November 4, 2021
Right now, skills shortages and a lean cost environment means employee investments can suffer. These challenges come at a pivotal time for the sector. The Federal Government’s $1.3bn Modern Manufacturing Initiative calls for “bold changes that will create strong, resilient, thriving and internationally competitive manufacturing businesses”. The problem is, growth is challenging without the right skills. The global COVID-19 pandemic has enlivened the local manufacturing sector, which in turn has sparked an investment in technologies on the floor for process automation to boost productivity. But what about investing in employees? Finding, and keeping, skilled workers is an ongoing challenge, and the pressure won’t ease quickly. There’s another issue. Manufacturing is one of the biggest employers of deskless workers, but they rarely, or never, have adequate access to a computer to engage with the company. It’s a problem that has been reflected in studies that reveal deskless workers make up nearly 80% of today’s global workforce, yet a meagre 1% of total enterprise software spend is dedicated to supporting shift workers.…