Apprenticeships only one step in hiring young workers

Milwaukee — Apprenticeships are hot right now because of the shortage of skilled manufacturing workers. But Ronn Cort said keeping apprentices is the hard part.

Cort is chief operating officer and president of sheet extruder Sekisui Polymer Innovations LLC, based in Bloomsburg, Pa. His company, known as SPI, offers apprenticeships and internships.

Corporate culture plays the key role in whether those workers will stay with a manufacturer after the apprenticeship, Cort said during a panel discussion on apprenticeships on Sept. 9 during the Society of Plastics Engineers Thermoforming Conference in Milwaukee.

Cort said companies need a strategy looking 30-40 years into the future.

"Apprenticeship programs are very much about purpose. It's about building a legacy, it's about building sustainability," Cort said. "It's about why are you here as a company. What are you really trying to do, long term?

"If you do not have purpose, you have a really hard time holding onto anybody who comes through an apprentice program. They want to know: Why do you do it? Why it matters? And how does that impact the world, in a positive way?"

The thermoforming sector, like all of manufacturing, is having problems attracting workers — skilled or not. With about 10,000 U.S. baby boomers retiring every day, there will be 2 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2025, panelists said at the conference.

Apprenticeships have broad support, even bipartisan, said Shannon Munro, vice president for workforce development at Pennsylvania College of Technology.

"It's very interesting right now, because we have a very polarized political spectrum," she said. "But right now in the United States, the one thing that the Trump administration and the 27 people that are running against President Trump all agree on is that apprenticeships are good!"

Penn College, in Williamsport, Pa., has been working on apprenticeships for the last three years. In June, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded an $8 million grant to Penn College, which is focusing on manufacturing, and New Jersey Institute of Technology, which targets light metals and bioengineering.

So far, Penn College has developed five apprenticeships, including in mechatronics, industrial manufacturing technician and CNC precision machinist. Munro said the college is now working to get a state-registered program for plastics process technicians that would run for three years. The plastics program will include 6,000 hours of on-the-job training and 144 hours of technical classroom training a year.

U.S. apprenticeships train employees already working on industry, she said. But in Germany, the decades-old apprenticeship program starts with 15-year-olds, said Sven Engelmann, head of packaging technology at thermoforming equipment and mold maker Illig Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG in Heilbronn.

Illig has 65 apprentices — about 10 percent of its total workforce. Engelmann said that's a good ballpark ratio across German manufacturing. Interns spend three months on the job and three months at school. They get paid a salary and get government assistance.

Engelmann said Illig enjoys a good retention rate of apprentice graduates. The company works hard to recruit them, doing promotion and advertising. "We go to the expositions, and we do the dance," he joked.

Munro said Penn College also works hard to attract students, and she said officials would like to quadruple the current enrollment of 5,300 students. She said 97.3 percent of students get jobs within six months of graduation. Last semester, 470 companies came to a career fair looking to fill 4,000-5,000 jobs. A thousand students came.

"We decided about three years ago to investing in apprenticeship programs, because we heard from a tremendous number of our partner employers that are hiring our graduates, that they have an interest in developing apprenticeship programs," Munro said.

She said registered U.S. apprenticeship programs are required to show a wage progression for graduates, paving a career path in their companies. Apprenticeships can be highly customized to meet needed job skills.

Sheet extruder SPI is based near Penn College and works closely with the school, Cort said.

When the company hires young people, the first challenge is getting them to come to work on time. Maybe they got kicked out of their parents' basement. But then, when they hit around 24 to 27 years old, he said, "a switch goes off" and they realize they're still working an entry-level job, maybe by then they have kids and bills, and they get serious, Cort said.

"At that moment, I have to be ready to help them. Not 'I told you so.' Not 'too bad you're stuck on the floor.'"

Cort said this type of person can make a good apprentice. They quickly advance and become "some of the fiercest, most loyal employees you will ever see," Cort said.

SPI shows employees clear "salary bands," so they see how they can make more money if they get training, he said. SPI currently has 16 apprentices.

"The question is, how do you keep them? And for a lot of organizations, I think, as you do an apprenticeship program, that needs to be a really important part of your framework. You've got to build a foundation to keep them," Cort said.