What If You Can’t Hire the Workforce You Need?

Manufacturers have spent years hearing about the skilled-labor shortage, and the challenge is not disappearing. Research from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute estimates that U.S. manufacturing could require approximately 3.8 million new workers between 2024 and 2033, with as many as 1.9 million of those positions potentially going unfilled if workforce challenges are not addressed. At the same time, the work itself is changing as manufacturers invest in automation, AI, connected equipment, advanced analytics, and other smart-manufacturing technologies.

That creates a workforce problem that recruiting alone cannot solve. Manufacturers still need to attract new people into the industry and compete aggressively for specialized talent, but an external search cannot be the only answer when many companies are looking for the same limited supply of skilled workers. The other part of the strategy is already inside the operation: identifying the people with the potential to learn more, take on greater responsibility, and develop the capabilities the business will need next.

The question, then, is not simply Where are we going to find the workers? It is also Who can we develop into the workers we need?

The Skills Gap Is Bigger Than the Open Positions

A workforce shortage is easy to see when a position sits vacant. The more complicated challenge is identifying the capability gaps that exist even when the roster appears full. A manufacturer may have enough employees to run today’s operation while lacking enough people who can maintain increasingly sophisticated equipment, interpret production data, troubleshoot automated systems, lead teams, or step into critical roles when experienced employees leave.

That distinction matters because filling positions and building capability are not the same workforce strategy. Hiring addresses an immediate need by bringing someone into the organization who possesses skills the company requires. Development takes a longer view, asking which capabilities the organization will need in the future and how much of that expertise can be deliberately built among the people already there.

The growing use of AI makes that question even more relevant. IndustryWeek, citing recent manufacturing workforce research, reports that manufacturers are already investing in AI training for frontline employees as technology changes how work is performed. Rather than eliminating the need to develop people, more sophisticated technology can increase the importance of ensuring employees have the skills to use it effectively.

The Workforce You Need Tomorrow May Already Be on the Floor Today

Manufacturing employees accumulate knowledge in ways that are difficult to capture on a résumé or in a training manual. An experienced operator may recognize subtle changes in a machine before a measurable failure occurs. A maintenance technician may know which recurring issue deserves immediate attention and which one can safely wait. A supervisor may understand how production decisions in one area will create problems several steps downstream.

Some of that expertise comes from formal training, but much of it develops through repetition, observation, problem-solving, and years spent inside a particular operation. The Manufacturing Institute has previously found widespread concern among manufacturers about losing institutional knowledge as experienced workers retire, highlighting a challenge that becomes especially important when companies are already struggling to find skilled replacements.

The solution is not simply convincing every experienced employee to remain indefinitely. Eventually people retire, change careers, relocate, or move to other organizations. Manufacturers need systems that allow knowledge to move through the Roster rather than remain concentrated in a few individuals until the day they leave.

That might mean structured mentoring, cross-training, apprenticeships, documented processes, job rotations, or deliberately pairing experienced employees with people who are developing new skills. The exact Playbook will vary by operation, but the objective is the same: make capability transferable.

Walter Bond: Leaders Have to Build the Roster

Walter Bond teaches that effective leaders operate as coaches, and one of the fundamental responsibilities of a coach is to recruit, develop, and retain top talent. That sequence matters because building a strong Roster requires more than finding talented people. Once they arrive, leaders have to help them become better.

In manufacturing, that responsibility often sits closest to the work. Plant managers, supervisors, team leads, and experienced employees see capabilities that may never appear on an organizational chart. They know who asks good questions, who learns quickly, who remains calm when something goes wrong, who other employees naturally turn to for help, and who may be ready for more responsibility with the right development.

Those observations can become part of a deliberate talent strategy rather than remaining informal impressions. A supervisor who sees potential in an operator can create opportunities for that person to learn another machine, participate in troubleshooting, understand more of the production process, or begin developing leadership skills. Over time, those individual decisions create more flexibility within the Roster and reduce the organization’s dependence on finding every capability externally.

Development Has to Be Connected to the Work

Manufacturers can spend significant resources on training without necessarily building the capabilities the operation needs. Completing a course or attending a workshop may increase knowledge, but the real test is whether employees can apply what they learned in the environment where performance matters.

That makes the connection between development and the Playbook especially important. If a manufacturer expects frontline employees to work alongside new automation, development should prepare them for those responsibilities. If equipment is becoming more technically sophisticated, maintenance capabilities have to evolve with it. If supervisors are expected to use production data to make decisions, they need more than access to a dashboard; they need to understand what the information means and how to act on it.

Development becomes more valuable when employees can see where the new capability fits into their work and leaders reinforce it through practice, feedback, and increasing responsibility. The objective is not to accumulate training hours. It is to make the Roster more capable of executing the Playbook.

Experienced Workers Should Leave Something Behind

The aging manufacturing workforce adds another dimension to the development challenge. Research from The Manufacturing Institute has previously shown that manufacturers are highly concerned about losing institutional knowledge as experienced employees retire. That concern makes sense because replacing someone’s labor does not automatically replace the judgment they developed over decades of work.

Organizations often discover how much someone knew only after that person is gone. The employee who seemed to “just know” how to solve a recurring production problem is no longer available. Relationships with suppliers, workarounds developed over years, equipment quirks, and practical knowledge about how the operation really functions can disappear at the same time.

Knowledge transfer therefore needs to begin before a retirement announcement forces the issue. Manufacturers can identify roles where expertise is concentrated, determine which knowledge would be difficult to replace, and create opportunities for experienced employees to teach others while they are still actively doing the work. In some cases, that may also give experienced workers a meaningful new role as mentors and teachers rather than treating the later stages of a career simply as a countdown to departure.

Cross-Training Creates More Than Backup

Cross-training is often discussed as a way to cover absences, and that alone can make it valuable in an environment where labor shortages can disrupt production. Its strategic value, however, can extend further. Employees who understand more of the operation can become more adaptable when production needs change, equipment goes down, demand shifts, or the company introduces new processes.

Broader knowledge can also improve problem-solving. An employee who understands what happens before and after their own part of the process has more context for recognizing how one decision affects the rest of the operation. That can make the organization less dependent on a small number of people who hold all of the knowledge and create more opportunities for employees to grow into advanced technical or leadership roles.

For the employee, that development can change the Value Exchange as well. Work becomes more than repeating the same task indefinitely when people can see opportunities to learn, contribute at a higher level, and build a future inside the organization. Development does not guarantee retention, but an organization that gives people meaningful opportunities to grow has something more substantial to offer than a position alone.

Retention and Development Are Connected

Manufacturers cannot develop people they continually lose. That means the workforce strategy has to consider why skilled employees stay, why they leave, and whether the organization is creating an environment where people believe there is something worth building toward.

Compensation will always matter, particularly when skilled workers have choices. But retention also involves leadership, working conditions, scheduling, recognition, development opportunities, and whether employees believe their contribution matters. A manufacturer can invest heavily in recruiting while simultaneously losing experienced employees whose knowledge will be difficult and expensive to replace.

This is another reason managers and supervisors play such an important role in workforce development. They influence the daily experience of the people on the Roster while also determining whether potential gets noticed and developed. Leaders who see their job only as managing today’s production may miss opportunities to build the capability the plant will need six months or several years from now.

Internal Development Doesn’t Eliminate the Need to Recruit

There are limits to what development can solve. Some positions require specialized education, certifications, or experience that cannot be created quickly. Growing manufacturers may simply need more people than the current workforce can supply, and bringing outside perspectives and expertise into an organization can make the business stronger.

The better workforce strategy therefore is not recruit or develop. It is understanding which capabilities should be recruited, which can be developed internally, and where the organization needs to do both. Apprenticeships, partnerships with technical schools, community colleges, veterans programs, internships, and other talent pipelines can bring new people into manufacturing while internal development helps those employees continue growing after they arrive.

That creates a workforce system rather than a perpetual search for replacements. Recruiting adds people to the Roster. Development makes the Roster stronger.

Stop Waiting for the Perfect Candidate to Appear

When skilled talent is scarce, organizations can spend months searching for someone who arrives with every capability listed in a job description. Sometimes that person exists, and the right decision is to keep searching. Other times, the better long-term investment may be identifying someone with the foundational skills, learning ability, work ethic, and potential to grow into the role.

That requires manufacturers to think beyond today’s vacancy. The employee learning a second machine today may become tomorrow’s technician. The technician being taught how to diagnose more complex problems may eventually become the person who trains others. The operator who demonstrates judgment and leadership may become a supervisor capable of developing the next group of employees behind them.

None of those transitions happen automatically. They happen when leaders deliberately identify potential, create opportunities to develop it, and give people increasing responsibility as their capability grows.

Manufacturers cannot control how many skilled workers are available in the external labor market. They can control how seriously they develop the people who have already chosen to work for them.

The workforce shortage may make recruiting harder. It can also make building people one of the most important manufacturing capabilities of all.