On the factory floor, frustration haunts Mark Sisson.
If he wants a job done right away and some of his workers cannot do it, he will do it himself. Or he will turn to the same few employees each time, heaping added work and fatigue on them while not bothering with the others.
He knows this is not the way to be a good manager, or to teach workers to progress, yet he wants to show his bosses he can get his work done.
So he worries about burning out his workers, about being only a ”fair”
instructor, about not becoming a shining star in his bosses` plans. As he says somewhat intensely, he wants to hit home runs, not fouls or singles all the time.
”My expectations are really high for myself, but for my guys they are not high enough,” confesses Sisson, 36, a thoughtful and outspoken manager at Chicago Extruded Metals Co., a 68-year-old company in Cicero where officials talk relentlessly about bringing workers up to world-class standards.
Sisson`s frustrations are widespread among workers and officials at factories fighting the high-tech, global industrial wars of the 1990s with a work force hired and trained for the far simpler battles of the `50s and `60s. It is a problem of an underskilled manufacturing work force, one missing a younger generation, in a nation neither prepared nor committed to training its workers.
”In old-line manufacturing they are attempting a transition, and they are having a difficult time. . . . Most factories are muddling through,” said Anthony Carnevale, chief economist with the American Society for Training and Development.
Not only were 1.9 million manufacturing jobs wiped out in the U.S. in the 1980s, but fewer younger workers joined the blue-collar ranks. Ten years ago 18 percent of all manufacturing workers were 24 years old and under. By 1991, that age group represented 11 percent of manufacturing workers.
The recession continues to drive younger workers from the factories. Since June 1989, there are 15 percent fewer factory workers under 24 and 10 percent fewer workers between 25 and 34, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. No other age group lost as much representation.
In the `90s, the factory floor also remains a white man`s bastion; more than 4 of 5 workers are white, and women, blacks, Hispanics and immigrants are outsiders.
There are, to be sure, advantages in an older factory work force. Older workers are more loyal and steady. They are used to problem-solving. And their stability is one reason U.S. productivity has grown.
Nonetheless, many don`t fit into companies` plans for the future. Vast numbers read and add below grammar-school levels. Many do only what they are told to do-which is what their bosses once wanted but is no longer what employers seek. They want independent-minded workers.
As tough as the situation is, Carnevale says it will get worse.
”You can see a cliff out there,” he said. In 10 years most factories`
skilled workers will retire, and with hiring frozen there will be few replacements on hand. ”Nobody has given much of a thought where the heck they`ll get the workers,” he added.
The answer, almost everyone agrees, is more training. But U.S. businesses do very little.
About 15,000 companies, or about one-half of 1 percent of the nation`s companies, train their workers, according to Carnevale.
Yet even when companies do offer training, they often ignore workers 45 and over, said Fran Rothstein, a consultant who examined the issue for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment`s 1990 report on worker training.
All the studies on older workers show they can pick up new skills, but it may take them longer, she pointed out.
Richard Lester, who led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology`s 1989 study of industrial productivity, says part of the problem stems from management`s low expectations of workers. ”This attitude was quite deeply rooted in many firms and industries,” said Lester, a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT.
Trained older workers and their expertise can offer a silver lining to manufacturers, said Harley Shaiken, a professor of work and technology at the University of California at San Diego. But many U.S. companies do not train them because it does not lead to a short-term payoff, he said.
Chicago Extruded Metals Co., which sells shaped metal products to the auto, plumbing and appliance industries, is one of the few companies committed to training workers.
Its officials acknowledge frankly that the effort is not a matter of humanity. If its workers cannot deal with complex machinery and new products, then the company, which sits in the middle of a large industrial park filled with empty lots and shuttered factories, will not survive.
Over the years, the privately held company has tried to abide by a no-layoffs policy. As a result, its workers, a number of whom are European-born or Latino, are long-term veterans. Two years ago, the average worker was 45 years old with at least 12 years at the company.
For its training program, the company built a small classroom-10 rows of tables and chairs, white walls and a blackboard-next to the factory floor several years ago. Last December the company hired Kathy Kull as its first personnel director.
Eugene Riccio, who started 27 years ago as a lab technician with the company and now is general manager, also is frank about his company`s problems so far with training workers.
There have been starts and stops for training programs over the last few years, making workers skeptical about a new effort, he said. In addition, many workers feel intimidated by a classroom, and Riccio doesn`t want to scare them or create a negative attitude towards learning.
That is why the effort has gone more slowly than he expected and any testing will be voluntary, he said. Still, he is committed to training his work force.
”To try to go out and hire people to do what we want to do would be ridiculous,” he said with a shrug. His knows his workers, and knows their loyalty, he said.
He also knows some managers feel threatened by his urging them to give more freedom to workers. Because he feels his word is not filtering down to the firm`s 140 production workers, he plans to hold meetings with small groups to explain his ideas.
Jerry Kosiolek, who is in charge of transitional planning, says the company has to make sure it doesn`t create another ”Mister Rogers`
Neighborhood,” where there are no expectations.
”There has to be some measurements,” he said emphatically.
Out on the factory floor, the rumblings about classes and a new way of working, in which workers make more of their own decisions, get a mixed reaction.
Frank Consentino, 35, a maintenance mechanic who trailed his father Emilio into the company`s ranks 17 years ago soon after they arrived from Calabria, Italy, is not one of the doubters. ”If the company offers me training, I`ll take it,” he said.
But Samuel Cole, 44, a 19-year veteran at the company who came to Chicago as a child with his family from Bayfield, Miss., doesn`t see much need for more training. ”I know my job,” said Cole, who weighs metal products before they are shipped. ”If I have to go back to school, it might puzzle my mind.” A savvy veteran of factory work who had his own construction business and now manages the company`s extrusion process area, Mark Sisson knows a lot will depend on the company`s determination.
”We have to be consistent,” he said. ”The lack of it has created all of the skepticism.”
