Building Our Future
TOGETHER
WORKFORCE INITIATIVES
A top concern facing DRMA members and the manufacturing industry is the lack of a qualified workforce. DRMA faces this challenge head-on by driving and supporting numerous initiatives to promote careers in manufacturing and align workforce efforts across the region. Connect with DRMA to learn more about how you can take advantage of and get involved in these initiatives.
Encouraging Students to Pursue Careers In Manufacturing
DRMA conducts activities with students, educators, and members to promote careers in manufacturing. These activities are mission-critical for your company to grow YOUR future workforce and help solve your talent recruitment problems.
Career Awareness Events
Activities include exhibits during lunchtime at middle and high schools and at career fairs, speaking in classrooms, and hands-on activities during summer camps and other events. DRMA volunteers deliver messages about career paths, wage and salary information, and training and education paths.
Interested in volunteering? Click HERE to connect with DRMA.
Have you recently participated in career awareness activities, not organized by DRMA? Let us know! Click HERE to help document our collective impact.
Student Tours: MFG Day Year-Round!
DRMA encourages and helps its members conduct student tours to ignite students’ interest in exciting, high-skill, high-pay, high-tech manufacturing careers.
If you and your facility fit this criteria:
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You are a manufacturer
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You are tired of having trouble recruiting talent and are ready to take action
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A 13-year-old would walk into your facility and say, “Wow, this is cool!”
Then: Host tours for students, educators, and parents so they can see first-hand that contemporary manufacturing is a vibrant career path and that employers need skilled workers! You can host tours on national MFG Day (the first Friday in October), during Ohio’s Manufacturing Month (October), and on any other day that works for you and your school partners! More members doing tours = more students being exposed to great careers in manufacturing = a larger pipeline of talent for you!
Here's what you need to do to schedule your student tour:
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Click HERE to let us know what you are interested in doing a tour. Members get help with conducting a successful tour and connecting with schools.
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Register your tour on the MFG Day website (www.mfgday.com).
Have you recently hosted a tour? Let us know! Click HERE to help document our collective impact.
Additional resources
The Manufacturing Institute has toolkits and webinars available for our members to help with planning and conducting tours.
Click HERE to learn more.
We have also compiled a Best Practices for Conducting an Effective Student Tour document. This will help you to organize, lead, and deliver an effective student tour experience for your company and the participants. Just email AMY to request our Best Practice documents.
Work-Based Learning Programs
Taking advantage of work-based learning programs, such as offering job shadow or internship opportunities to students, exposes them to the great careers the region’s manufacturing industry offers AND is a powerful strategy to build your future workforce.
Job Shadows
An easy way to build the next generation of manufacturing talent is through job shadows. Bringing students into your facility to learn about cool careers in manufacturing can reap dividends down the road. Job shadows are short (2 - 4 hours) and an easy tactic to help students envision manufacturing as a future career path.
Internships
Offering students part-time paid internships provides a risk-free way to evaluate potential employees. In fact, 70% of interns convert to permanent employees! DRMA collaborates with SOCHE, who will work with you to find an intern that matches your needs, manage the administrative work, and often has grant money to offset the cost of your intern. SOCHE can help you understand the laws, work with you to build job descriptions, and take student management off your plate. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce built a comprehensive guide for starting a work-based learning program.
Need assistance? Connect with DRMA to help you participate in work-based learning opportunities. Click HERE.
Have you recently provided a job shadow or hired an intern? Let us know! Click HERE to help document our collective impact.
Developing Entry Level and Imcumbent Workforce
Ready-to-Hire Entry-level Candidates
WorkAdvance is a grant-funded program to create a pipeline of talent for your entry-level manufacturing positions from our region’s untapped workforce. WorkAdvance is a proven initiative to recruit individuals with no manufacturing experience; it intentionally seeks out those who aren’t currently applying. We are working with community-based organizations that are recruiting, screening, training, and coaching people to fill your entry-level manufacturing positions. Click HERE to connect with DRMA to learn more about this no-cost recruitment source.
Learn more about the grant that funds this program HERE.
Industry-Recognized Credentials
DRMA is working with educators across the region to incorporate manufacturing industry- recognized credentials into their curriculum, as well as with members to promote the value of the credentials.
What are Manufacturing Industry-Recognized Credentials? And why YOUR company should care.
The use of manufacturing industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) is one way to help address the skills gap challenge and ensure your workforce is made up of the most qualified employees. Industry credentials ensure that the credential holder has met the industry benchmark for their specific occupational competency. For new hires, industry credentials can be used as screening tools for knowledge, skills, and abilities to do the job well; and for current workers, industry credentials can help bolster their skills and keep them at the top of their trade. The bottom line: IRCs level the playing field. You will know exactly what skills and knowledge the person possesses; you no longer have to take their word for it. The IRC proves they learned it and they can do it.
There are many reputable manufacturing-related credentials out there to meet your company’s needs. Some of note include Tooling U – SME’s Certified Manufacturing Associate credential; the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council’s (MSSC) Production Technician Certification (CPT); the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) credentials; and the American Welding Society’s professional certifications.
Whichever certifications you choose based on your employee skills requirements, your company will be better positioned to identify qualified applicants for open positions and to improve the skills of your existing workforce. DRMA is working with educators across the region to incorporate industry credentials into their curriculum.
What Should You Do?
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Add preferred credentials to your job postings.
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Watch for IRCs on candidates’ and student interns’ resumes.
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Encourage educators to embed IRCs in their manufacturing-related curriculum.
Want more info? Are you currently using IRCs? Let us know HERE!
Providing Workforce Support
Tooling U-SME Discount
DRMA has partnered with Tooling U-SME to offer members a 15% discount on hundreds of online manufacturing-related courses for upskilling your workforce! Tooling U-SME provides personalized, hands-on guidance to help you deliver best-in-industry instruction, through proven classes, industry-recognized certification, custom programs, and consulting services. Click HERE to learn more.
TechCred – Reimbursement for Training
TechCred is Ohio's workforce program that offers Ohio employers thousands of dollars in reimbursement for a wide variety of short-term, industry-recognized tech credentials across industries AT NO COST, from computer software programs to more intensive technology training programs involving digital programming and robotics. These technology-focused credentials take less than a year to complete and prepare current and future employees for in-demand jobs. Many of these trainings can be completed online!
Employers can be reimbursed $2,000 per industry-recognized credential (not just per employee) and up to $30,000 per application period (every-other month). This means Ohio employers not taking advantage of TechCred reimbursement could be missing out on up to $180K-worth of free training per year!
For the credential itself to qualify, it must be:
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industry-recognized,
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tech-focused, and
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short-term – completed within 12 months or less.
Get started by talking with DRMA partner educational institutions. They will work with you to figure out what training you need and which of their programs qualify for TechCred reimbursement. They will even help you fill out the application:
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Clark State College – Tracy Yates, Director of Workforce and Business Solutions, yatest@clarkstate.edu
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Edison State Community College – Brandi Olberding, Assistant Dean of Workforce Development & Work-Based Learning bolberding@edisonohio.edu
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Sinclair Community College – Matt Hoyng, Manufacturing Solutions Manager, matt.hoyng@sinclair.edu
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Miami Valley Career Technology Center – Amy Wittmann, Adult Education Coordinator, awittmann@mvctc.com
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Upper Valley Career Center – Duane Caudill, Adult Education Director, caudilld@uppervalleycc.org
Learn more by visiting https://techcred.ohio.gov/about
Workforce/HR Meet Ups
DRMA conducts Meet Ups to help you and your key employees build your peer network with members who are interested in the same topic area, so that you can learn from them and strengthen your business. Meet Ups are small discussion groups, designed to stimulate dialogue in a casual, comfortable atmosphere. Ask questions, get advice, and share your experiences with fellow members. Topics for the Workforce/HR Meet Up include resources for skilling up your manufacturing workforce, work-based learning programs, funding for training, training resources, recruiting methods, assessments, compensation strategies, compliance issues, and others.
Watch for details, schedule, and registration information in the DRMA newsletter.
Ensuring Schools Are Teaching The Skills Manufacturers Need
DRMA staff and volunteer members serve on advisory committees at high schools and colleges across the region to convey the needs of manufacturers and to ensure their curriculum incorporates in-demand industry-recognized credentials and produces graduates with the skills needed by manufacturers. Interested in serving?
Click HERE to connect with DRMA.