For many industries, successful “youth marketing” is the secret to long-term profits and growth.
For aerospace and defense, the pursuit of the much-coveted youth market has become a matter of survival.
The recruitment and retention of young professionals — especially those U.S.-born who can qualify for top-secret security clearances — has senior aerospace executives feeling a bit anxious these days. They don’t precisely know how big a problem this really is, but they see trends that do not look promising.
The president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, George K. Muellner, recently cited a 14 percent loss rate of young professionals industry-wide. He blamed the retention woes on a combination of old-fashioned youth-unfriendly management style on the part of the industry and the perception that aerospace work is not as meaningful and rewarding as it was during the Cold War and NASA’s glory days.
Alarms about an aging work force have been ringing for about two decades both in government and industry. Forecasts of baby boomers retiring in droves with no one to replace them have been the subject of endless think tank studies and op-eds. These latest findings by AIAA, alas, are more icing on the cake.
At a recent industry conference, Muellner said aerospace firms are losing young engineers because they find the work boring, they are not involved in decision making and do not find inspiring mentors among their superiors. Many younger workers also shun aerospace because the industry is not perceived as making a “contribution to society.” Similar observations were cited in a Defense Department-funded study by the JASON science advisory group.
Greg Pearson of the National Academy of Engineering said opinion polls back these pessimistic views. Compared to doctors, teachers, military officers and other professions, said Pearson, engineering is seen by the public as having relatively low prestige.
NAE estimated that the industry spends $400 million annually on outreach and PR designed to attract younger workers. “Yet, there is little evidence of impact,” Pearson said.
One problem is that the industry has no identifiable “public face” of engineering, he said. Many kids see engineers as “desk jockeys,” who are disconnected from people.
The Defense Department and many of its contractors have tried to tackle this issue by emphasizing education programs that promote math, science and engineering. They have funded scholarships and mentoring programs to boost interest in these areas from an early age.
Pearson and other experts don’t expect this strategy to pay off in any significant way because it ignores the reality that plenty of American youth like math and science, but they still might not want to work in aerospace or defense.
“Don’t lead with the ‘math and science skills’ argument,” said Pearson. Efforts would be better directed at creating a more attractive work environment and changing the corporate culture.
Another hurdle that the industry has been ignoring is the influence of pop culture (aka Hollywood) and mass media in how Americans regard or appreciate science in general.
Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum have captured the current zeitgeist in their recently published book, “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future.” They noted that for every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science, and that the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunk by two-thirds in the past several decades. “Just 18 percent of Americans personally know a scientist to begin with, and exceedingly few can name a living scientist role model. No wonder rejection of science is rampant,” Mooney and Kirshenbaum wrote.
They also contend that movies tend to depict scientists as “idiosyncratic nerds” or “villains.” This is detrimental to national security, the authors insist. “It’s unhealthy for the place of science in our culture — no small matter at a time of climate crisis, bioweapon threats, pandemic diseases and untold future controversies that will surely erupt as science continues to dramatically change our world and our politics.” Fixing the problem of science education in the nation’s schools, although important, is not the sole solution, they noted. “We also have to do something about the cultural standing of science — heavily influenced by politics and mass media — and that’s a very different matter.”
Most Americans can’t name a scientific role model, Mooney and Kirshenbaum pointed out. “And those who can tend to name people like Bill Gates, Al Gore and Albert Einstein, who are either not scientists or not alive.”
The authors give kudos to the National Academy of Sciences for having recognized that this is an image problem. It launched the “Science & Entertainment Exchange” program to provide entertainment industry professionals with access to top scientists and engineers to “help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines,” said NAS.
Youth marketing may be more art than science. Whatever the impetus, aerospace and defense industry bosses had better start rocking and rolling pronto or they may soon find themselves unable to get the job done.