An Experiment for Strengthening U.S. Workforce Capacity Utilization

Inefficient use of the labor force erodes U.S. leadership in competition with authoritarian competitors. The impacts of layoffs across the labor market and larger economy represent a significant inefficiency in the capitalist system. While individual companies need mechanisms for reducing their workforces during downturns, shortening or eliminating the time that workers are unemployed would mitigate the impact of this inefficiency on the economy. Workforce development funding rarely supports the existing labor force, focusing instead on the pipeline of workers who will later enter the workforce. As a result, the state of the art in tempering layoff-related inefficiencies encompasses online marketplaces, outplacement services, recruiting organizations, and efforts by individual workers. A completely different approach is to think creatively about job requirements and skills before a layoff is even considered. This paper tests the hypothesis that two unrelated job functions in two different industries are similar enough to warrant cross training and, subsequently, cross placement. Real-time space mission operations and geosteering, technical job functions supporting operations in aerospace and oil and gas respectively, involve similar skills, software, data types, and work cultures. Both geosteering and space operations involve interpreting positional and directional data to guide real-time decision-making about operational maneuvers in three-dimensional space in an alien and remote medium without visual contact, with a time delay in positional communications, and 24-hour, 7-day-per-week operations. Both functions also operate with high accountability and non-unique solutions that often defy automation, and they are performed in support of cyclical industries with frequent and far-reaching layoffs. Although orbital dynamics differ from the geologic principles underlying geosteering, similarities are examined from the perspective of first principles. In this experiment, an experienced geosteerer and an experienced space operator cross trained each other. They determined that it had been far easier to train each other than it would have been to train a random worker. They then found and leapt a higher hurdle. Each determined that it would be more difficult and time consuming to train a new graduate with a bachelor’s degree in their own field than it had been to train their experienced counterpart in this experiment. This result demonstrates the possibility of a more flexible and adaptable workforce that can increase workforce capacity utilization, exchange knowledge across industries, and support U.S. global leadership.