TRAIN YOUR OWN BETTER

“Finding skilled and trained workers is almost impossible,” says (Darlene) Miller, president and CEO of the Burnsville, Minn., custom manufacturer of precision parts. “I used employment agencies. Our people used Craigslist, the workforce centers, state boards, college boards, technical schools, every concept you can think of, and still [we] could not find that trained person,” she says.

 “And the more advanced technology we get into, the tougher and tougher it is.”

 Toyota’s Dennis Dio Parker shares similar concerns.  .  .  .
 The dilemma facing Miller and Parker will come as no surprise to most manufacturers in the United States. Alarmed conversations about a skilled worker shortage in manufacturing are commonplace — particularly a shortage of skilled production jobs  .  .  .
 Not all manufacturers are merely sounding the alarm, however. Some — and perhaps a growing number — are like Permac Industries and Toyota (IW 1000/5). These two manufacturers, as well as steel giant ArcelorMittal (IW 1000/40), machine tool maker MAG IAS and others, have stepped off the sidelines and into actively participating in the development and training of the skilled production workers they need to remain competitive. To be sure, they are not doing it alone. Instead they are engaging partners like community colleges, manufacturing organizations, training providers and government resources.  .  .  .  (IndustryWeek, “Training the Manufacturing Workforce: Don’t Go It Alone,” by Jill Jusko)

Clearly, today many corporations are either developing for themselves or, looking for help from a community college or training provider, when addressing their specific training needs.

If you choose the latter route, you need to choose a training vendor that will listen, be able to understand what you want to achieve, and then work with your organization in order to design and/or implement a training program that will meet your objectives.

Remember, the key to any successful training initiative is to make it an integral part of your organization’s business objectives.  Successful companies map out a training plan that coordinates training with their corporate goals.  This kind of up-front planning helps ensure that your investment in training will deliver measurable results.

It is, also, critical to focus training where it will have the greatest effect on performance.  Using needs assessment and task analysis techniques, you can identify the greatest opportunities to improve performance through training.

Today, rich on-line skills assessment tests are readily available which will help you specifically target the “learning gaps,” making it possible to eliminate much of the waste in traditional training regimen.  By specifically targeting time-spent-in-classroom, much labor cost waste can be eliminated.

But, in order to be successful, a training plan must become a solution that can be implemented within the existing structures of your organization.  From broad decisions, such as curriculum design or the integration of new technology, to details such as staffing, scheduling and equipping the learning environment, you need to transform the training plan into a smoothly functioning reality.

The bottom line is that you may have to design a training system from the ground up — or, you may have to come up with the necessary expertise to make your existing system more effective.

Working with a proven training provider can help you reach your desired solution.

More on Monday  –  –  –

 

       — Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning

      February 21, 2018

      www.itclearning.com/blog/  (Mondays & Wednesdays)

  “THE WORLD RELIES ON THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

 (This is a personal blog.  Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner, jhbillwalton@gmail.com, an independent consultant.  They do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity.)