The unprecedented governmental investment in infrastructure to provide universal and reliable connectivity for all is hampered by a looming labor shortage. Training the workforce of the future can help us bridge the great divide, but the growing demand for skilled workers requires a collective commitment to creative training solutions.
First, let’s recognize that the largest generational population, the baby boomers, includes a substantial number of individuals who are about to retire, or have begun to retire already. With their departure from the workforce, we are losing valuable intellectual property — their knowledge, their skills, and their capabilities. Some knowledge will be lost because 40 years of experience simply can’t be bottled up and passed on. Presenting an additional challenge, we’re also bringing in a new generation of workers who learn completely differently than the generations who preceded them.
Not only will we need to fill in knowledge gaps left by the departure of our industry veterans, but we must also bolster candidate pools with new skills for where converged connectivity industries are heading, and train them in ways that help them learn best, effectively and efficiently.
We must work together to upskill the existing workforce as well as backfill all the telecommunications talent that we’re losing.
Every industry is struggling to recruit workers; you see it in stores and restaurants. Telco is no different. We need to creatively consider how we make this industry attractive. How do we make cable … cool?
Generations of workers did not understand the relevance of this industry, but the pandemic has allowed the world to recognize that telecommunications and broadband are extremely important. We provide the foundation for how we all connect, work, study and live!
For many young students, their smart phones and laptops provided a lifeline to the world while they were safely socially distancing, sequestered at home. Their classes were online, and any semblance of a social life was only possible with a reliable Wi-Fi connection.
Recruiting early is key
Schools have reopened. Education is happening assembled in classrooms. And recruiting younger generations into the industry early in their educational journeys is key.
Proudly, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE®) has just completed the inaugural year of a pilot program where we’ve partnered with a trade school in Pittsburgh suburb to introduce young people in high school to the industry. By the time these students graduate from the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, not only will the students have completed fundamental training, but they will also have earned a certification.
They will be job ready, so any telco can look at the graduate and know they have the basic skills to do the job, cutting down on training time for the employer. The trained new grads will be far more ready to work than the average worker who walks in off the street.
In addition to partnering with trade schools, the other pipeline we should consider is colleges, especially community colleges. Those are the schools where there are more kids and adults trying to figure out what they’re going to do and who they’re going to be than at many of the four-year universities.
The growing demand for talent in the broadband industry requires creative solutions, so we should all be working to increase the number of pathways to enter the industry, to upskill, and to earn degrees. Partnering with community colleges empowers organizations like SCTE to introduce programs to address the need to onboard, train and develop a fully skilled technical and operations workforce. At schools like Rio Salado College (RSC) in Tempe, Arizona, or Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, learners can now earn an Associate of Applied Science degree in Broadband Telecommunications.
Thinking beyond the cable guy
Community colleges also provide an ideal opportunity to introduce young adults to an industry they may not have previously considered, share what the industry can do for them, and introduce all the different career journeys available. The first two years following high school is an opportune time to expand a student’s horizons to think beyond the guy who comes to your house and connects your cable. Installation is important but there is also the Internet technician and all the individuals who ensure you have phone service or streaming capability, or whatever those needed pieces are to function in our daily lives. There are engineers and manufacturing people and human resources people, and trainers!
On my team, for example, I bring in graphic artists to design digital training materials and coders to program simulations. Today’s learners were raised on increased retention through gamification. Many people may have never considered that telecommunications and gamification go together. Not only are we making cable cool, but we need to bring new people into the industry who are able to recognize that this can be more than just a job, but a career opportunity.
It is important to impart that there are a vast variety of opportunities to grow and learn and be something in this industry, which can take a student beyond his or her wildest dreams.
Attracting together to build
With chapters in 60 locations across the globe, SCTE is reaching into a range of communities to develop partnerships with educators to help grow the workforce for our industry. For broadband operators of all sizes, mobilizing school partners within communities in your footprint will also be needed to build a skilled workforce. The convergence of technologies to keep us all connected is exponentially increasing the need to bring new workers into the industry.
Record investment is being made to build. We must work together to invest in building the workforce.
