How the International Steel Industry Attracts, Trains and Retains Talented People

摘要

The steel industry faces a major challenge to its sustainability if it cannot attract and retain the quantity and quality of talented young people who have the potential and ambition to become its leaders in the future. This is partly a reflection of the poor image of the industry in the media and general population and with school pupils and students, their teachers and parents. Another critical issue is the decline in the number of students and university courses in metallurgy and materials science. The steel industry has been and continues to be very proactive in promoting itself to students and in providing vital in-service training and challenging and rewarding careers, but it must do even more if it is recruit the innovators and entrepreneurs it needs for ensure its continued competitiveness in a rapidly changing world. Other industrial sectors face similar issues and already devote more resources to tackling these problems. There is scope for a cross-sector approach to promote science and engineering to young school children and also for universities to develop international undergraduate and post-graduate courses on materials science and metallurgy to give students and early global experience of the steel industry. The IISI project to develop the steeluniversity.org e-learning facility on steel technologies represents a significant contribution to tackling several of these issues at once. The steel industry should be more proactive about the promotion of its own image, highlighting the innovations it continues to make to its processes and products and its contributions to a sustainable world. All steel industry employees are exhorted to become steel ambassadors, taking every opportunity to extol the benefits of steel and working in the industry, to their family, friends and other contacts they have in their communities and further afield.