Ground-Zero Training

Tweet

Outside seminars like the one Moore attended can be a terrific way for a small company to train employees; they can also be a complete waste of time and money. The trick is accountability. All too often managers' involvement with the seminar or class process begins and ends with paying the bill. But if you want to maximize the return on your training investment, it pays to have some way of spreading the information learned -- whether through an informal presentation to other staff members or through something more structured. Back in 1989 Ken Plough, CEO of Plough Electric Supply, knew his company, a San Francisco distributor, needed to understand total quality management because customers were demanding it. He also knew Texas A&M University had an industrial distribution program that offered a 40-hour course on quality for distribution executives. So Plough and his managers attended -- a big investment for a company that at the time had 27 employees. To make the investment pay off, the managers used the material they had learned to design an informal in-house quality course for all employees. Since then, Plough says, the increase in his company's profits has far exceeded its training costs.

Have employees give presentations. Sometimes you don't even have to go outside your company for seminars -- particularly if you have a group of professionals on staff with similar skills and interests. That's what president Paul Silvis has found at Restek Corp., a regional Entrepreneur of the Year winner that manufactures gas-chromatography products in Bellefonte, Pa. Silvis has found that a good way to keep his scientists learning is to make staff presentations a part of many of their monthly staff meetings. The presentations cover technical topics, such as changes in the technology Restek uses. It's a cheap and effective way to spread knowledge in the company -- and it also helps Silvis spot chemists who have a knack for presentations. They often end up giving the company's customer-education seminars.

Join forces with other companies. There are times when the need for outside training for a whole group of employees is undeniable, but that doesn't always mean your company has to foot the bill alone. Consider the experience of Unitech Composites Inc., in Hayden Lake, Idaho, which manufactures composite parts, primarily for the aircraft industry. Like most fast-growing small companies, Unitech had lots of managers and supervisors who were new at their jobs and needed training in management skills. The company was interested in a management-training curriculum put out by Zenger-Miller, but the price was steep for a small company. At a Unitech board meeting, one board member, the CEO of another local company, said he, too, had some managers who needed training. Soon the two companies joined forces with the nearby community college and another local organization to split the cost of purchasing the training program four ways. Unitech's managers are so pleased with the savings that they are now talking to other neighboring small companies to see if they can arrange additional group training in areas that are not entirely industry specific, such as shipping and supervisory skills.

Build a career track. Like Unitech, many small companies that become interested in training keep adding new components to their training programs. Over the long haul, this approach can lead to an integrated training program that grows with the company. Nowhere is that clearer than at the Print & Copy Factory. President Ray Tom, who founded the company in 1976, says he started training as soon as he began hiring people. Now the Print & Copy Factory reports $8 million in sales and has 180 employees -- as well as a highly organized training program.

In most companies, operating a copy machine is a dead-end job. But at the Print & Copy Factory, Tom has over the years organized five grade levels of machine operators, with gradually increasing pay and skills in areas like copy-machine maintenance. Upon joining the company, each new employee is told about the different levels and given a checklist detailing the skills required to move up, along with a list of all the training sessions available in the company. Some training is required, but much is optional. Most classes are scheduled as needed; if only one employee needs to learn a skill, it is taught one-on-one. In a number of subjects, the company has run a session once and made a video that subsequent employees can watch to learn.

When employees are ready, they can take the various skills tests, which include a combination of written questions and on-the-job tasks, to move up a level. The result? Since much of the training is sought by motivated employees, rather than forced on all workers, the Print & Copy Factory minimizes wasted resources. This method also allows the company to provide a great deal of training in a flexible manner. The company is so happy with its six-year-old career track for machine operators that it is now creating similar programs for other areas of the company, such as administration and customer service.

2. I want to start an in-house training program, but I'm a businessperson, not an educator. How do I teach? What should the classes be like?
Keep it useful; if you're not sure what employees want to know, ask. The first time the Plumley Cos. taught a short course in rubber technology, the company used a curriculum developed by a university. It bombed. Steve Cherry, Plumley's manager of technical services, remembers looking out at the blank faces of the company's production workers as he was drawing carbon molecules on the board. "They kind of sat here like, 'That's nice -- and when do I get out of here?' " he recalls ruefully. "It just went over their heads." Cherry quickly found out his coworkers needed specific, practical information about the things that affected their jobs, such as, Why does this compound run and this one not run? Today he starts the rubber-technology course by asking employees to write down what they want to know about the products they make -- and he organizes his classes around the most commonly asked questions.

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  NEXT 

Read more:

Sign-up for our Leadership and Managing Newsletter

Email Address: