Josh Erickson, Author at FlexTrades

Technical skill matters. In manufacturing, it has to. You need people who know how to operate equipment, read prints, troubleshoot problems, perform maintenance, weld, machine, program, fabricate, or perform whatever specialized work the job requires.

But after decades of experience in the trades and in a variety of roles, I’ve learned something else, too. The most professional employee will almost always outperform the employee who is the most technically skilled.

That’s because technical ability is only part of what makes someone great at their job. The rest comes down to how you communicate, how you work with others, how you respond when something goes wrong, and how willing you are to learn and adapt.

These skills have traditionally been called “soft skills.” You may also hear them called human skills, interpersonal skills, social skills, transferable skills, or professional skills.

Whatever you call them, they’re not really “soft” at all. They’re the skills that determine how effectively you put your technical abilities to work.

Technical Skills Tell Us What. Professionals Understand Why and How.

A resume can tell you what someone has done.

“I’ve operated this machine.”

“I’ve worked with PLCs.”

“I’ve welded for 15 years.”

“I’ve performed preventive maintenance.”

Those things matter. They’re often the first indication that someone has the technical experience needed for a position. But the better question is, “How do you do those things, and why do you do them that way?”

That’s where you start seeing the difference between someone who has experience and someone who is truly a professional. A great technician doesn’t just know which button to push. They understand what the machine is doing, why it’s doing it, and what could happen if something isn’t right.

They don’t simply follow a process. They understand the purpose behind it. They don’t just fix a problem. They want to understand what caused it.

That deeper understanding is where technical skill and professional skill come together. And five “soft” skills consistently stand out.

1. Communication

Manufacturing is a team environment, even when you’re working independently.

You have to communicate with coworkers, supervisors, engineers, quality teams, maintenance personnel, customers, and sometimes people who don’t have the same technical background you do.

Good communication isn’t about being the most outgoing person in the room. It’s about making sure the right information gets to the right person at the right time.

That means listening. Asking questions when you don’t understand something. Explaining a problem clearly. Documenting what you’ve done. Speaking up when you see something that could affect safety, quality, or production.

A technically talented employee who can’t communicate effectively can create problems for everyone around them. A professional makes the people around them better informed and better equipped to do their jobs.

2. Teamwork

Manufacturing is a team effort every day.

Production doesn’t stop being a team effort because everyone has a different job title. The machinist, electrician, maintenance technician, welder, engineer, operator, supervisor, and quality professional all affect one another.

Great tradespeople understand that.

They’re willing to lend a hand when someone needs it. They share knowledge instead of hoarding it. They respect the experience of others. And they understand that sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is simply pitch in, pick up the broom, and help get the job done.

You don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. You do have to be someone people can count on.

3. Critical Thinking

Manufacturing rarely goes exactly according to plan.

A machine isn’t behaving the way it normally does. A measurement doesn’t make sense. A part isn’t coming out correctly. A process has changed. A new piece of equipment isn’t producing the expected results.

Technical knowledge gives you a foundation. Critical thinking helps you determine what to do with it.

The best technicians don’t immediately jump to the first explanation that comes to mind. They observe. They ask questions. They evaluate the information available to them and consider what might actually be happening.

That’s one of the biggest differences between simply having experience and knowing how to leverage that experience.

Experience isn’t just measured in years. It’s measured in exposure.

The more situations you’ve encountered, the more patterns you can recognize, and the better equipped you are to think through unfamiliar problems.

4. Problem Solving

Critical thinking helps you understand a problem. Problem solving helps you do something about it.

And problems are inevitable in manufacturing. The difference is how you respond to them.

Do you immediately look for someone else to fix it? Or do you stop, assess the situation, and start thinking about possible solutions?

Great technicians don’t necessarily have every answer, but they know how to find the answer.

They understand when to troubleshoot on their own, when to ask for help, and when to involve someone with different expertise. Most importantly, they don’t simply identify problems. They look for ways to prevent the same problem from happening again.

That solutions-oriented mindset can be incredibly valuable on a manufacturing floor.

5. Adaptability

Manufacturing changes constantly. New equipment. New processes. New technology. New products. New customers. New safety requirements. New expectations.

The technical skills that made someone successful five years ago may not be enough five years from now. That’s why adaptability matters.

Being adaptable doesn’t mean abandoning what you know. It means being willing to learn something new and apply what you already know in a different way.

The best technicians aren’t afraid of change. They’re curious about it.

They ask questions. They learn new processes. They stay open to different approaches. They understand that being an expert doesn’t mean you have nothing left to learn.

In fact, the opposite is often true.

These Skills Matter Before You Get the Job

These qualities aren’t just important once you’re on the manufacturing floor. They’re also visible during the hiring process.

A candidate who can clearly explain how they’ve approached a difficult problem tells you something.

A candidate who can describe how they’ve worked through a disagreement with a coworker tells you something.

A candidate who can explain why they chose a particular troubleshooting approach tells you something.

And a candidate who can admit, “I didn’t know, so I asked,” may tell you more than someone who tries to make themselves sound like they know everything.

For technicians entering the trades, these are skills worth developing alongside your technical education.

For experienced technicians, they’re skills worth continuing to sharpen.

And for manufacturers, they’re skills worth looking for when evaluating candidates.

The Person Behind the Resume

At FlexTrades, we see resumes every day that demonstrate impressive technical experience.

But a resume is only part of the story. The real differentiator is often what happens when you start talking to the person behind it.

How do they describe their work?

Do they talk about what they did, or can they explain why and how they did it?

Do they take ownership when something goes wrong?

Do they talk about the people they’ve worked with?

Are they curious?

Do they communicate clearly?

Are they willing to learn?

Those answers can tell you a lot about the kind of employee someone will be once they’re on the floor.

Technical skills may determine whether someone can do the job.

Professional skills often determine how well they do it and what kind of impact they have on everyone around them.

What Makes a Great Skilled Tradesperson?

The answer isn’t simply years of experience. It isn’t the number of machines someone has operated or the number of certifications listed on a resume.

It’s the combination of technical ability and everything that allows that ability to be put to work effectively.

Communicate. Collaborate. Think critically. Solve problems. Adapt. Keep learning.

Those aren’t secondary skills. They’re part of being a skilled trades professional.

Your technical abilities may be what get you through the door, but your professionalism is what makes people want to open that door for you again.

September has always been associated with going back to school.

For some people, that means buying school supplies, packing lunches, and getting the kids back into a routine. For others, it brings back memories of classrooms, homework, tests, and counting down the days until summer.

But for skilled trades professionals, going back to school doesn’t have to happen in September. In fact, if you’re serious about building your career, you may never really stop learning.

You might not be sitting in a classroom. There may not be a textbook, a test, or a teacher standing at the front of the room. But every new machine, process, facility, and challenge can teach you something. And those experiences add up.

Because when it comes to building a career, experience isn’t just measured in years. It’s also measured in exposure.

What equipment have you worked on? What problems have you solved? What industries have you seen? How many different ways have you seen the job done?

Those experiences can be just as important as the number of years listed next to your job title.

Your Career Is Still Your Classroom

Most skilled trades professionals understand that learning doesn’t stop when formal education ends. You can go to technical school, earn certifications, or attend training programs. All of those things can help build a foundation for your career.

But eventually, somebody has to put you in front of the machine. They have to hand you the tools. They have to give you a problem that doesn’t come with step-by-step instructions.

That’s where another kind of education begins.

A machinist may start by learning to operate a machine before moving into setups, programming, tooling, troubleshooting, or more complex equipment.

A maintenance technician might begin with mechanical work before gaining experience with electrical systems, PLCs, robotics, or automation.

A welder, brazer, or fabricator may discover that the techniques they learned on one job don’t necessarily prepare them for every material, application, or process they’ll encounter throughout their career.

Every new challenge adds something to your toolbox.

Sometimes that growth happens through formal training. Just as often, it happens because someone gives you an opportunity to work on something you’ve never worked on before. And, after you’ve done it once, you know a little more than you did before.

Do that enough times, and you start to build something that can’t always be measured simply by counting the years you’ve been on the job.

Ten Years of Experience Can Mean Different Things

Two technicians can both have 10 years of experience and have had very different careers.

One may have spent 10 years becoming an expert on a specific machine, process, or production environment. They know that operation inside and out, and there is tremendous value in that kind of expertise.

Another technician may have spent those same 10 years working with different equipment, in different facilities, with different teams, and across multiple industries. Along the way, they’ve encountered a wider variety of challenges and learned to solve problems in different environments.

Neither path is automatically better. But they are different. And that’s why years of experience don’t always tell the whole story. Exposure matters too.

The more you see, the more opportunities you have to learn. The more problems you encounter, the more problems you may be prepared to solve in the future.

The more equipment, processes, and environments you experience, the more tools you can add to your professional toolbox.

That’s one of the reasons it can be valuable to occasionally step outside of what you already know.

Sometimes a New Environment Is the Best Place to Learn

Starting somewhere new can be uncomfortable.

Even when you know your trade, a new facility can come with a learning curve. The equipment may be different. The processes may be different. The terminology may be different. The way one company approaches maintenance, quality, production, or troubleshooting may be completely different from what you’re used to.

But that’s also where the opportunity is. Every time you walk into a new environment, you’re exposed to another way of doing things.

Maybe you’ll learn a better process. Maybe you’ll discover a different approach to troubleshooting. Maybe you’ll work alongside someone with years of experience on equipment you’ve never touched before.

Or maybe you’ll be the experienced one. The person who has seen something similar somewhere else and knows how to approach the problem. That’s the value of exposure.

You don’t just learn from the jobs that go perfectly. You learn from the unfamiliar ones, the difficult ones, and the situations where you have to figure something out. Those experiences stay with you. And you can take them into the next opportunity.

Traveling Can Accelerate That Exposure

There are a lot of ways to build experience throughout a career. You can grow within one company. You can cross-train, take classes, earn certifications, and learn from experienced coworkers.

And for some technicians, traveling can be another way to accelerate that growth. Working in different facilities can expose you to different equipment, processes, industries, and ways of solving problems.

Traveling isn’t automatically the right career path for everyone. Some people find exactly what they’re looking for with one great employer and build an incredible career there.

But if you’re someone who enjoys new challenges, there is value in putting yourself in environments where you have something new to learn.

When you move from one assignment to another, you aren’t just adding another company name to your resume. You’re adding experiences.

Maybe you worked on equipment you hadn’t seen before. Maybe you learned a new control system. Maybe you gained experience in an industry that wasn’t previously on your resume. Maybe you worked alongside technicians who taught you something you can use for the rest of your career.

Those experiences compound over time. Eventually, your resume begins to tell a story that goes beyond job titles and years of experience. It tells people what you’ve actually done.

Don’t Let Your Career Development Happen by Accident

One of the best things you can do for your career is occasionally stop and ask yourself:

What do I want to learn next?

Maybe there’s a machine you’ve always wanted experience with. Maybe you want to become stronger in electrical troubleshooting. Maybe you want to learn PLCs, robotics, programming, or automation. Maybe there’s an experienced technician around you who knows something you don’t.

Or maybe you’re simply ready to step into an environment that will challenge you in a new way. The important thing is to take some ownership over your own development. Don’t assume that experience automatically equals growth.

You can spend years doing the same thing without necessarily expanding what you’re capable of doing. On the other hand, a single opportunity that pushes you outside your comfort zone can sometimes teach you more than months of doing what you’ve already mastered.

That doesn’t mean you should chase every new opportunity just because it’s new. It means you should be intentional about the experiences you collect along the way.

Build More Than Years. Build Experience.

The next time you think about your career, don’t just ask yourself how long you’ve been doing what you do. Ask yourself what you’ve been exposed to.

What equipment have you worked on?

What skills have you developed?

What types of problems have you learned to solve?

What industries have you experienced?

What can you do today that you couldn’t do a year ago?

Those answers may tell you more about where your career is headed than the number of years you’ve spent in a particular role. The good news is that learning doesn’t always require going back to a classroom.

Sometimes your next lesson is waiting on the next machine.

Sometimes it’s sitting across the shop floor.

Sometimes it’s the technician working beside you.

And sometimes, it’s waiting on an opportunity that takes you somewhere you’ve never been before.

So, What’s Next on Your Curriculum?

September may be back-to-school season, but your career doesn’t have to follow an academic calendar. You don’t have to wait until January to decide you want to learn something new. You don’t have to wait until you’re unhappy in your current role to think about where your career is going.

And you don’t have to have your entire future mapped out before taking the next step. Just keep learning.

Learn the next machine. Take on the next challenge. Ask questions. Learn from the people around you.

Look for opportunities that expand your experience. Because your career isn’t just built one year at a time. It’s built one experience at a time.

And while the number of years you’ve spent in your trade will always matter, experience isn’t just measured in years. It’s also measured in exposure.

At FlexTrades, we’ve seen how new environments and new challenges can help technicians build skills and experiences that stay with them throughout their careers. Traveling isn’t the only way to grow, and it isn’t the right path for everyone.

But for technicians who want to see more, learn more, and continue adding to their professional toolbox, every new assignment can be more than just another job.

It can be another opportunity to learn. And, when it comes to building a career, that’s an education that doesn’t have to end.

Summer means something different depending on who you ask.

For many employees, it’s a season of family vacations, long weekends at the lake, and well-earned time away from work. And that’s exactly as it should be.

Machines, however, don’t take vacations. Production schedules don’t either.

Customer commitments still need to be met. Planned maintenance outages, facility expansions, equipment installations, and process improvements continue moving forward. For many manufacturers, from HVAC and food production to agriculture and consumer goods, summer can actually represent one of the busiest times of the year.

That’s why summer often exposes one of manufacturing’s biggest operational challenges: maintaining production when workforce availability becomes less predictable.

The challenge isn’t simply that people take vacations. It’s that business doesn’t.

Summer Reveals More Than Staffing Gaps

Every manufacturer expects some level of PTO upticks during the summer months. The real question is whether your workforce strategy is built to absorb it.

One machinist on vacation rarely creates a crisis.

But what happens when three experienced machinists are gone during the same production cycle? Or when a maintenance technician schedules time off during a planned shutdown? What if an unexpected customer order arrives while your welding department is already stretched thin?

Individually, these situations seem manageable.

Combined, they can create production bottlenecks, increase overtime, delay customer deliveries, and place additional pressure on the employees who remain.

Summer doesn’t create these workforce challenges. It simply exposes them.

It’s Bigger Than Vacation Coverage

When manufacturers hear “temporary workforce,” many immediately think about replacing employees who are on vacation.

That’s certainly one application. But it’s far from the only one.

Summer often brings a variety of temporary workforce needs that don’t justify permanent hiring but still demand experienced talent.

Perhaps your busiest production season coincides with employees taking time off.

Maybe you’ve scheduled an annual maintenance shutdown that requires additional millwrights, industrial electricians, or maintenance technicians.

Perhaps capital funding was approved for a summer equipment installation or production line expansion.

Or maybe you’re launching a new product and need to increase output for several months before demand levels normalize.

These aren’t hiring problems. They’re capacity challenges. And capacity challenges require workforce flexibility.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

When skilled labor becomes unavailable, manufacturers are often left with difficult choices.

They ask their existing workforce to work longer hours. They delay projects. They postpone preventive maintenance. They stretch production schedules. Or they simply accept that deliveries may slip.

While these decisions may solve today’s problem, they often create tomorrow’s as well.

Employee burnout increases. Quality can suffer. Preventive maintenance becomes reactive maintenance. Customer confidence begins to erode.

The irony is that many of these outcomes are viewed as operational issues when they’re actually workforce planning issues.

A Different Way to Think About Skilled Labor

The manufacturers we work with increasingly view workforce flexibility as a strategic advantage rather than an emergency solution.

Instead of asking, “How do we survive this staffing shortage?” they’re asking, “How do we build a workforce strategy that allows us to adapt without disrupting production?”

That’s an important distinction.

Not every increase in demand requires permanent hiring. Not every project justifies adding headcount. Not every staffing challenge needs to become an overtime challenge.

Sometimes the smartest solution is bringing in experienced skilled trades professionals for exactly as long as you need them. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Building Capacity Without Adding Permanent Headcount

At FlexTrades, this is where we make a difference.

Our traveling skilled trades technicians help manufacturers bridge temporary workforce gaps with experienced professionals who are ready to contribute quickly.

That might mean supporting planned vacations across an entire department.

It could mean adding maintenance technicians during a scheduled outage.

It could mean supplementing your team during a seasonal production increase.

It could mean helping you complete a facility expansion, install new equipment, or execute a capital project without diverting your core workforce from day-to-day production.

Or it might simply mean giving your existing employees the breathing room they need without sacrificing production schedules.

Whatever the challenge, the objective remains the same:

Keep production moving. Protect your workforce. Deliver with certainty.

Workforce Flexibility Is a Competitive Advantage

Summer eventually comes to an end. The need for workforce flexibility doesn’t.

Throughout the year, manufacturers face unexpected resignations, demand fluctuations, customer deadlines, equipment installations, expansion projects, and production surges. The companies that consistently navigate those challenges aren’t necessarily the ones with the largest workforce.

They’re the ones with the most adaptable workforce strategy.

They understand that flexibility isn’t about replacing full-time employees. It’s about creating the capacity to respond when business conditions change.

Because certainty doesn’t come from hoping nothing changes. It comes from being prepared when it does.

Manufacturing Doesn’t Pause for Summer

Manufacturing has always required planning. Production planning. Material planning. Maintenance planning. Workforce planning deserves the same level of attention.

When your skilled workforce is supported by a flexible staffing strategy, summer stops being a season of uncertainty and becomes just another opportunity to execute with confidence.

At FlexTrades, that’s what we help manufacturers do every day.

Whether you’re covering planned vacations, responding to seasonal demand, supporting a critical maintenance shutdown, or ramping up for a short-term project, our goal is the same: to give you access to the skilled trades professionals you need to keep production moving without adding long-term workforce risk.

Because workforce flexibility isn’t just about filling open positions.

It’s about protecting schedules, supporting your people, and delivering with certainty.

Machines don’t take vacations. Neither do production schedules.

With the right workforce strategy, your productivity doesn’t have to either.

Schedule a call with FlexTrades to learn how our skilled trades workforce can help you cover summer workforce gaps, protect production schedules, and keep manufacturing moving.

Growing up on a farm, I often felt more like a hired hand than a child when spending time with my father. Whether he was at his off-farm job, presiding over the council as mayor of our little town, attending church board meetings, plowing, planting, serving in the Minnesota National Guard, or responding to emergencies as fire chief – my dad was always working. From as early as I can remember, he expected the same of me too. My father and I never had that “my dad’s my best friend” relationship you see so often on TV. But over the years, we became so much more than father and son. We were each other’s most reliable employee, business partner, adversary, teacher, advocate, student, boss, and champion. He was who I called first when things went wrong, and I was the one who took his calls in a pinch.

No, my dad was never my friend but, for every second of my life, he was my dad. And he was always the best one he could be. He gave me lots of things, so many more than he or I ever realized, to be honest. However, they were hard to define, recognize, and appreciate. At least they were until I started thinking of them as things my father taught me, rather than things he had given me. Several years ago, I shared these thoughts online in the form of a list to honor my dad for Father’s Day. It quickly became an annual tradition and today is, without a doubt, the most popular thing I put on the internet every year.

I lost my dad on Halloween in 2021 and this Father’s Day will be my fifth without a father of my own. In honor of his memory, and in tribute to all of you out there wearing the dad pants as best you can, this year I would like to share my list with you. Dad always knew that we’re all just people raising people. It doesn’t matter if you share blood, name, or a home – you are family if you share love. Whether you made them or not, I promise you’re making them better. Keep it up. It’s worth it.

Without further ado, here is my 11th annual Things My Dad Taught Me (expanded again, of course) post.

Things My Dad Taught Me

A person doesn’t have to be brave to act brave, but the result is the same.
If you’re not early, you’re late.
Chickens always come home to roost. Leaving the door open is on you.
You can take the fast way or the long way to get anywhere, but only one gives you something to talk about along the way.
Critters are easier to let out than get back in, so mind your gates.
The right tool makes all the difference when the job goes wrong.
You can tell more about a man by looking at his cattle than by looking at his truck.
You must do favors in order to get them.
Sometimes how you do a thing is more important than what you’re doing.
Mud boots and snow boots are the same, as long as you have enough room for wool socks.
The people who answer your call are a direct reflection of the calls you’ve answered.
Effort erases a lot of mistakes.
Show up. You have to be there to be counted.
There are lots of ways to handle a nut, but most work better with a little WD40.
Never let a simple answer get in the way of a good story.
What people say is rarely what they do, but they’ll remember both for you, so always follow through.
Assuming is just a fancy word for guessing.
You can borrow money, or you can borrow trouble, but never borrow both.
Never wrestle with pigs because you’ll just end up muddy.
Both good advice and bad advice can teach you something.
Brown Watkins salve, Ben-Gay, and Excedrin can fix most things that are wrong with you.
Life is short and time flies, so stop for a Mountain Dew whenever you can.
You don’t have to be perfect to be right.
If you have to pay to fix it more than once, you should learn to fix it yourself.
The opinions of others won’t pay your bills, so don’t save them.
Make time to BS. People prefer funny stories when reminiscing.
If you leave without a knife, you will wish you hadn’t.
Take your time saying goodbye. It might be the last one you get. Make it worth it.

My thanks and admiration to my dad and all the others out there trying their best to teach their children lessons worth learning. Enjoy your day!