It’s Time to Hit the Reset Button on Training and Talent Development
Key Highlights
- Training hours per employee have decreased from nearly 30 hours in 2022 to below 16 hours, indicating a significant decline in workforce development efforts.
- Industry leaders are adopting innovative training programs and government initiatives to combat skilled labor shortages and attract new talent.
- A focus on long-term, strategic workforce development is essential for organizations aiming to stay competitive in evolving markets.
Are you failing your teams when it comes to training and career development?
It’s a provocative question, yes. But it’s rooted in the following pair of statistics from the Association for Talent Development’s state-of-the-industry reports from the last six years:
- From 2020 through 2023, the group’s research showed that the average organization consistently spent about $1,250 per employee on workplace learning. Over the past two years, that outlay fell to $1,054 and then again to $846.
- The story is similar for the number of learning hours the average employee clocked each year. From 2020 through 2022, that figure averaged nearly 30 hours. Since then, that figure has slid below 16 hours annually.
Those are troubling trends for a workforce, considering that many industries are both losing many of their most experienced people while also struggling to recruit new talent. Leaders from the business, government and nonprofit spheres are proposing new initiatives, ideas and funding to tackle problems old and emerging, and there are as many approaches as job openings that are going unfilled, which is part of the problem because that can dilute the impact of individual efforts.
In this story, we’re taking a two-pronged approach to advancing the conversation around training. First, we highlight the skilled-labor approach of Duke Austin, president and CEO of Quanta Services Inc., a $35 billion-a-year specialized contracting services company that designs, engineers, builds and repairs equipment and infrastructure for the energy sector, as well as data centers, other communications gear, industrial buildings and related facilities.
Quanta’s business revolves around its workforce even more than at most businesses, and the company has consistently invested heavily to build an advantage on that front. Austin delivered the comments below at the Bernstein 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in late May, and we’re running them here because they struck us as a good example of taking a strategic and enduring approach to talent development.
After Austin’s commentary, we’ve leaned on our colleagues around EndeavorB2B, the parent company of ExecutiveEDGE. Workforce and training issues are consistently on the minds of our editors because they are evergreen issues for so many of our readers, and we’ve rounded up some of the best recent coverage of news, insights and trends on the topic. As you start to frame your 2027 plans, we hope the info we’ve assembled here can sharpen your focus on talent development in your organization.
‘Craft Builds Craft, Journeyman Builds Journeyman’
At the Bernstein conference, analyst Chad Dillard asked Austin about the $1.55 billion acquisition last year of Dynamic Systems, a mechanical, electric and plumbing services company that has pushed Quanta beyond its utility and energy roots, and how that positions Austin and his team in that part of the craft labor market. Here, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, is Austin’s response.
“The client is asking us to do more. And so we’re listening — and we need platform companies to do that. We felt like we needed to be in the mechanical business. It’s craft. It’s something that we relate to nicely.
We were able to really lean into that and put some capital in, and we’re growing out the fabrication facilities today. We’re going to double the size of our fabrication, and so that’s been something that we’re able to really meet the customer demand on that.
And it’s not just chips. From Tesla to Samsung, I just think we’ve really been able to move that way past just the data center piece of it. In the middle of that is just growing that craft. What they want is our ability to give curriculum training, the things that we’ve invested in since 2009. Management, that’s my background […] We’ve really put the time into craft.
We see a lot of people that will say, 'We’ll give you $100 million.” […] Money doesn’t buy craft.
- Duke Austin, president and CEO of Quanta Services
Now, if we get someone into our facilities that can’t climb [poles] because they’re scared of heights… A hundred feet is pretty tall […] It will get a little shaky on you; a lot of people don’t want that. They get back down; about 30% fall out on the first pole. So now, instead of going home, they go to the inside electric, or they go to pipe, or welder or plumber. We’re able to really move people around and get a lot more people through our trade organizations.
We see a lot of people that will say, 'We’ll give you $100 million.' […] Money doesn’t buy craft. Craft builds craft, journeyman builds journeyman. You can’t think you’re going to put $100 million into anything today and get craft tomorrow. That ain’t going to happen. It takes years to train, and we’re very proud of the journeymen that we have and the training we’ve done.
We’ve been investing $200 million a year […] since 2009 in training, and we’re proud of that. So I would just say [that] not only are we making the acquisitions against it. We’re training the people that allow us to get what I would consider the synergies in the outward growth of the company.”
Much More on Talent Development From Around Endeavor
From Processing: New twists on training address the workforce gap
From Pro Remodeler: Gen Z turns to trades careers
From IndustryWeek: How Land O’Lakes raised the stakes on talent
From Ratchet+Wrench: How to train the employees who think they don’t need training
From Contractor: Work-based learning just could be the solution to skilled labor shortages
From Ratchet+Wrench: The U.S. is launching a Workforce Pell grant program — and it could help fund automotive training
From Contractor: Meta invests $115 million in skilled trades pipeline with job-guaranteed workforce academy
From Electrical Wholesaling: Google to invest $50 million in tradespeople training and outreach
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Contributor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde joined EndeavorB2B in September 2021 to cover public companies, markets, and economic trends primarily for IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World, and Healthcare Innovation. His work focuses on strategy, leadership, capital spending, and mergers and acquisitions, and he also works with Endeavor Business Intelligence on surveys and data projects.
Geert has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance, and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic by an average of more than 15% annually before joining Endeavor.
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