by Gary Mintchell | Oct 23, 2025 | Productivity, Workforce
Articles about a worker shortage due to Boomer retirements have been a staple of trade magazine editorial ever since I became an editor in 1998. Some twenty-seven years later, those articles and news releases keep coming.
The concomitant problem is how to bring new people in. Apprenticeship programs went out the window with World War II. Businesses and manufacturers began expecting the education system to supply appropriately skilled workers. This was not going to happen despite education systems becoming increasingly industrialized. They taught basic math. Taught kids how to sit still and follow directions. Taught them to show up every day at the required location.
We need more.
It’s taken me some thought to place this new product from Derek Crager, Founder & CEO of Practical AI.
There is irony here, in that Crager touts himself as developer of an award-winning training program at Amazon—yes, the place that thinks it can replace its workers with robots. But, we will go beyond that thought for now.
I’ve not read the book, but he has also released a new book, Human First AI.
Crager says the real cost is downtime, rework, and attrition. He continues, It isn’t just a staffing problem—it’s an OEE problem. Every knowledge gap shows up in the metrics leaders actually manage: MTTR, FPY, scrap, rework, and yes, attrition. Ask any maintenance manager: the fastest way to lose a promising hire is to strand them without support on a tough job at 2 a.m. We send people to training, hand them SOPs, and hope they remember when it counts. But memory fails—especially under pressure.
His solution? Just-in-time guidance—the right step at the exact moment of need, while hands are on the task. When a technician can ask and do in the same breath, training becomes throughput. That’s the difference between teaching a concept and multiplying your best expert across every line and shift.
He called on his experience at Amazon to develop something called Pocket Mentor: A Phone Call to Your Best Expert. This is a hands-free, eyes-free mentor your team reaches by phone, anytime, on the floor or in the field. No app. No Wi-Fi. No passwords. Just tap & say, “Talk me through it” — and we will.
Here’s how it works:
- Capture once. We sit with your best people and harvest SOPs, changeovers, fault trees, “what-if” branches, and tribal tricks—the real decision trees pros use when the line’s on fire.
- Validate and govern. Content is approved by your SMEs and version-controlled with human-in-the-loop QA. Your source knowledge stays in a secure, governed box; people approve changes before they go live.
- Guide in the flow of work. A tech calls in, we ask two clarifying questions (model, symptom), then deliver step-by-step voice guidance they can follow while working—hands-free — eyes-free.
- Optional enterprise integrations. We can use your digital-twin/IoT signals today (enterprise integration) to pre-fill context—e.g., “Given Code 47 and 200 service hours, here’s the fastest fix; want me to talk you through it?”
He cites this pattern of stats.
- Up to 80% faster onboarding—because new hires can “tap & say” from day one instead of waiting for a veteran.
- ~30% reduction in downtime/rework—because the right step shows up at the right time, not after the post-mortem.
- ~53% lower early attrition—because nobody wants to feel alone on the line; support drives retention.
- 30× impact vs. traditional training—because we replace recall with real-time execution.
- 0 extra staffing to scale coaching—your best employee effectively becomes 20 or 50 virtual coaches, every shift.
Most project managers agree that you should start with a specific pilot, prove the system, then scale it out. Crager offers a few suggestions.
- Pick a chronic stopper. The two or three faults that always cause headaches (and overtime).
- Harvest the fix. Sit down with your A-team and capture the real-world fix path—model variants, hard-won “gotchas,” and the restart checklist nobody remembers at 3 a.m.
- Go live by phone. Give your night shift a number to call. Let them say, “Talk me through it.”
- Measure MTTR for 30 days. Compare to your baseline. Then expand to changeovers, start-of-shift checks, and training-intensive stations.
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by Gary Mintchell | Sep 29, 2025 | Productivity, Workforce
Note: I had an allergy attack following my California trip that wiped me out for a few days last week. Now trying to catch up with a number of thoughts.
’Tis the season of surveys and reports.
Actually, that season has become about as year-around as Christmas and Halloween. Once the province of pharmaceuticals, companies commission surveys and report on the ones that support their place in the market.
Not to be entirely cynical—technology supporting the front-line worker has been burgeoning over the past few years. Perhaps this was accelerated by Covid pandemic increasing remote workers? I don’t know.
The other interesting tidbit concerns Zebra Technologies, sponsor of this survey (companies call it research, but given my grad school courses, I balk at that description), has grown through some acquisitions from the company I knew (and sold a couple products) in the 90s.
Oh, and they had to throw AI into the mix. It’s up to you to figure out what they mean by that.
Zebra Technologies Corp. announced new research in collaboration with Oxford Economics. The study showcases how improving frontline workflows with modern technologies like AI, automation, and data improves profitability and enhances the customer experience.
Retailers reported a 21% improvement in customer satisfaction, manufacturers cited a 19% increase in employee productivity, and T&L leaders reported a 21% increase in productivity with better workflows. In addition, the study indicates AI investments help organizations achieve real-time visibility, generate actionable insights and improve efficiency.
Companies surveyed said they were using (unspecified) AI to address loss prevention, risk detection, inventory optimization, inventory management, demand forecasting, and predictive analytics—all typical machine learning technologies that have been around for a while.
They also noted using tools that have been around for years, although greatly improved since I sold and installed them in the 90s—RFID and machine vision.
The news release touts Zebra’s new brand narrative, “Better Every Day” affirming the company’s commitment to empower organizations with automation and AI to create new ways of working that make everyday life better.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 10, 2025 | Leadership, Workforce
Wrong question:
“How do I get the most out of my people?”
Better question:
“How do we create the conditions for our people to get to where they’re heading?”
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 5, 2025 | Personal Development, Productivity, Workforce
I have had some good bosses and a bunch of bad ones. I tried to be a good boss, but I bet there are some people who worked “for” me that would dispute that. As a soccer referee assigner, I try hard to be fair while also putting officials on the games where they would be most likely to succeed.
From Seth Godin, who talked about being the type of person that a good boss will appreciate. Hopefully you have one of those. If not, I wish you luck in leaving and finding a good one.
He compiled a list of attributes. I would suggest not looking at this like a check list. It’s more of a description of a type of person.
Are you now, or can you develop into, this type of person? I try…
- Ask useful questions
- Show up before you’re expected
- Make big promises and keep them
- Identify errors and flaws and self-correct
- Default to optimism
- Do work worth doing
- Build a useful network worth outsourcing work to
- Show your work
- Develop good taste
- Generously invite feedback
- Make productive decisions
- Communicate with precision
- It’s easy to claim these skills, but not easy to commit to being quite good at them.
Seth concludes, “Most bosses don’t deserve this level of effort. I hope you can find one that does.”
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 18, 2025 | Personal Development, Workforce
I saw an article about jobs in The New York Times (it was long enough ago that I’ve lost the link).
It started with the premise College graduates, on the other hand, often do not have the right skills to be successful on a factory floor.
I find that a completely bogus argument. Someone who truly educated themselves at university should have learned essential skills for living such as how to research, how to think, how to write coherent thoughts, how to communicate. They should have some math and science, as well as some literature and philosophy.
Speaking as someone with that above education who also worked on the factory floor in one function or another for about 20 years, the failure lies elsewhere. Probably in expectations.
Try this statement presented as one of an n=2 examples (journalism):
The country is flooded with college graduates who can’t find jobs that match their education, Mr. Hetrick said, and there are not enough skilled blue-collar workers to fill the positions that currently exist, let alone the jobs that will be created if more factories are built in the United States.
Society has spent about 50 years telling young people to a specific training at university and then get a nice, cushy white collar job leading to CEO within 15-20 years, if not sooner. Unfortunately, the markets and economy did not cooperate with these predictions.
This initiative, however, does directly address a flaw in our system.
The Business Roundtable, a lobbying group whose members are chief executives of companies, has started an initiative in which executives collaborate on strategies to attract and train a new generation of workers in skilled trades. At an event last week in Washington, executives commiserated about how hard it was to find qualified people and swapped tips onstage for overcoming the gap.
My grandfather taught me a lot about manufacturing before I was even 10 years old. He talked about being forced to drop out of high school (about 1915) and apprenticing as a machinist at the old Monarch Machine Tool Company. He had a number of jobs with increasing responsibility and opportunity. During World War II he was a production superintendent in a GM plant that was converted to the manufacture of aircraft machine gun bolts. He employed a number of strategies that I later learned were similar to Lean Manufacturing. GM sent him to take college courses while he worked for them. (OK, you win, this is n=1; adding me, the journalist n=2.)
Their ideas included combing through existing company job descriptions to prioritize relevant experience over college degrees and recruiting high school students as young as sophomores for experiences that could draw their interest in manufacturing careers.
“For every 20 job postings that we have, there is one qualified applicant right now,” said David Gitlin, the chairman and chief executive of Carrier Global, which produces air-conditioners and furnaces and services heating and cooling equipment.
By the 1960s companies had farmed out their apprenticeship programs demanding public schools to provide compliant workers. The public school skills training programs thrived to a degree, but also faltered under parental wishes for their children to become rich, college-educated people.
I believe university education (short of PhD track) even in technical training such as engineering really exists to help a willing individual learn to research, think, write clearly, and acquire a background deserving an educated person. Where they work? Well, that’s up to serendipity and drive.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 15, 2025 | News, Workforce
I posted a report on workplace thoughts and a survey. Some of the findings:
- More than half (57%) of professionals say they come to the office for company culture and team engagement, making it clear that strong social connections are what’s drawing employees back.
- 73% of professionals believe Gen Z will push companies to ditch rigid in-office policies in favor of more flexible work options.
- Organizations are not stuck in neutral: 66% of them are already making workplace flexibility a top priority for 2025.
Today’s Axios had a story called CEOs Strike Back.
The story has an n=2 examples. Typical journalism. But it raises a point about some CEO tyrants whom I hope employees raise a digit toward.
Zoom in: AT&T CEO John Stankey and Cognition CEO Scott Wu made headlines this month for notifying employees that their corporate cultures were changing, and to get on board or exit.
“If a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish,” Stankey wrote in an internal memo obtained by Business Insider.
Employees at Cognition, an AI startup, were told that six days in the office and 80-hour workweeks were expected, according to The Information. “We don’t believe in work-life balance — building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two,” Wu wrote.
There have been CEOs and other leaders like that in the past and there will be more in the future. If they think they are getting results, I hope they are investing their millions of pay dollars wisely for their upcoming unemployment.
For Wu, he’s way behind the times. Years ago Silicon Valley was famous for socially isolated and nerdy programmers who would code day and night if owners just kept a steady supply of pizza sliding under their doors. I think that is no longer the prevailing ethos.
We’ll see how that all goes.
