Computered up?
School never lets out
in the new era's workplace
by Burney Simpson
You ain't seen nothing yet. In the last 25 years, technological change has swept through the workplace at a phenomenal pace. Many white collar workers now take for granted that they will perform most, maybe all, of their labors on computers. And this change is not exclusive to the front office. The back shop has been automated, leaving robots to do much of the heavy lifting. And it's clear technology will move even faster in the next 25 years.
Still, the pace of change at the dawning of the Cyber Age isn't unprecedented. Workers were likely more affected by the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, according to Barry Chiswick, a research professor and the head of the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
There's a modern ironic twist, though. "Then," Chiswick says, "the high-skilled artisan was replaced by the low-skilled factory worker. Now, the rapid technological change in the last decade gives the advantage to the highly educated, highly skilled workers who adapt to new technology."
This growing need for highly skilled workers has given rise to a new kind of workplace. It has, in short, become a continuous classroom. School never lets out for those in the new era's corporate cubicles and on its factory floors.
Fifty years ago, workers could expect to use the same skills throughout their careers. Employers, in turn, could expect to realize a good return on any initial training provided to those workers. No more. In the computer age, the challenge for employers and employees alike is to keep abreast of a constantly changing technology. The training, and retraining, never stops. "The skills you learn at 18 are no longer the most relevant. You're seeing both employers and workers doing more training," says Chiswick.
In fact, this shift has given rise to new businesses. One expanding Chicago-based firm is profiting from the need for constant workplace training. Whittman-Hart Inc. targets small and midsize companies and advises them on how to automate their internal, or back office, operations. That company also advises clients on ways to market themselves and make sales on the Internet. Whittman-Hart, created in 1984, saw its sales rise to $331 million last year.
Training employees to adapt to and use technology has changed in the last decade, says Steven Pollema, that company's Chicago branch manager.
In the 1980s, he says, the approach for many businesses was to put a personal computer on every employee's desk and conduct a large, one-time training event. For example, Pollema says, a bank would buy a new system for its tellers, teach them how to use it and "on Monday it would be there. And the teller could use a cheat sheet to run it."
But now, banks are combining that technology with training on their products and on sales techniques. The teller can view the customer's financial history and attempt to sell other bank products.
"The teller can see (on the computer) you are a quality customer. They'll know what loans you already have. And the teller will try to cross sell you another loan," says Pollema.
And who knows what computer systems will be needed a year or two down the road. What is certain is that employees will have to be trained.
Illinois-based communications giant Motorola had the foresight to build training into that company's operations. Motorola, which had sales of $31 billion last year, established Motorola University in 1981 at its Schaumburg headquarters. Staff is expected to take 40 hours of job-related training every year. The schooling has been expanded to 20 offices in 13
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countries. Jamie Lane, a director of the firm's communications enterprise division, says her group's 70,000 employees received 250,000 days of training in 1999. "The reskilling of people is essential. Skills have a limited lifetime," she says. Motorola's perpetual training crosses all levels of employment, with classes on new software, computer programming, sales and management.
Although Motorola requires continuous training, employees today are demanding it as well. "One of the tools we use in recruiting is our constant retraining. We continue to invest in [an employee's] development. We generally hire younger people. The idea of lifetime employment is not the same," Lane says.
The computer revolution also is affecting more traditional manufacturers, including 120-year-old steel firm A. Finkl and Sons Co. of Chicago. In the last decade Finkl doubled its sales to $100 million while cutting its work force from 650 to 380, according to Joseph Curci, chief financial officer. But the move from manual operations to automated processes has kept the assembly line going. "Our use of computers has made it possible for us to survive as a U.S. manufacturer. The price for our product is flat. So we have to emphasize production efficiency," says Curci. "Twenty years ago, we used muscle. Now the equipment does a lot of the work." The firm has automated everything from shop floor processing to back office order entry. And that has meant a different kind of employee, one who can readily learn new skills throughout the course of his or her work life.
Ironically, the technology that made the global marketplace possible has forced businesses and the people they employ to push the frontiers of technology even further in order to stay competitive.
Take Peoria-based manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. That company, which makes large-scale construction and mining equipment, engines and turbines, has lowered its costs with computers. In fact, about a third of Caterpillar's $21 billion in sales comes from exports, and it has managed to push the technological envelope, so to speak, in getting that business. For example, the company uses computer imaging "virtual reality" 3D software to build project-specific machines for its overseas customers. According to the firm, its new 360-ton capacity 797 mining truck took 18 months from the design stage to a finished product rolling off the assembly line. That process took eight years for Caterpillar in the 1970s and 1980s. For sure, that new truck was made by workers with greater technical knowledge than the workers of 20 years ago.
Yet manufacturers face a double whammy when they're looking to hire new workers, according to Larry Smith, executive director of work force development at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. They need more workers and more highly skilled workers. More workers are needed because the Baby Boomer generation is just beginning to retire; and the increased skill requirements mean a newcomer can't step into a job as easily as in years past. So employers are retraining older workers even as they bring along younger staff. Further, the training often must be specific to the workplace.
Prior to joining the chamber, Smith created a worker development program at a Danville-based firm. "We had an older work force and found that about 40 percent of them could retire in 10 years. So in recruiting we had to address both supply and quality [of workers]. We found we had to invest a lot into training after we hired someone," Smith says.
To accommodate the changing needs of the state's employers, the chamber developed an apprentice program that finds promising teenagers willing to commit two years to a firm in return for tuition at a community college. The students learn the trade and get hands-on experience at a firm while attending high school and college. There is also a four-year apprentice program. Smith says about 60 percent of the students complete the program. He has worked with more than 100 Illinois businesses, including Caterpillar, which estimates it will need 500 tradespeople over three years to replace retirees.
But the need for continuous training has even hit the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar stores. The nearly universal use of the bar code scanner in the last 20 years, for example, has automated inventory and purchases from suppliers, according to Peter Gill of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.
The next decade will see the evolution of two kinds of stores. One will be highly automated with the customer doing much of the clerical work, including self-checkout. The second type will offer personal customer service from an expert staff.
Sales will be clicking over the Internet, too. The recent Christmas season saw sales increase 300 percent, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Less publicized is business-to-business sales over the Net. And these sales are typically the old-fashioned nuts and bolts, not the glamour of Victoria's Secret.
All of these changes will require a different kind of workplace. And a different kind of worker. W.W. Grainger sells hammers, generators and other tools to such Fortune 500 businesses as Boeing. The Lake Forest firm, founded in 1927, had 15,000 employees and sales of $4.3 billion in 1998. The year before that, the company opened its Web site for sales. Within two years, that site was generating $100 million. Grainger projects that will grow this year to about $500 million.
Whittman-Hart's Pollema says the Internet has shifted the power in sales from the supplier to the buyer because the consumer can choose where to buy and how to buy. And this will propel retailers into the next phase of Internet commerce.
For the past five years, many firms have been scrambling to develop a presence on the Web or, in Net parlance, to go from "brick to click." Which is sure to mean more training for employees, however Net savvy they may be.
And this just accounts for what businesses can foresee in the short term. It's likely that as we move firmly into the next 25 years, the pace of technological change faced by employers and their workers is bound to increase.
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Sam S. Manivong, Illinois Periodicals Online Coordinator Illinois Periodicals Online (IPO) is a digital imaging project at the Northern Illinois University Libraries funded by the Illinois State Library |