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The skills gap is one of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers today—but what if there was a way to overcome it and fill jobs more effectively and easily? In fact, such a method exists, and it’s called “adaptive skills” development.   
 
Timely topic: The Manufacturing Institute’s inaugural Workforce Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio, covered this topic last month, in a session led by two EY partners. Here’s what they had to say.   

• “What are adaptive skills? It’s exactly as you would expect: they’re skills that help an individual learn and expand their capabilities to meet an ever-changing job function, business market [or] home environment,” EY Americas Business Consulting Leader Lisa Caldwell told the audience.   
• Developing and leveraging these skills, which include communication and problem solving, helps companies develop and retain a broader workforce, according to a recent joint EY–MI study that built on earlier research from EY and Oxford Said Business School, Caldwell said.   
• This is particularly important today, as the U.S. workforce could have a shortage of 2.1 million manufacturing jobs by 2030 if the skills gap is not addressed, according to a joint Deloitte–MI study cited by Caldwell. 

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