning and big picture purpose to make the world a better place. Now ask your management team what is being done to: 1) capture your organizations “tribal knowledge” in a struc- tured way and 2) develop the competency needed to keep our employees safe and our operations reliable? 3) to cre- ate a culture that allows you to recruit and retain your next generation workforce. If the management team doesn’t have a solid answer to those three questions, then I would recommend you find a company that specializes in safety and technical workplace competency management for your frontline leaders and the workforce they lead, as well as a cultural change specialist to help your company with the core topics in this article. We recognize that in American industrial jobs, on the job training has been effective in the past, mainly due to management maintaining stricter control, guidance, testing, and observations before a new worker was allowed to work unsupervised. In the past, even after the new workers were working independently as it were, they still had many more senior craftsmen and operations personnel around them in the workplace. Co-workers helped prevent them from making mistakes, or blundering into violations which could have led to disaster within the facility, warehouse, or factory. Today, those senior craftsmen and operations per-