Young professionals (under 40) will make up over half of the workforce by the end of next year. That means communication between young professionals and experienced professionals is essential for workplace success. Younger professionals dominating the workforce means that reliability engineering is undergoing formative changes. These are a few general thoughts on the impacts of the changing workforce and five ways it will impact reliability engineering.
Some General Thoughts on Intergenerational Communication
Here are a few thoughts on intergenerational communication from my recent interview on The YoPro Know Podcast.
On Using Social Media
Companies are generally awkward with social media and how to reach the younger generations. On the one hand, companies know to try. On the other hand, the HR people and some of the technical managers are really bad at it.
Companies should do a gap analysis on reaching young professionals. There are inadvertent things companies do that really cause them to stumble inadvertently. Most companies do too much of a cookie-cutter approach to recruiting and retention.
On Favorite Technical Tools
Microsoft Excel is the number one business software in the world. And Excel can do everything that PowerPoint can in terms of visual presentations. Microsoft Excel is the backbone for universal communication between all workforce generations.
There are more technical tools now, too. For example, the AI tool Mid-Journy is one in which I do a lot of my own graphics. It’s a large language model that does phenomenal, quick work. Younger generations expect the experienced generations to embrace these tools and communicate with them.
On Existing Communication Gaps
There is a lot of talk about the younger generations coming to communicate in ways embraced by the experienced generations. That may have been the case in the past. Now, I don’t see it purely as one way or another. Certain aspects like technology and workplace practices like working from home are emerging quickly. There needs to be a meeting in the middle if businesses (and their technical professionals) are going to be successful.
On Aging Workforce
Companies are still struggling to attract talent. The experienced generations are coming off the hopper. The gap for many of my organizations is in the technically trained areas where people have to have certifications and licenses. Companies do not see as many young professionals getting certified or trained as they did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. That means the experienced generations are going to stay around longer. The potential for intergenerational communication challenges also is not going away.
On Hybrid Workshops
Virtual platform training is less emphasized as the workforce is now back in person. This shift has meant that hybrid formats have overtaken virtual meeting formats. Hybrid means we still need virtual platform training in Teams, Zoom, Skype, Slack, Discord, and Circle. The fact that younger generations use different virtual platforms means that pressure to be trained in more platforms will increase. Hybrid formats are the toughest to keep everyone involved to the same degree.
How Intergenerational Communication Will Impact Reliability Engineering
These are my Top 5 impacts in the coming years to the reliability profession.
Hybrid Workshops Are Here To Stay
The days of getting everyone in the same room to do things like Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) are gone. Working at least part of the time from home is here to stay. That means reliability leaders must improve in virtual platforms, facilitating participants who are not in the room and adjusting our reliability tools.
AI Is Expected In Every Reliability Tool
AI is where things are. We no longer debate generating FMEAs from scratch or using templates. The debate is the source of the initial template. The younger generations expect it.
Fewer Experienced and Knowledgeable Reliability Leaders
The younger generations need AI because they don’t spend enough time in their jobs to understand how things work. Plus, those younger workers like praise and titles almost as much as they like compensation. Many will have the title, but few will have the depth of understanding.
Even Fewer Young Professionals in Maintenance
If fewer young professionals are going into reliability, then the one-third of the business that is in the maintenance sector will hurt the most. If we can’t find skilled trades workers now, then there is a lower expectation that the white-collar workers will end up in maintenance. Remember, in the past, many engineering professionals had their first jobs in O&M (and liked it). That’s not the case with the younger generations.
The Older Generations Are Not Going Away
The lack of numbers and experience means the older generations are not going away. That may be good in many ways. But one bad part is that the current workers under 40 and those over 40 do not communicate in the same way. The technology is not going to change the younger generations, so the older ones must meet the younger ones over half-way. We older reliability professionals are not good at that.
Moving Forward with FINESSE
The FINESSE fishbone diagram identifies the seven causal factors needed to communicate effectively when complexity and uncertainty are high. Intergenerational communication is one of the three major communication barriers that FINESSE successfully overcomes. However, the rising tide of younger generations (those under 40) will impact the hard skills in reliability in similar ways to how it impacts the soft skills.
Communicating with FINESSE is a not-for-profit community of technical professionals dedicated to being highly effective communicators and facilitators. Learn more about our publications, webinars, and workshops. Join the community for free.
JD Solomon is the author of Communicating Reliability, Risk & Resiliency to Decision Makers: How to Get Your Boss’s Boss to Understand and Facilitating with FINESSE: A Guide to Successful Business Solutions.
Leave a Reply