Despite the common assumption that manufacturing jobs are disappearing, manufacturing companies face a hiring challenge. As experienced workers retire and technology advances, businesses need bright, hardworking employees who are comfortable with technology. GE Lighting is tapping the potential of the “millennial generation,” workers born between 1982 and 2000. According to general manager Ron Wilson, the share of millennials among his manufacturing engineers and managers has doubled. The company is smoothing the way by preparing these employees to succeed. Its two-year leadership training program gives operations employees challenging assignments and brings them into contact with senior management. At the level of factory floor workers, the company partners with local community colleges to prepare qualified young workers for high-tech manufacturing.

By recruiting a new generation of production workers, GE Lighting brings together people of different ages. But that is hardly the only measure of this company’s diversity. While manufacturing has historically been dominated by men, GE Lighting’s CEO, Maryrose Sylvester, is an example of a talented woman finding opportunities at General Electric. Sylvester, who earned a bachelor’s degree in procurement and production management and a master’s in business administration, joined GE as an intern. She worked her way up, taking management positions in high-technology and lighting industries. Now, as GE Lighting’s CEO, she is responsible for a $3 billion business employing 13,000 people, including 700 at the headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio.

Sylvester earned her elevation to the CEO position by promoting technology leadership and increasing revenues. However, she appreciates the need to help people gain access to opportunities. In the 1990s, for example, she participated in launching a group called the GE Women’s Network. She also endorses GE Lighting’s support for the MC² STEM High School in Cleveland. Its students learn through completing projects and internships with local companies and by spending 10th grade at GE Lighting’s headquarters, where employees become mentors, tutoring and guiding them. When students master the high school’s math and science classes, they comprise a pool of talent right at GE’s doorstep.

These efforts are part of GE’s corporate-wide diversity programs. Employees can find support and learn skills by joining affinity groups; a few are the African American Forum; the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Allies Alliance; and the Hispanic Forum. A chief diversity officer sets goals and measures results, meeting regularly with other top executives. Other diversity programs have specific goals to meet. For example, Get Skills to Work helps match up veterans with jobs where they can apply the skills they gained in the military, and STEM Camp encourages girls in junior high to explore science and technology.

GE’s commitment to diversity is part of its corporate vision. GE is well known for rewarding performance and sees valuing diversity as a way to ensure that it finds and keeps the best talent, wherever it might be.

GE Lighting is at an exciting point in its hundred-plus-year history. LEDs and other new technology are opening up ways for consumers and businesses to enjoy the advantages of efficient lighting, and GE is expanding production globally. To succeed, it needs the best from all its employees.¹