Forty to fifty percent of the industry’s employees are eligible to retire in the next three to five years, and each retirement typically causes a ripple effect of two to three employee moves or new hires to backfill. This wave of retirements is creating a much less experienced workforce that brings different skill sets to your organization and expects different things in terms of development and career progression.
To compound the challenge of a less experienced workforce, the nation’s infrastructure continues to undergo significant replacement and expansion, necessitating field workers be equipped to service and maintain an ever-growing list of heterogeneous pieces of equipment. And the continuous evolution of technology is changing how employees do work at unforeseen rates.
At the same time, continued safety incidents have increased scrutiny and lowered the tolerance for failure by both regulators and customers. Increasing regulatory pressure is creating more job complexity and training expectations, and increasing the risks of non-compliance. The stakes are high for ensuring the workforce is safe, efficient, customer-oriented, adaptable, and compliant amidst massive transformation.