Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
75
My Opinion
MMM
age KIA income is $50,000 per year. We can teach technical-side skills, Jackson said. But an DINK important NeSMITH mindset is to Chairman get up and go to work. You learn that before you are 10 years old. KIA is eager to detect a persons soft skillsattributes beyond classroom learning. The first things on KIAs check- list are: Does the person show up early for the interview? And when theres a scheduled break, does the person linger or promptly report back? The KIA plant is an assembly line, but it wouldnt be anything automotive pioneer Henry Ford would recognize. Jackson describes the way humans and robots interact to be like a ballet. Every station function is timed at 57 seconds, so that every 57 seconds a vehicle rolls off the line. And every two hours, teams switch stations, requiring multiple skill sets. The lines rarely stop, producing 360,000 vehicles every 365 days. Before you are hired by KIA, you have to make an investment of time and energy. You volunteer to be tested and demonstrate your abilities in the Quick Start
facility. With the clock ticking, you approach a station, read the instructions, perform the task and keep moving through the 27 KIA functions. Your performance is videoed and evaluated. You may ace that segment of the tryout, but Randy Jackson is just as interested in your soft skills. Teamwork is vital at KIA. Compatibility is crucial. He wants to know whether a person has person-to-person communication skills. Does the individual look you in the eye when speaking? Does the applicant have leadership potential? Leaders, at all levels, are in demand. KMMG is growth-minded. It uses only 600 acres of its 2,200 acres, but Jackson is thinking 10 years down the road. Those future workers are now in the sixth grade, he said. He believes the educational process is a four-legged stool, supported by the system, the teachers, the students and the parents. And he hopes the students, along with traditional academics, are gaining much-needed soft skills. KIA is not alone in its desire to employ people with soft skills. Applicants can look highly qualified on paper or in an e-mail. But when put in a work environment, requiring interaction with others, some people are lost, maybe unemployable. On the way home from West Point, the irony hit me. Oldfashioned values, ingenuity and a strong work ethic built America. But it takes a company from Korea to remind us of that.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com