Manufacturers, colleges, and universities must work together more effectively to ensure educational and skills development programs meet the changing requirements of the workplace.
Business associations, colleges, and universities must communicate their training capabilities more effectively to manufacturers and other businesses.
Manufacturers must develop their own human resource strategies aimed at assessing future workforce requirements, accessing under-utilized labour resources, attracting and retaining skilled personnel, upgrading the skills of their workforce, and identifying and implementing alternatives to in-house skill requirements (automation or contracting in skills sets from other businesses, for example).
Manufacturers must develop succession planning strategies taking into account future staffing requirements in light of demographic changes and business plans, and the development of a strategic approach to the replacement and recruitment of new workers.
Manufacturers must develop and implement knowledge-transfer strategies. Mentoring, cross-training, job-sharing, job-shadowing, and the use of technology-based tools such as intranets and group-ware can allow for the systematic exchange of knowledge, skills, and “corporate memory”.
Smaller manufacturers must collaborate to share human resource planning and training resources, best practice, and valuation tools – and, where feasible, skilled personnel.
Governments must find ways to support this process.
Other businesses and suppliers to manufacturers must assess the changing skills requirements of their customers in order to identify new business opportunities.
Outside of major urban centres, communities and local businesses must work together to develop strategies for attracting and retaining skilled personnel.