Forge Talent Systems

FORGE

Internal talent supply chains, built for operations.

Forge helps operational companies reduce dependency on external labor markets by building internal talent supply chains for specialized roles. We design the program. Your team runs it.

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The Problem

TA in operations-heavy companies is broken in a specific, expensive way.

Specialized roles sit open for months. The team covers with overtime. Contractors fill the gap at a premium. Recruiters burn bandwidth on repeat reqs. And the frontline workforce hits a ceiling and walks. Most operators have never put a real dollar figure on it.

Lost throughput

Every unfilled specialized seat costs thousands per day in units, jobs, and prescriptions not moving.

Overtime burn

The existing team absorbs the gap. Supervisors work 70-hour weeks. The cost shows up in burnout and attrition.

Quiet attrition

Frontline workers see no path up. They walk for a dollar-an-hour raise across the street. You lose the people who already know your operation.

What Forge Does

We build the talent supply chain. Your team operates it.

Forge designs and stands up internal reskilling programs that move existing frontline workers into certified, specialized roles. We are the architects. Certified training partners deliver instruction. Your TA and L&D teams run the program at scale.

Design

Architect the program

Curriculum framework, candidate selection model, role-mapping, success metrics. Built from a diagnostic that quantifies what your unfilled roles actually cost.

Assemble

Vet the partners

Training providers, certification bodies, internal mobility infrastructure. The right ecosystem for your specialized roles.

Handoff

Hand it to your team

Operating model, measurement framework, and a trained program owner. Your TA and L&D teams run it from there. Forge steps out.

How We Work

Four phases. One operating model.

Each phase earns the right to the next. We never quote a price before the diagnostic, and we never recommend a program without a defensible ROI case.

1

Diagnose

Weeks

Quantify the cost of unfilled specialized roles. Map your workforce against role requirements. Deliver a Go / No-Go recommendation.

2

Design

Months

Build the curriculum, vet partners, design the operating model, create the measurement framework. A complete program your team could run.

3

Pilot

Months

Launch the first cohort. Refine the operating model with live data. Train the program owner. Hand it off.

4

Scale

Optional

Expand to additional roles. Move into broader TA function redesign. Only when the pilot earns it.

The Numbers

Days from req open to hire. And getting longer.

Industry benchmarks for specialized roles. The diagnostic measures yours.

44
Average US job
(SHRM 2025)
56
Maintenance
technician
60+
Credentialed
technician roles
90+
Hardest-to-fill
(often 120+)
The Founder

Built for operators, by an operator.

[Photo]

Jonathan Nguyen

Founder, Forge Talent Systems

Jonathan is a TA leader whose career has been spent inside operations-intensive companies, designing and standing up internal reskilling programs from the operator's seat. The pattern repeats: specialized roles open for months, a capable frontline workforce stuck below them, and a TA function structured to fill reqs rather than build pipelines.

Forge Talent Systems exists because the work to fix that pattern, done with the operator's economics in mind rather than the consultant's, did not exist in a form a COO could actually buy. Forge is that firm.

Columbus, OH

Get in Touch

Start with the number.

A short, scoped diagnostic that quantifies what your unfilled specialized roles are actually costing the business. If the math does not pencil, we will tell you.

Jonathan@ForgeTalentSystems.com

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