Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1464867
12 PCB007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2022 tion of these different challenges throughout the industry coming together at the same time. Johnson: Interesting. I was about to ask you whether one tackles this by hiring people with proven skills or by hiring people who seem to have an aptitude and then training them. I think I know the answer. Hernandez: You should hire whoever you can hire at this point. You take whatever you can get. It's kind of funny (but not really), but I have companies that have told me they will hire people out of supermarkets. ey will take anyone that they can get at this point because the challenges are so great that they would rather have a body who is untrained than not have anyone. Johnson: Well, that certainly does put a spot- light on basic training and upskilling. Hernandez: Yes. It's a perfect storm today. Dan Feinberg: You're talking about the entry- level people and the mid-level staff—your engineers and so forth—but what about the junior executive level? If you can hire new people at the junior executive level, they may have a wide group of associates who, if they're going to take a new position, can probably say, "I'm going to work at this company to do this. Would you like to consider joining me?" I think that's a level that isn't talked about that much. Hernandez: at's a great point, Dan. We talk a lot about skill and competency training for these various jobs in the industry. But that's one aspect that doesn't get talked about enough. We do have a challenge with hiring businesspeo- ple, those on the administrative side, because they either come up in our industry and there- fore have the technical knowledge and under- standing of the industry, but lack the business knowledge, or it's the other way around. Feinberg: Exactly. One of the hardest groups to clean out is your senior level. If you have some- body at that senior level—a vice president of finance or a vice president of human resources who is clearly a weak point—we tend to not to want to clear that position and replace it. Hernandez: Yes. I realize that we're here talk- ing about upskilling, but I think it's critical that we take the opportunity to take a step back and realize the broader problem. ere's an inher- ent issue with how we train and retain employ- ees in this industry, unlike other manufac- turing sectors in the United States. I'm now mostly talking about the U.S. because there are different challenges when you start talking about Europe and countries in Asia. In the United States, unlike other manufac- turing sectors, electronics manufacturing does not have a well-defined pipeline of talent. You can go to any number of high schools in the country that have training programs for the culinary arts, HVAC repair, electricians, car- pentry, and automotive. What you find is that those programs tend to feed talent into the industry on a continual basis. But our current David Hernandez