Cummins promotes global soft skills using Passport to Success

A comprehensive solution for bridging skills gaps

The Challenge:

Cummins was experiencing a short of skilled technical workers, yet unemployment rising in the communities where Cummins was working. To solve this problem, Cummins launched an ambitious Technical Education for Communities (TEC) initiative in 2012. TEC aims to train low-income youth in employable technical skills and connect them to good jobs in their communities. The TEC program allows Cummins to partner with technical and vocational schools around the world to teach youth these critical technical skills. However, Cummins quickly recognized that bridging the technical skill gap was only part of a comprehensive solution for change, as these young people were also missing soft skills.

The Outcome:

Cummins partnered with IYF to infuse soft skills into their technical curriculum, bolstering youth prospects to succeed in work and life. Through this partnership, over 1,400 youth have been trained in IYF’s Passport to Success (“PTS”) curriculum across 14 countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. According to employers, TEC graduates exceed expectations and perform above average in soft skills such as teamwork, cooperation, problem solving, and adaptability. In 2019, 82% of TEC graduates either secured good paying jobs or continued their education. Furthermore, PTS was seen as so successful that multiple business units within the Cummins business itself began to adopt it for their own employees. In Peru, PTS is credited with a 31% improvement in work climate and employee engagement.

Soft skills are an increasingly important part of productivity in the workforce. They create opportunities—not only opening the door for youth to obtain their first job—but opening the door to lifelong achievement and success.

Mark Osowick

Cummins’ Vice-President for Human Resources Operations

Background:

Businesses around the world are experiencing critical shortages of skilled technical workers. According to recent surveys, global employers ranked technical jobs, which include production, operations, and maintenance technicians, in the top five hardest jobs to fill. This difficulty is driven in a large part by a deficit of socio-emotional (or soft skill) and hard skill gaps.

As a leading manufacturer in power generation equipment, Cummins needs employees who have the technical and soft skills to work on complex projects. Communication, teamwork, and conflict resolution were identified by Cummins’ leaders to be as important as technical skills for their employees.

How We Did It:

IYF designed a tailored PTS curriculum with global reach for Cummins to bring to all TEC partner schools.
IYF trained Cummins staff to become PTS Master Trainers in order to train faculty and staff at the TEC partner schools. In some cases, IYF also trained faculty and staff at TEC partner schools directly.
PTS was so successful that in Romania and Brazil, Cummins employees helped establish partnerships with affiliated technical and vocational schools outside of the TEC program.
PTS was then adopted by Cummins business units as a curriculum for teaching soft skills to their own employees.

Why PTS Has Worked For Cummins promotes global soft skills using Passport to Success :

PTS soft skills training lessons emphasized engagement, not memorization or information-sharing. Cummins participants were active learners throughout the process.
PTS provided Cummins a high-quality soft skills curriculum to be adapted for their workforce.
PTS allowed TEC participants to gain new and valuable skills that helped their own professional careers and for Cummins as an organization.

Any school can teach you the technical aspects of the job, but then the soft skills or the motives past that really help you connect to the customer and can you move you further up the ladder… The IYF programs really dug into the emotional intelligence and soft skills part of the business. So that has really helped me to know how to manage people and how to learn skills fast.

Henrie Adesina

Level 2 Cummins Apprentice in West Africa Limited