Discussion

By Patrick Henry on Mar 07, 2007

Just this morning I was speaking with the owner of a small printing business on Long Island who told me something that owners of printing businesses of all sizes have been saying for years: that the single biggest problem they're facing is finding qualified help. My source, an RIT graduate who has managed his family's printing business since 1980, bemoaned the disappearance of the schools and training programs that used to teach people to operate the kinds of small-format equipment on which businesses like his depend. He said that although most of the applicants he sees have plenty of experience on 40", multicolor equipment, that kind of background isn't necessarily helpful in an environment where older, one- and two-unit presses are doing the bulk of the work. "I have to tell them, 'Look, there's no digital control console on this thing. You have to know how to be a printer.'" It's all well and good to talk about learning to manage information chaos. And Dewitz at Printmode certainly is free to argue that teaching equipment skills isn't the proper role for graphic communications programs at universities when these skills can be "picked up" elsewhere. But while we engage in abstract debates about chaos, fragmentation, and so on, printers everywhere--and not just small ones--are wondering where the equipment-savvy, operational talent is supposed to be coming from if not from the schools, association training programs, etc. that they thought were there to help them in this regard. This is the skills gap that Kroll is talking about in his open letter. His point--that the industry has failed to come up with a unified strategy for recruiting and training the non-executive people it needs to get its printing done--is the one that some readers of his letter seem to be missing. The production skills gap is real, and it's as distressing to printers as it ever was. The industry's education-promoting organizations owe printers a more coherent answer than they've been offering them.

By Dr Joe Webb on Mar 08, 2007

i don't think anyone is doubting that it is hard to find equipment operators for particular models of equipment. But this is how markets change. If there were reasons for these positions to exist and a shortage of these operators, the wages of these positions would rise to a point that would attract qualified persons to do it. After all, Long Island is a thriving, populated area with higher than average incomes, etc, so it is not a shortage of people. It is a shortage of people who want to perform that function, so much so that they are willing to be trained outside of the job to gather some experience to be attractive in those jobs. I have attempted to explain this phenomenon to many vendors over the years when they wonder why certain equipment or other technologies do not sell. I explain that as a small business owner, the printer may really want that piece of equipment but the first thing that they think of is who is going to run it and at what cost, and that it is essential for vendors and technologists to provide that bridge if they want to succeed in the marketplace. Obviously these people are employed elsewhere, and there are printers who do provide on-the-job training, and the greatest majority who cannot. I do not believe that there is a coherent answer of the kind that is being sought. It is hard to accept that, I know, but this is a competitive marketplace, and it is individual companies that must determine the answer. This is especially true of older equipment, and a lesson to printers that even though these kinds of equipment may be fully depreciated they have other costs, such as the risk of not finding operating personnel, that may be far greater than they realize at the time. In order to attract a modern workforce, modern equipment would help. It's almost sounds like a hot lead typographer complaining that no one wants to learn "real" typesetting anymore... a discussion I had with one of the last hot lead shops in NYC in 1991. These problems are not atypical of any industry undergoing a transition, and are primary reasons why companies, especially smaller ones, consolidate. Remember that this works in the opposite direction... when color scanners were all the rage, tradespeople wanted to learn the equipment, and in many cases wanted to own them, because of the expected rewards of doing so. In that process of digitization, there were many who kept pushing the higher quality of camera separations and the immense skills of retouchers, dot etchers, and others. Much of the training was supplied by manufacturers at the time, and printers complained about headhunting of their best personnel. Now the opposite is happening. For many of the older equipment, those manufacturers no longer exist. I especially find the entire issue quite interesting because since January 2000 we have "lost" 128,000 production workers and more than 5,000 printing businesses. Surely those would have been workers who could have demanded industry retraining and outplacement. Instead, we now have the largest employed workforce in history, with better than average unemployment. The real story is that those 128,000 have jobs elsewhere. The way to attract workers is with a growing, dynamic, and successful industry, with rising wages, and good prospects for advancement. There are some companies in our industry that fit that bill, and do quite well finding and retaining workers. Worker shortages is a symptom of something else, not the root cause.

By Print Goddess 1 on Sep 05, 2007

As someone who worked in the print prduction/planning/customer service side of the house, I went back to buying print when I was told that I could make no more money unless I went into printing sales.

Sales is not my forte. I had no interest in sales. What I do have is knowledge of design and color, stripping, software, production and planning. Most importantly, I know how customers think and what they need. I know this because I was a customer before I went inside. I understand the questions to ask because I know their industries-real estate and other investments, technology, medical, retail and others. This knowledge and other information I gathered about customers (birthdays, hobbies, pets, etc.) were deemed not relevant to my job. My job was to fill out paperwork, order stock, submit jobs to estimating, send out proofs, and convey shipping instructions. I enjoyed my work, was very entrepreneurial and created partnerships with my customers.

I have found this happening time and again, the more senior experienced, talented CSRs move on to buying positions because they can no longer earn the salaries that they are worth in the printing plant. Yet I wonder how many of the mistakes (and the dollar value of those mistakes) that a begining, lower-salaried CSR makes would never have happened. Of course, mistakes are writte off, salaries ad benefits are dollars that have to be laid out in cash.

Dr. Joe is right. There are many lucrative jobs for print people outside the plant. People move on from all positions in the printing plant when they realize that their talents, which are not valued by the owners, are assets in the world outside the plant. Its a shame that the industry is content to watch those people walk out the door after a layoff or out of frustration.