Building the Shipbuilding Workforce with Pedro Velis
#15

Building the Shipbuilding Workforce with Pedro Velis

Pedro Velis spent six years as a staff accountant at Wawa before pivoting into recruiting, and today he is the Director of Talent Acquisition and Workforce Development at Hanwha Philly Shipyard, a shipyard recently featured on 60 Minutes for its role in growing America's shipbuilding capacity. In this episode, he talks with Colleen about the massive skilled trade shortage facing the shipbuilding industry, why he builds his team out of people with nontraditional backgrounds, how he cut turnover at a food manufacturing plant by slowing down the hiring process, and the career advice he wishes he had given himself decades ago.

Takeaways:
  • Understand the business before you recruit for it. Pedro believes every talent acquisition professional has to learn how their company actually makes money and how each department contributes to that, not just the requirements of the job description.
  • Diverse backgrounds build stronger teams. Pedro has hired a former elementary school teacher and a shipyard carpenter of 25 years onto his recruiting team, valuing the outside expertise they bring over a traditional recruiting resume.
  • The country faces a massive skilled trade shortage. Pedro cited an estimate from the Department of Defense of roughly 175,000 skilled workers needed over the next ten years, and welding booths sitting empty is a lost opportunity.
  • Growth is coming fast. Hanwha Philly Shipyard currently builds about one and a half ships a year with roughly 2,000 employees, and the goal is to reach ten to twenty ships a year, which could grow the workforce to somewhere between five thousand and ten thousand people.
  • Slowing down hiring can fix turnover. At a previous food manufacturing job, Pedro pushed back on a plant director who wanted twenty new hires a week, arguing that better onboarding and training would keep more of the people they already hired.
  • Do not be a one trick pony. Pedro describes himself as having a Batman utility belt of skills instead of one specialty, and he encourages his team to build a little bit of knowledge across finance, comp, and employee relations rather than mastering only one lane.
Quote of the Show:
"Don't be afraid to fail, and have confidence in yourself."  - Pedro Velis

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