TALENT & WORKFORCE SERVICES CONSULTING
Turning Manufacturing People Challenges Into Competitive Advantages
RESULTS, NOT JUST REPORTS
Tooling U-SME Talent & Workforce Services delivers workforce results, not just reports—partnering with manufacturers and communities to align talent strategies with organizational goals through practical, high-impact solutions in attraction, onboarding, training, and upskilling.
Backed by deep industry expertise, our team helps clients overcome workforce challenges with unmatched knowledge of manufacturing job roles and production environments.
CONSULTING TEAM
- Drive Innovation and Growth: Collaborate with our experienced team to develop talent strategies that align with your business objectives, delivering sustainable and measurable ROI.
- Identify and Address Gaps: Uncover blind spots hindering performance and implement targeted solutions.
- Build an Engaging Culture: Assess your organization's readiness and develop comprehensive talent strategies tied to business goals.
- Leverage Best Practices: Benefit from our experience working with Fortune 500® manufacturing companies and educational institutions nationwide.
- Flexible Frameworks: Tailored to align learning to meet business or community needs, no matter the starting point.
Talent, Training & Retention
SME’s Workforce Readiness & Accelerant Program (WRAP) is an on-site solution that helps employers quickly assess and improve talent practices. By embedding workforce specialists, WRAP identifies gaps in attracting, training, and retaining employees and delivers tailored action plans. The program helps optimize recruiting, accelerate onboarding, enhance training, and reduce attrition through custom strategies.
WRAP benchmarks organizations against best-in-class standards and deploys expert resources to implement solutions. From designing on-the-job training to improving recruiting pipelines, WRAP has achieved measurable results across industries such as aerospace, defense, transportation, and electric vehicle manufacturing. Examples include:
- Reducing turnover and saving $3 million for an aerospace company
- Cutting qualification time from three months to one week for a truck trailer manufacturer
- Improving engineering team competencies by 14 percent for a defense contractor
- Upskilling 1,800 electric vehicle technicians with a 98 percent success rate
BLENDED TRAINING APPROACH
This approach includes strong onboarding, role-based learning, and critical skill development. Then, a structured approach to OJT quickly qualifies employees for assigned job duties. The proper mix of training methodologies will rapidly develop individuals so they can meet the performance expectations of their job.
RIGHT ROLES WITH THE RIGHT SKILLS
JOB DEFINITION
Identify the job roles in your organization, understand crossover between roles, and create career pathways.
STANDARDIZED OJT
Transfer organizational knowledge and skills from your most experienced team members and structure on-the-floor learning through a sustainable and measurable program.
ASSESSMENTS
Measure the knowledge and skills of individuals and better understand the capabilities of your workforce.
ANALYSIS & ADVISORY SUPPORT
Design and implement a learning and development program or build upon your existing program.
Readiness Assessment
The biggest challenge facing U.S. manufacturing today is the skilled workforce shortage which demands immediate and decisive action. Experts say that, if not addressed now, the crisis will dangerously accelerate in the next decade.
To help companies address this issue, SME is offering this free Workforce 2030 Readiness Assessment. By answering a series of questions about your company’s knowledge retention, readiness for future skills requirements, and the status of employee development programs, you will be able to assess your ability to meet the rapidly approaching workforce challenges.
Take the AssessmentOUR EXPERTS HELP YOU DELIVER TALENT LEARN HOW WE CAN HELP
Partner with our Talent & Workforce Services team to design a results-driven training program that turns workforce challenges into competitive advantages—accelerating performance, improving quality and productivity, and increasing employee satisfaction and retention.
TALENT & WORKFORCE SERVICES FAQs
Can the Talent & Workforce Services team build a training program around our specific machines and processes?
We specialize in manufacturing training and do this every day. Our team works to understand your equipment and processes to build 100% customized training and qualification programs for your workforce.
How does the Talent & Workforce Services team work with us to develop a program?
We offer manufacturing training consulting by partnering with our clients to understand your unique business needs and then tailor a program that will bring value back to your organization. We bring our expertise in organizational and instructional design and partner with your technical subject matter experts to develop an effective and efficient training solution.
We need help showing career development for our employees. Can the Talent & Workforce Services team help?
The number one reason an employee leaves an organization is because they do not see long-term growth opportunities. The Talent and Workforce Services team can help design a career pathway program and assist you in communication strategies and implementation.
We think we have a pretty good training program already but really aren’t sure. Can the Talent & Workforce Services team benchmark our program?
Of course we can. We can perform a Training Audit and Validation (TAV) Study to determine whether your organization’s existing manufacturing training and development program aligns to best practices in learning and development programs, in terms of culture, risk management, control, and governance processes. This benchmark will also ensure that the development program risks are appropriately identified and managed and confirm compliance with such requirements as policies, plan and procedures. The audit will focus on six Common Criteria and Quality Indicators for Learning and Development Programs.
These criteria, along with corresponding quality indicators, provide guidance and direction for establishing, maintaining, and evaluating quality training and development programs:
Standard 1: Policies and Procedures
Standard 2: Job Definition (Worker and Work)
Standard 3: Curriculum (Alignment and Articulation)
Standard 4: Quality of Instruction
Standard 5: Assessment and Validation
Standard 6: Training Infrastructure, Environment, and Acceptance
The Training Audit and Validation Report includes a fully scored comparison of how your organization matches up against best practices and provides a view of how you stand against other manufacturing organizations. This report will become a valuable resource in providing data and gaps as leadership determines strategic learning and development action plans.
Can the Talent & Workforce Services team help our organization register an apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship program?
Absolutely, as part of our manufacturing training consulting, we can help your organization define the Standards of Apprenticeship and align the Related Training Instruction requirements. We can also be the intermediary to work with your local high school and secondary schools to support the program.
We do not currently have a training function in our organization. Can the TWS team help us build a training team?
More and more organizations are realizing the need to establish a dedicated training organization that will develop and upskill talent for job roles of today and tomorrow. Our Talent & Workforce Services team can help design and support the building of a training capability within your organization. This can include the design of the organizational structure, the establishment of policies and procedures, and the leadership in change management activities.
Can the Talent & Workforce Services team help make our frontline workers better trainers?
Yes. The Talent & Workforce Services team can facilitate a Train-the-Trainer session to elevate your peer trainers and build a stronger culture of learning. This interactive workshop provides the best practice knowledge and skills needed to train adults and instructs participants in the development and delivery of structured on-the-job training materials, while creating a positive learning environment. This workshop is grounded in theory and applied through practice.
The Tooling U-SME Train-the-Trainer class is designed as an interactive and hands-on course that teaches the “why’s” behind strong learning and development practices and the “how’s” in the standardization and delivery of On-the-Job Training (OJT). Emphasis is placed on understanding different styles adults can learn and how active listening and questioning skills can lead to a positive and rewarding training experience. Tooling U-SME is flexible in teaching the units in smaller segments of time over additional days or compressing content topics to deliver the class within schedule restraints. The Tooling U-SME instructor will work with project champions to determine the delivery of the class that will best meet the site’s requirements.