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Nurturing Collaboration on Talent the Way Forward in Aerospace

By Luis Carlos Ramírez López - Chihuahua Aerospace Cluster
President

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By Luis Carlos Ramirez | President - Mon, 10/03/2022 - 12:00

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The two years of the pandemic have proven to be, in many ways, an opportunity to learn, to innovate, awaken needs and develop new work strategies. These are all, in fact, very positive elements in the face  of such a tragedy.

The conditions and consequences lived by all in 2020 and 2021, have also had a severe impact on the survival of companies in the aerospace industry (and in all economic sectors). In the middle of all this, the education gap widened, resulting in two years of new talent with poor possibilities for job opportunities who then deviated their focus into any other possibility. Furthermore, senior, experienced associates found these challenging times a chance to retire early, while others reached their retirement. There was also a significant reduction of personnel due to the tremendous contraction in the airline industry as well as Boeing’s aircraft crisis, which occurred slightly before the pandemic lockdowns.

This worldwide crisis had a severe impact first in the US and then on all those companies linked in their supply chain. And each country felt the same effects across the board.

These two years also generated a rolling gap i,n the educational chain from top to bottom. We will have over 15 years of students with deficiencies, and a “natural” degradation of their learning process that has been addressed with insufficient resources to be recovered, although there are exceptional cases where educational institutions are making an extra effort to try to recover the gaps created by virtual classes, which resulted in deficiencies in the learning process, human interaction, testing processes and the overall development of technical abilities.

Therefore, we are in a scenario in which there must be a new focus on talent development, retention and growth.

These kinds of problems require having all of those involved working seriously together, with a defined strategy and, most importantly, the willingness to make a joint effort to supply the solution that helps everyone involved. If  we go it alone in trying to solve the problem, rather than collaborating  with others, the war for  talent will escalate, leading to  disruption and excessive expenses.

There is an opportunity to collaborate and consolidate the linkage with educational institutions, to develop training programs, special education plans, and to support the government policies and actions that are needed to speed up the solution for new educational programs, schools and infrastructure.  In fact, this is the triple helix model of collaboration used now among  the clusters. 

The nearshoring and offshoring of the aerospace supply chain show  the US market deficit will increase, given the  lack of resources available in the US. Yet, it is still an industry that is dependent on capable engineers and intensive labor processes, where ability is key to producing quality products.

We are already finding that countries are scouting in locations outside their borders, searching for talent to fill their domestic needs. This may not be new, but it is certainly much more intense than in the past. The conditions and development of the supply chain in numerous countries have now demonstrated that their capabilities in all levels of industries are  as good or better than the resources in the original countries or locations. Mobility regarding these resources is now remarkably like what happened in the automotive industry during the last two decades of the 1900s. 

Of course, there are good results from all this, but only moving resources is not the final solution. The most important part is how to ensure we are all going to have the required resources with the right preparation at the time needed. This is where collaboration and strategy take place, where we all need to act on behalf of the community benefit, with better trained and paid experts, and a competitive industry.

The role of the clusters and their integration under a bigger umbrella like FEMIA are tools already in our hands that may be extremely useful to mitigate risks and allow the continuation of growth and progress of the aerospace industry and the people involved in it.

An especially important task is to ensure the next generations are interested in the areas of knowledge needed for the innovative technologies to come. Training in STEM education is key, and starts with kids.  It is vital to nurture their interest to have considerably better possibilities in the future of more people developing engineering and scientific skills.

Having a continuous process for this STEM training, but also ensuring students foresee the true possibilities of a well-remunerated job or the efficient business opportunity that awaits them is also important. In the end,  all parties will obtain a solution where everyone benefits.

The invitation is then, to resolve this challenge as a team, even when the commercial competition still exists.If we want to walk fast, we should walk alone, but if we want to go far, we should walk together.

Photo by:   Luis Carlos Ramirez

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