Understanding Today’s Challenges in Managing a Maintenance Workforce to Achieve Productivity

Introduction

It is likely that as we progress into the twenty first century, there will be increasing opportunities for the engineering profession, and in particular maintenance engineers, to lead and influence the way organisations develop to survive.

A maintenance engineer focuses on moving an organisation towards pro-active rather than re-active maintenance management spanning the expected life of the asset, system or plant. Unless realistic budget and organisational resources supporting this preventive approach are also developed and maintained during an organisation’s lifecycle process, maintenance is likely to be ineffective and the possibility of failure substantially increased.

In the same way that maintenance engineers operate within cyclical timeframes, the ‘people’ issues, which impact on the engineering professions ability to deliver its outputs, are also systematic in nature.

Continued globalisation will generate greater export opportunities for Australian industry over the next ten years but also increase pressure for them to become more internally competitive. The challenge for companies will be to manage this competitive environment from companies in other countries and domestically. The internal organisational strategies that companies develop to address these opportunities and challenges, will incorporate many elements including the use of improved technology, innovative marketing, a greater responsiveness, analysis and management of staffing resources and organisation changes.

Employment prospects for particular occupations, including engineering, over the next ten years will depend on two main factors:

Distribution of employment by industry sector.
- Professional groups such as engineers employed in export or import competing industries will experience strong employment growth. Their services and skills will be required by these industries as they introduce new technologies, product or service value to better meet consumer needs.
- The challenge for engineering will be to strengthen the ‘softer’ skills such as communication and people management to capitalise on the leadership opportunities this market growth will generate.
Skill levels within occupations
- Generally more highly skilled occupations such as engineering will experience a strong growth in new jobs with less skilled occupations seeing relatively lower growth rates.

For every young person entering the employment market today there are already seven older workers. Whilst 170,000 workers enter the Australian work force each year, only 125,000 will join in the entire decade form 2020. As Australian population ages we will need policies that maximise the capacity of older people to participate and contribute to Australia's economy – particularly through more flexible employment arrangements. Engineers will be integral to solving problems created by an ageing Australia through its contribution to essential infrastructure products and services in the communication, energy, transport, health and defence fields.

Staffing Demographics and Issues in Today’s Engineering Workforce

The Australian labour force growth rate is projected to slow to an average of 1.6 per cent per annum over the next ten years. This compares with 2.0 per cent annual growth over the period since 1985 and is due to:

Projected reductions in the rate of natural increase and level of immigration.
Changes in the age structure and composition of the population resulting in reduced numbers of people of working age.
Subsequently the composition of the workforce will change with longer-term trends towards increased part-time work, a middle ageing of the workforce and an increased proportion of females entering the workforce.

Other environmental factors impacting on labour force and organisational productivity in engineering include:

Australia’s workforce like other industrialised nations is ageing. Due to demographic pressures, the engineering workforce is getting older and the ability of engineering expertise to drive innovation is potentially eroded. The average age of a manufacturing engineering is 43 years which is the oldest average age in the Australian engineering profession;
The Australian workforce will experience huge decreases in labour as retirement-aged ‘boomers’ leave the workforce – particularly in the public sector to maximise advantages offered through their superannuation scheme. Engineers Australia membership demographics suggest up to 40% of its current 75,000 members will retire within a decade;
Engineering skills shortages arising from little or no increase in the size of Australia’s technical workforce and in most engineering sectors between 1985-2000 – mainly due to the impacts of ongoing government downsizing, privatisation and the outsourcing of local council functions to private service providers through a range of avenues including public private partnerships;
More recently, engineering graduates have been leaving traditional disciplines to pursue careers in other areas which is exacerbating the impact of medium to long term skill shortages in certain engineering sectors such as gas, electricity and infrastructure;
The employment destination taken up by engineers and other highly qualified workers are projected to widen over the next decade as a result of total numbers of education workers outstripping traditional engineering occupations and disciplines. This contributes to the engineer’s skills shortages, which have been predicted over the next decade.
Successfully managing the shift to part time or self employment which is impacting on labour productivity directly and international competitiveness
Successfully managing workplace diversity. Historically engineering has been a male-dominant occupation, however, given ongoing shortages and the increase of women working (particularly in engineering), engineering firms will need to develop female-friendly work policies to successfully attract and retain employees. Similarly generation ‘X’ and ‘Y” engineers have different value propositions than their older counterparts. Organisations will need to factor these cultural and value differences into their recruitment and retention strategies. Harnessing that diversity will increase companies competitiveness domestically and in the global market;
The effects of engineering skill shortages in rural and regional communities is exacerbated by local council downsizing, limited resource pools and reduced training resources and opportunities to attract new engineering talent;
A continuation of the reduction in the flow of trained staff from external sources (notably private sector companies) without an increase in focused training threatens the future supply of engineering skilled labour. Issues and barriers (particularly in regional areas) are likely to include:
- Difficulties in recruiting trainees due to demographic pressures, a lack of understanding of career opportunities, and a lack of key skills within the recruitment pool;
- Cost pressures, reducing the capacity of firms to support trainees;
- Access to training for remote and regional customers; and
- Support for Small to Medium Enterprises to negotiate training arrangements.

The ‘people’ issues generated by these changes will have ongoing impacts and implications for the engineering profession including those of us in maintenance engineering.

How the quality of workers varies across industries

Another critical factor impacting on the engineering workforce of today is the variable quality of workers – not only within an organisation but also across different industry or engineering sectors. Given the number of Australian workers holding qualifications is projected to peak in 2005 , it is critical that organisations capitalise on this development by developing staffing strategies to maximise productivity and organisation effectiveness.

Despite the fact that higher numbers of qualified engineers will be participating in the workforce and gaining higher education and training qualifications, the quality of qualified engineers is likely to be an issue which organisations need to monitor and manage.
This is due to a number of developments which have occurred over the last few decades including the decision by government in 1980 to discontinue technical certification and recognition of engineering diplomas and the emergence and use of employers in recognising individual competency-based ‘prior learning’ (RPL) in training do not necessarily equate to the technical standards encompassed in the Diploma. Additionally the popularity of double degrees such as engineering-law is also tending to dilute the technical proficiency of engineering graduates entering the workforce.
Between 20% and 25% of Australian engineers move into management roles; out of their specific practice discipline or field. Employers regard engineering as a good ‘general’ degree but this creates an expertise drain – a trend that is expected to increase over the next decade.
The discontinuation of many tertiary engineering courses (particularly in regional or rural areas) and the shortages of apprentices in trades supporting engineering have also broadened the skills gap – particularly in the manufacturing sector.
These structural changes reinforce how critical staff retention is to a company’s survival in the market place. The high cost of recruiting new staff plus the importance of knowledge transfer and experience between various generations highlights the importance of having robust mentoring programs and succession planning.

The impact of an ageing population and shrinking active workforce reinforces the need for organisation to develop and implement flexible structures including lifelong learning programs and/or new roles for older engineers who are already qualified so they can maintain the relevant skill set and knowledge. Not only will this maximise individual work contributions, older workers will be able to work longer if companies plan and develop policies and roles aimed at meeting their employee needs.

Analysing a Maintenance Organisation

Maintenance organisations share many characteristics of other organisations in other industry sectors as we move into the next decade. Most notably these include:

Flatter hierarchies which have replaced the traditional ‘command and control’ environment and reporting relationships seen in many engineering sectors;
‘Outcome’ focused matrix management structures characterised by multiple reporting accountabilities, projects and resource allocations;
An emphasis on, and desire by, younger engineers for more flexible working arrangements such as the ability to work from home, a commitment to work-life balance. Supporting this cultural changes are technological developments which enable an individual to work globally or away from the workplace i.e. on site or overseas
The need to generate ‘total engineering solutions’ which not only encompass specific maintenance engineering skills and resources but also a range of engineering disciplines and/or accessing other professions such as lawyers, accountants, auditors or architects.
Operating in the global world, engineers and engineering firms will need to maximise workforce diversity to generate innovative products and decisions, identify and meet global competitors and recruit and retain staff with the skills needed to operate in this multi-dimensional environment.

One-way of reducing the complexity of a maintenance organisation redesign is to:

Provide a unique way of mapping the maintenance/production organisation that enhances the identification of problem areas,
Outline organisational guidelines and international trends and benchmarks to provide solutions to the identified problem.

Defining specific people challenges that occur in different Maintenance Structures

Re-engineering a maintenance organisation is a complex exercise involving many inter-related decisions with each such decision being influenced by multiple, and often conflicting factors. Major issues for consideration when analysing a maintenance organisation include:

Enhancing staff and organisational understanding of what constitutes pro-active maintenance as opposed to reactive maintenance cycles and the different skills sets and processes need to effect this change.
- Proactive maintenance emphases planning and strong monitoring and reporting processes, which enable a company to response more quickly to market changes.
The organisational skills needed to meet this change are more than technical skills – a managers ability to successfully respond is closely linked to his ability to identify environmental change, plan and allocate resources to meet changes, communicate to, and motivate staff to change behaviours or practices accordingly
Centralisation verses decentralisation of resources - particularly in the global economy. Challenges will involve greater competition from other countries and in the domestic market. Engineers will need to be able to mix and match project resources internally and in partnership with outside agencies and professions to provide customers with total solutions. This challenge is exacerbated with the need to be able to work in and with other cultures and manage quality assurance issues impacting on maintenance engineering.
Integrating production and maintenance cycles, products and processes as part of managing these flatter organisations structures
Deciding how to extend flatter, more flexible working structures to enhance staff empowerment and initiative as opposed to a ‘command and control’ environment and management structures. Productivity in the new maintenance organisation is a multi-faceted output which draws more on getting the most out of your people as opposed to just ‘managing down the line’
Motivating and understanding ‘Generation X, Y and Z’ culturally and organisationally including issues such as training, retention and recruitment
The use of contract labour and contractors including measuring their performance – particularly in an output management framework centred around measurement and delivery of specific outcomes and KPIs

Each of these decisions is further influenced by a number of factors that are often contradicting each other in terms of what they are trying to achieve within the organisation. For example balancing the respective needs of production policy against human resources management and/or the political requirements of industrial relations or trade unions may not necessarily be a simple process.

The major challenge for engineers in this environment relates to their ability to develop and apply the softer ‘people’ skills not traditionally acknowledged as strengths of the engineers.

Determining the Critical Skill Set necessary to a Maintenance Engineer and the need to broaden them

The key lever of productivity in the future – particularly for the proactive maintenance organisation, is the effective management of technology, organisation competence and intellectual capital. The attributes and skill sets for this era will come from a new group of engineers and leaders with very different attitudes and aptitudes to the past.

Greater workforce diversification and increased technological literacy are critical to achieving global leadership in engineering.
In order to meet the challenges of globalisation, engineers need to be mobile – physically but also be able to work in and with other cultures. Mental tolerance and flexibility are essential to being able to identify issues on the ground in other cultures and merge these engineering practices and technical issues. These skills enhance the strong problem solving, planning and project management skills engineers already have.

It is essential therefore for engineers to be good communicators – not only in negotiations but also to have the ability to present information in a variety of formats or to redefine technical, organisational and cultural issues within different contexts, frameworks or images as challenges arise.

Conclusion

Global competitiveness will continue at a time when our workforce demographics are under their greatest pressure; pressure from a retiring/ageing population and slowing participation rates.

Our focus must remain on quality; quality of training, quality of development and quality of experiences for the maintenance practitioner.

Maintenance engineering is outcome focused and will increasingly be treated as part of a total business solution. The maintenance outcome is availability; availability is sustainability.

The major challenge for engineers relates to their ability to develop and apply the softer ‘people’ skills not traditionally acknowledged as strengths of the engineers.

Maintenance engineering concerns itself with doing today what was planned yesterday and planning today for tomorrow.