WORKFORCE LESSONS LEARNING SOLUTIONS WITH RESULTS Regional Ohio Manufacturers Team Up to Tackle Workforce Challenges F or more than 100 years, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA) has helped manufacturers succeed and grow. This effort is more important than ever today as the state faces a growing national concern: a critical labor shortage and skills gap. Building on its experience, OMA’s statewide network of Industry Sector Partnerships (ISPs) enable manufacturers within a shared labor market to align around common workforce development solutions. This includes collab-orating with educational institutions, service providers, philanthropy and local government to develop strategies and mobilize resources. The Dayton Region Manufacturers Association hosted 34 career awareness events at middle and high schools in 2023, including this one at Northridge High School in Dayton, Ohio. (All photos provided by DRMA) Because sector partnerships are industry led and locally driven, they are in a position to identify the specific needs and challenges that manufacturers face, and make critical decisions about the strategies that will work best for members. More than 1,600 manufacturers comprise OMA’s statewide ISP network. Granting Good Jobs In August 2022, OMA was awarded a three-year, $23.5 million federal grant through the United States Economic Development Administration’s $500 million “Good Jobs Challenge.” Some 120 manufacturers submitted letters of commit-ment to source new hires from this initiative. Combined, these employers indicated a demand for 25,000-plus hires over five years at an annual wage of about $15 per hour, which reflects the prevailing wages for machining, production, welding, industrial maintenance, automation and robotics jobs. Such occupations are projected to have more than 150,000 openings in the next 36 months in Ohio. The Dayton Region Manufacturing Workforce Partnership (DRMWP) is one of OMA’s network of endorsed ISPs that were named as a sub-recipient of the Good Jobs grant. It received $930,000 to help drive manufacturing competence and growth in southwest Ohio. “Not having enough people with the right skillset has been a challenge of manufacturers for decades; and since the pandemic and all the demographic changes, it’s just made it worse, particularly now, as every other industry is affected in the same way,” says Angelia Erbaugh, president of the Dayton Region Manufacturers Association (DRMA), the regional trade organization leading DRMWP. “We determined early on that what we can do and what we should do is own the responsibility of attracting people to work in our industry.” DRMWP is implementing the WorkAdvance model developed and evaluated by Cleveland-based Towards Employment Inc. The strategy, which allows employers to build a workforce trained to meet specific needs, includes recruiting, pre-screening, work readiness and manufac-turing skills training, onboarding, ongoing support and job coaching components. WorkAdvance intentionally seeks people who aren’t currently pursuing manufacturing positions. “The purpose is to bring more entry-level people into the manufacturing workforce pipeline by tapping into previously untapped audiences,” Erbaugh explains. “What we’re doing is working with community-based organi-zations that are already established and serving those audiences. “They deliver the components from recruiting to training, and we bring manufacturing employers to the table to interview and hire.” ͳͬ Manufacturing Engineering | May 2024