Organizations and companies must be proactive as they address and recognize the labor shortage in the supply chain sector. The following are some of the ways the supply chain industry is addressing the labor shortage.
1. Valuing Current Employees
It is no secret that hiring can be expensive and time-consuming. The supply chain industry is realizing the importance of valuing current employees and thus reducing employee turnover rate. To further increase employee engagement, companies are providing consistent feedback to their employees, offering training opportunities to develop new skillsets, rewarding hard work and innovation and soliciting employee input in the supply chain process.
Schools that provide STEM programs are showing promising avenues for future labor. These programs prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and understanding that supply chain businesses are looking for. This does not solve the immediate labor shortage, but it does help to ensure a consistent flow of candidates in the future.
Another way to address the labor shortage problem is by offering internships and apprenticeships, to graduate students. Working closely with educational institutions can open the door for the next generation of workers. By offering internships companies will increase visibility into different career paths in the supply chain industry.
Investing in technology such as robotics, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and Automated guided vehicles (AGV) and more are also attracting new, fresh tech-savvy talent. Automation allows repetitive tasks to be performed at a higher efficiency. Collaborative Robots can be trained to train the worker who is going to be working with them. This also means temporary workers can be effective and efficient in a shorter amount of time.
The labor shortage is one of the leading concerns of the supply chain industry. While automation can help overcome this problem, there are a few factors that companies need to take care of, to address the labor shortage issue.