Putting Talent at the Centre An Evolving Imperative for Manufacturing 2025

Understanding the evolving talent imperative The world must adapt to the evolving industrial imperative centred on people. Based on insights gathered from leading manufacturers and supply chains over the past year, one key takeaway stands out: no matter how advanced digital technologies become, people remain at the heart of all transformation. A new age of intelligent operations has emerged – and while it requires new skills, it also creates new opportunities for frontline workers. Meeting these evolving challenges and opportunities for the frontline calls for a new playbook. The understanding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been informed by the Global Lighthouse Network, a World Economic Forum Initiative, co-founded in 2018 with McKinsey and Company, and counselled by an advisory board of industry leaders, it began with a focus on individual manufacturing sites that comprised the vanguard for operational excellence and has since expanded to recognize leaders in performance and sustainability impact across the production value chain. Now comprising 189 lighthouses, the Global Lighthouse Network has provided increasing evidence that for all the advances technology has made, the human frontline remains essential. A changing frontline reality calls for a revised playbook Frontline work has changed remarkably. In many ways, today’s frontline workers are technology operators and creative problem solvers. Robotics connected to the internet of things (IoT) now operate where line workers once laboured in repetitive, dull and sometimes dangerous tasks. These advancements have changed frontline labour, but the new skills they demand have made the talent puzzle even more complex and companies continue to face people-related challenges – specifically, maintaining frontline talent productivity growth and stability: –A company’s frontline productivity growth is the change in the output generated by the system per unit of input (e.g. units per hour), but it’s also more than this. It is the improvement in quality, service, yield, non- labour costs, etc. In other words, all the relevant indicators for the system’s performance enabled by the frontline. –A company’s frontline stability depends on having people with the right skills and attitudes who consistently show up and stay with the organization. The ultimate stable workforce is the one that is fully present, fully engaged and remains with the organization. Because of this reality – that the future of production remains about people – global industry needs a new playbook for talent, and meeting such a tall order requires a powerful collaboration. This is why McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum collaborated again in 2023 to charter the Frontline of the Future Initiative, with the aim of identifying frontline talent success stories from across the production value chain. In 2025, the Global Lighthouse Network will deepen its focus on talent by including additional talent-related achievements and solutions into its framework. This means that starting in 2025, sites can apply to be recognized for achieving world-class performance with distinction in talent transformation. This white paper presents insights from the Frontline Talent of the Future Initiative’s pilot programme. It highlights challenges identified by participating sites and shares the innovative strategies companies have used to address them – offering the first chapter of a new frontline talent playbook. While the report draws heavily on US data due to its availability and industrial scope, these insights reflect global trends observed by initiative leaders.To unlock productivity and stability, the world must adapt to meet a changing talent imperative. Today’s frontline workers are technology operators and creative problem solvers. 5 Putting Talent at the Centre: An Evolving Imperative for Manufacturing