Barbara Humpton on empowering and retaining workers by making upskilling available

Innovators share ideas with WorkingNation Overheard at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021
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Workforce development is at the core of Siemens USA‘s identity, according to Barbara Humpton, the company’s president and CEO. “Companies are more than dollars, buildings, and inventions. Companies are made up of people. I believe that companies need to actually invest in people and actually cultivate a workforce much in the same way they think about cultivating customer relationships. It’s on us to find talent and help people develop their careers.”

WorkingNation sat down with Humpton at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 in Beverly Hills as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard interview series. With Charting a New Course as the guiding theme, thought leaders and innovators shared ideas about the changing economy, worker development, education, tech, philanthropy, and more.

Siemens focuses on digitization, electrification, and automation for the process and manufacturing industries. Humpton says “what we’re seeing right now in manufacturing is the convergence of the real and the virtual worlds. We’re seeing more and more digital tools come into play.”

Empowering workers by making learning available leads to retention and a growth mindset, according to Humpton. “Yes, we still have hands-on classic manufacturing jobs, but more and more we’re even seeing multi-decade, grizzled veterans of manufacturing get excited about the digital tools being introduced into their workplace.”

“At any given time, we have some 2,000 job openings across the country. About a third of them actually are for skilled trades and others are for digital natives who can truly work from anywhere. The nature of the jobs themselves is changing over time. But what we’re hoping is to be able to first retain the skilled employees who are currently with us, but then reach out into a more diverse talent pool to attract them to our work.”

To achieve greater diversity, equity, and inclusion, Humpton notes it’s important to expand the roster of talent pools. “We’re beginning to recruit in places we never have before. We’ve always had deep relationships with historically Black colleges and universities, and we’ve been part of the Congressional Black Caucus, bringing interns into our environment.”

“More than that, the trick is understanding where there are pockets of people who have never been exposed to the great work we do, giving them a chance to be familiar with the kind of work, and find out if this is, in fact, their purpose as well.”

Increasing the numbers of women in manufacturing is also a strong goal, according to Humpton. “In order to attract more women into the industrial sector, we’ve been focusing truly all the way from K-12 through mid-career changes. What’s really exciting to me right now is the idea that people mid-career could choose to enter roles in manufacturing. I honestly think that by improving our overall parental leave programs, giving more benefits that help people with their responsibilities at home—men and women—we’re finding more and more people can make the switch into manufacturing.”

Click here to learn more about Siemens USA.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.