When ACME Smoked Fish needed support, it went back to school.

The company, which is headquartered in New York but has a plant at the Pender Commerce Park, needed additional training for its staff.

“We’ve taken advantage of supervisor and management training,” said Shanon Neuman, who handles human resources for ACME at the Pender County facility. “This has included leadership, performance expectations and resolving conflicts within your team.

“We also had OSHA and manufacturing classes,” Neuman added. “Early in our launch, Cape Fear Community College partnered with us to provide space on their campus for us to host pre-employment classes and orientations.”

Welcome to the expanding world of workforce development.

“Workforce development is simply the means to enhance economic stability by focusing on the marketable skills of the workers,” said Jenni Harris, a regional manager with the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. “It includes continuing education, certifications and updated knowledge and experience with new technologies, practices and equipment.”

Such development has practically become a necessity in the 21st-century, experts believe.

“With specialization of advanced technology, in everything from health care to financial and professional services to manufacturing, I think we’ll see more varieties of workforce development as an option for workers,” Harris said. “I also think it will continue to change as employers’ needs change and become more and more customized.”

At CFCC, workforce development has become a big deal.

“For us it is our No. 1 focus, workforce development,” said Erica Talbert, associate dean of continuing education at CFCC. “I think with a lot of jobs in this area, in health care, in construction, even at GE and Corning, you have to have technology skills.

That may be why 20 years ago you didn’t hear much about workforce development, almost every job at any level today, requires that you use technology.”

A recent study by the N.C. Department of Commerce highlighted this trend.
In its statewide 2016 Employer Needs Survey, the department found that a lack of work experience, education, technical skills and soft skills were the top reasons given by over 50 percent of employers with hiring difficulties.

The survey of more than 1,900 establishments noted that four out of 10 employers who tried to hire in the past year had difficulty filling at least one position due to lack of training, and that opportunities exist for the workforce development system to more fully engage with employers.

That holds true across the Cape Fear region as well.

“Yes, in the past two years, we have seen a very steady growth in workforce development,” said Velva Jenkins, vice president for continuing education, economic and workforce development at Brunswick Community College. “We gauge this growth by the local demand from industries and enrollment in college workforce development short-term training programs.”
 

The NCWorks Customized Training Program provides education, training and support services to companies through the state’s 58 community colleges. 861: Number of companies served in the program 36,833: Employees trained 92: Percentage of companies served that are advanced manufacturers $374: Investment average per employee Source: N.C. Community College System

Jenkins pointed out that BCC offers workforce development support in areas such as nursing, pharmacy tech, machine technology, welding, HVAC and office support.

“We also offer professional technical curriculum programs that help individuals train or retrain in particular fields relevant to business and industry,” she said. “Examples of that would be like horticulture, aquaculture, welding, biotechnology and more.”

A strong regional workforce development effort goes hand in hand with economic development efforts.

“These programs are very important,” said Jim Bradshaw of Cape Fear Council of Governments and Brunswick County’s former economic development head. “I know when I was in economic development, one of the first things an industry wants to know in your community is ‘Is the labor there?’ and what kind of training programs can an industry in the community utilize to train and develop its employees.”

Bradshaw works with the Cape Fear Council of Governments in securing federal and state grants for workforce training and development programs.

“In the past there have been some challenges in getting the word out in the industrial and business communities. We need to increase the knowledge into the business community about these programs,” he said.

Economists agree that in this day and age, the workforce needs more education than ever before.

“There is no guarantee you’ll keep that job for your entire career with the pace of technological change,” said Patrick McHugh, an economic analyst with the N.C. Justice Center. “We’re going to have to build a workforce training system that actually assumes that just about everyone is going to have a few updates on what they do on a daily basis and the tools they use to do it.”

“We need to accept the reality of change and technological innovation and be training our students, and even current workers, to think creatively and be competitive for the non-routine jobs,” added Adam Jones, an economist with University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Cameron School of Business.

Talbert says there are training funds from the state, through its Customized Training Program, to support training, especially for a company that is expanding the workforce or adding new technology.

“With GE [Hitachi] nuclear we have a customized training program, with Corning, with Alcami, with ACME Smoked Fish, as well,” Talbert said. “It could be for new technical skills; it could be things like leadership or teamwork.”

Harris believes for the economy to keep pace, these programs are no longer optional.

“In this region, if we are going to prioritize building a skilled workforce, all of the schools, businesses and local governments work together toward that shared goal and are rewarded with a thriving economy, business profits, low unemployment and a larger tax-paying society,” she said. “This is why we need workforce development. I can’t imagine a thriving community without it. People create the economy; skilled people create a strong economy.”