How can A&D companies build the workforce of the future?
Talent retention and development is the most crucial factor in the continuous growth of a company. The Aerospace and Defence (A&D) sector is no exception, while talent is the most desirable resource in each sector and industry. The A&D sector, which is highly innovative and technology-driven, requires top tech talents. Acquiring top tech talent is always challenging, as the tech sector is its biggest rival.
Challenges and uncertainties allow us to explore new ways and strategize our next moves with an improved approach. The COVID-19 pandemic is one such disaster that has impacted the way we work. Increased transition to WFH (work from home) and remote work caused due to the pandemic have brought us to a new era of the digital world.
The repercussions of the pandemic equally impact the Aerospace and Defence (A&D) industry. Challenges remain to maintain a technically fit workforce's smooth transition and maintenance.
While the commercial aerospace market has been negatively impacted due to reduced travel and WFH emanating culture, the requirements for tech talents with advanced digital skills to meet the demands have increased.
People expect flexibility in working. Where most people prefer a hybrid mode of working, some prefer remote. The workforce needs to be technically equipped so that technological glitches don't hamper productivity and make such systems work with fluency, But where to get such digitally equipped new talent? How to upgrade the existing workforce? These are significant challenges not only for A&D companies but for almost every sector.
The A&D workforce consists of driving employees, ranging from diversified skills from boardrooms to shop floors, space scientists to technical support, data analysts to ground workers, engineers to accountants, and people working for numerous roles. One thing that binds all the functions alike is honing their digital skills to cope with the new normal.
Let's look at these critical factors that need to be considered while building the workforce for the future and be future-ready in the midst of a rapidly upgrading technological environment:
Analyzing the A&D current data trends
Attracting top tech talents - Compelling EVP (Employee Value Preposition)
DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Skills development of the existing workforce
Protecting data and cyber security Leveraging Industry 4.0
Thinkovating future becoming future-ready with reimagining work
Analyzing the A&D current data trends
Industry leaders have organized many surveys to compare the current industry trends with previous trends for comparison. Some of these surveys are compiled by Aviation Week, McKinsey, E&Y, Deloitte, PWC, and aerospace.org. Some of them have been done on a large population of employees and companies, providing us with appropriate data without biases.
Trends set by these surveys are vital for thinkovating the future and reimagining changes to upgrade and maintain the future workforce. Matching the requirements with the relevant talents available in the marketplace while evaluating the current business models of talent acquisition and upgrading the appropriate policies and strategies to elevate the hiring processes of the technical workforce are the biggest challenges for top leaders and HR professionals.
One needs to monitor global trends closely, and current industry demands to make valuable decisions. To gain relevant real-time insights, these surveys studied the vast industry sectors covering defense, space, civil aviation, and service sectors. A few parameters were the percentage of women working in the A&D industry, race and ethnic composition, diversity, age distribution, and voluntary attrition.
Despite the advancement and growth of women at executive levels, women are still discriminated against and underrepresented in general and at organizational levels.
The attrition rate for employees was higher when the employee base size of the company was small and vice versa.
Attracting Top Tech Talents - Compelling EVP (Employee Value Preposition)
A&D requires expanded automated/non-human capabilities, sensors, better connectivity and tech-based applications of essential utilities, advanced hypersonic technologies, data privacy, and protection from cyber threats. Without human intervention, no technological advancements can happen. Hence, the sector needs a dynamic, capable, and digitally-talented workforce.
Tech companies attract most top tech talents, while A&D sector companies need to showcase their lucrative offers and promising careers and retirement benefits to attract these tech-versed talents. Making recruitment more exciting and promising with innovative culture will attract the best skills to this industry.
COVID-19 has initiated a new model of the world that prefers to work remotely. Remote work requires a workforce that can handle technological issues and are well versed with amplified technical skills.
Employee Value Proposition (EVP) answers why some candidates should work for your company. It answers: What's in it for me, and what makes one organization stand ahead of others to attract talents?
EVP has five main components that aid organizations attract top tech talents. These are the compensation paid (including the salary, perks, bonuses, and promotions), benefits offered by any organization (including holidays, insurance, medical, retirement benefits, and tuition fees of children as well as other perks and perquisites), career (includes career stability, progress, and promotions, the benefit of training and education and constructive feedbacks), work environment (clear understanding and clarity of roles in a positive work environment and healthy work-life balance) and healthy company culture (including encouraging relationships, team spirit, trust, collaborations, and support)
Market research firm Gartner expresses its EVP in five pillars: challenging work, talented people, limitless growth, community impact, and big rewards. Its holistic offerings (including telehealth, professional counseling to stock purchases, and plan to family leave and ERGs) motivate its employees to live well in every aspect of their lives.
Similarly, sports giant Nike's EVP is "Win as a team." Nike gives prominence to achieving innovation in sports with a teamwork spirit. Its EVP includes fitness discounts, relocation benefits, competitive pay and retirement plans, and advanced learning opportunities.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are the three pillars on which any organization can stand firm, tall, and long. DEI aids any concern in strategic intent, talent acquisition, data analysis, leadership roles and behavior, communication, psychological safety, and mental health.
Movements such as #metoo and #blacklivesmatter have brought massive social change. To embrace change, DEI is also mandated by some regulatory departments, such as EU directives, soft laws (gender quotas), and UN sustainability standards (SDG, SASB).
"Diversity and inclusion are the real grounds for creativity and must remain at the center of our work." Marco Bizzari
People thrive in different work environments. Some people are highly successful when working with others or collaborating. On the other hand, some employees love to work remotely and are most productive in a work-from-home setup. Yet another category might be those who like a hybrid work environment due to some of their mandates. So, diversity in work culture enhances productivity.
The future of work is about offering choices and flexibility. Everyone has their work preferences which can create different outcomes. It is rightly said, "If a task is to be done, it can be done in as many ways as the number of minds we put on it." Everyone has his unique model of the world. Channeling that diversity will enhance happiness levels and improve productivity.
Change is always challenging, yet beautiful future possibilities arise once it's done. Include people in decision-making and the processes of the change. Check how they'll bring out the best solutions that work in the organization's best interests.
Diversity helps deliver better results and bridge the talent gaps with improvised thinking patterns due to cultural differences and varied perspectives.
A recent Gartner report says that a diverse and inclusive culture workforce tends to flourish, allowing teams to perform and play in full. Research also highlights that performance in such cases has accelerated by 12%.
Skills development (to match the accelerating needs) of the existing workforce
The A&D sector has a higher demand for digitally and analytically skilled workers than the current workforce. The short supply also invigorates the existing workforce to refurbish their talents and grow exponentially at their jobs, becoming better qualified. While the tech sector employs 60% or more of its technically advanced workforce, the A&D industry employs only about 40%.
"Success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning, yet most people don't know how to learn." - a quote from Chris Argyris, Action Learning & Learning Organizations.
As we strive for a more agile, resilient, and adaptive workforce that can learn, unlearn and relearn the required skills, behavior, and mindset, organizations must also focus on bringing the existing workforce to par with the new digitally advanced workforce. Advance training for upgrading existing skills and other behavioral uplift programs provided by the A&D sector will form the basis of the high emphasis on employee retention and skilled workforce availability.
Learning can be a valuable tool to drive change and enable strategic goals and effective execution. Transformational learning entails learning from failure, adapting, and changing internal behaviors to meet the challenges of new work reality. Investments in future skills and reskilling talent hubs for future critical roles are vital, while retaining and developing the existing mid-career workforce is necessary for organizations in the A&D sector to thrive.
Protecting data and cybersecurity
Building defense against cyber risks and potential threats to a data breach, continuous monitoring of the potential cyber risks, and safeguarding against the sources from where they emerge and their preparedness for vulnerabilities is a high-priority tasks in the A&D sector.
Raytheon, a US-based defense contractor, has invested more than $3.5 billion in cybersecurity initiatives over the last ten years, says Deloitte.
Leveraging Industry 4.0
By bringing intelligent technologies into the manufacturing process and integrating digital tools with traditional methods, the A&D sector can bring innovation to enhance productivity and 10X growth while reducing the cost of manufacturing. Improved and new product lines submerged with technological advancements will pave the way forward to enhance the industry's top and bottom lines.
"GE Aviation collects real-time data from internet-connected systems on aircraft and runs advanced analytics to identify faults in their engines, thus helping to lower maintenance costs and extend the life of the parts that go into the aircraft. Maintenance crews can determine when to replace a component before it malfunctions, avoiding costly unscheduled downtime," says a Deloitte report. Hence, analyzing and running advanced data trends saves GE from unscheduled downtime by taking preventive actions. They also prevented any loss of revenue for the same reasons.
Thinkovating the future Becoming future-ready by reimagining work.
In the greater Washington, DC, area, where several major A&D companies are headquartered, the demand for tech talent exceeds supply by nearly 2:1.
Data analytics and artificial Intelligence will help the A&D sector companies hire more efficiently and pick the best talents while keeping the data and flowing talent supply into the pool.
A&D companies should recognize their top 50 skills for critical strategic roles and then use data-driven recruiting from their pool to acknowledge the right skill being matched/allotted to the suitable functions to improve their productivity for workforce decision-making. The A&D sector must continue attracting top talent across industries to be future-ready.
A&D companies are reimagining talent management, embracing change in their traditional business models through data-driven and AI-based recommendations.
A few critical areas of work in this regard are:
- Acknowledging where top talent is deployed across industries and sectors, you can only take action when you are aware.
- Upgrading and reskilling the current workforce to match the suitable task's allocation.
- Inspire and motivate generation Z to follow suit with the latest technological innovations.
- Employee mentoring and coaching by top management.
- Using data analytics and AI in place of traditional systems in recruiting target talents.
- Strategizing and infusing DEI (diversity, Equity, and inclusion) into talent management.
During the post-pandemic era, A&D companies are thinkovating the new ways to create transformational changes, reimagining themselves in this digital world, and inventing more specific, technologically advanced strategies and tactics to inspire their workforce to higher levels.
In 2015, Boeing started targeting high school talent through an accelerated hiring and training program to fill future workforce gaps. The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) focused on partnerships with academic institutions to help ensure that school curriculums match the skill set required by the company. Boeing has had partnerships with nearly 30 high schools, skill centers, and technical colleges, specializing in specific areas.
Source: https://twitter.com/ADSgroupUK/status/943078160085766144
Commitment to embed sustainability as a top-most priority in the business model is the need of the hour and will help shape the future in the right direction to achieve the net zero goal. A&D industries employ more than 800 apprentices in Scotland, investing in a skilled workforce for the future. At the same time, defense giant BAE Systems PLC launched a master's level sustainability apprenticeship, a new program developed by Cranfield University under its move to reduce carbon footprints.
"Apprenticeships are creating the skilled workforce businesses need to reach net zero and helping people get the skills they need for the future green jobs," says Alex Burghart, London Minister for Skills.
Dr. Kenisha Garnett, lecturer in Decision Science at Cranfield School of Water, Energy, and Environment, says: "We stand on the edge of an explosion in green jobs as sectors such as the energy, aviation, and construction industries rapidly transition to a more sustainable and resilient future."
Conclusion
Thinkovating the future and becoming global industry leaders, A&D companies must focus on bringing the best talents into their talent pool, who can help them maintain current business competitiveness and skyrocket their performance in the future.
A&D initiated many innovations that have been beneficial not only in the A&D sector but have also benefitted many other industries. Commercial aircraft, human spaceflight, the internet, and navigation systems such as GPS and satellites are a few such breathtaking innovations that have been terrific inventions.
Tapping the best tech talent from the marketplace, investing in building the right capabilities through skills upgradation of the existing talent pool, deploying the tech-versed talented workforce to the appropriate right jobs, while rotation of responsibilities will help them judge the right talent for the right job. Deploying the new innovative technological trends in the marketplace, keeping track of the industry updates, and being agile to adopt the change will help exponentially boost business growth in the A&D sector.
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