How Does Training Affect Your Community?

This is a question we need to ask more often as the goal of training in the 21st century is not the same as it was before. It is time to base training on a clearer picture of your people to ensure it strongly and directly aligns the with your organization’s long-term goals. Thinking about the community as part of your organization comes before job descriptions, competency models, and individual evaluations. The data you want is about your workforce, and your community as a unified audience. With numerous factors affecting how well time and energy put into training will benefit your people, your organization, and your community – it’s time to view training as a tool for shared success.

The Springboard Project

Business Roundtable Group launched The Springboard Project to address the challenges America’s workforce is facing with intensifying competition in an evolving global marketplace that values talent and innovation. You can learn more about the Business Roundtable Group here. Below, we’ll look at their findings and what it means to your personnel development goals.

The Business Roundtable published Getting Ahead — Staying Ahead, Helping America’s Workforce Succeed in the 21st Century in December 2009. With the goal of connecting leaders with hard data about the new American workforce, they presented clear findings about how the world is changing, and why leaders must respond to those changes, sooner rather than later. The question naturally arises from this discussion, ‘Who is today’s American worker?‘ Their answer is provided succinctly as follows,

“As the global economy rapidly transforms, so do the nature of work and our definitions of the “American Worker.” Increasingly, workers can’t be defined by the color of their collars, whether blue, green or white, and the old categories become ever more irrelevant — such as our ever expanding “service sector,” which encompasses everything from a cashier to an accountant.”

“American workers experience high job turnover compared to other nations, holding down an average of 11 different jobs between the ages of 18 and 42.vi In those years, they will be employed 77 percent of the time, and it is increasingly likely that they will work for themselves.vii Some 30 percent of workers today are classified as independently employed. Today’s workers most likely reside in a city or its environs (79 percent), in a home that they own (72 percent). They make an average of $35,381 a year. Ninety-two percent of those over 25 have a high school diploma or equivalency, and 47 percent of American workers hold an associate degree or higher.”

How Do Your Employees and Employers View ‘Training’ Today?

The big picture of knowing who makes up your workforce is step one, the second step is to seek to understand the attitudes held by your people about training, development, and skill-based improvement opportunities. While the idea “any training will work” has faded, it is now time to upgrade this awareness with a clear definition of how and why training will take place in order to connect it to the community in which you live and work. Consider attitudes of people interviewed and surveyed as part of The Springboard Project. Consider these attitudes, and think of your own…

What’s Being Done Today to Raise Employee Education Levels?

If these views seem familiar, you are not alone; organizations are finding ways to bridge the gap between the skills they need and the self-improvement goals of their people. By building relationships with local institutions, organizations are able to synthesize employer-based skills training, higher education, and reduced turnover while building employee loyalty and job satisfaction creating a win for their people, their customers, and their community.  Consider these examples of innovative partnerships with the larger community…

Convergys — Bringing Jobs and Education to Employees
“Convergys created a model that brings both jobs and education to entry-level workers. By combining its home agent program, in which customer service representatives work from home, with its new online accredited college degree program, employees can work and complete a college education in a virtual environment. Qualified applicants who previously were ineligible for on-site jobs as a result of geographic, scheduling or transportation constraints now meet hiring criteria. And, once hired, employees can advance their education through the online degree and certificate program developed in close partnership with Bellevue University. The Bellevue program is targeted to full-time and part-time employees with a high school education or equivalency. Convergys provides tuition reimbursement and works with Bellevue to identify additional financial assistance to minimize out-of-pocket expenses for employees. Providing its workforce with access to quality education not only helps Convergys as its internal talent continues to be a differentiator, but it also provides its employees with transferable skills in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”

The Alliance for Employee Growth and Development, Inc.
“The Alliance is a primary education resource for union represented employees at AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, OFS and the IBEW. Since its inception in 1986, it has provided services to more than 173,000 individuals through over 14.5 million training hours. In the most recent fiscal year, 50 percent of the eligible individuals participated in more than 348,000 hours of Alliance training. The Alliance operates at the national, regional and local level to develop, deliver and evaluate its training programs. Training ranges from basic language and math skills training to high-level technical certifications and degree programs through an array of training delivery options including on-site classrooms, virtual classrooms, hands-on technical training and online self-paced courses.”

The Big Picture

What makes training a powerful part of a great organization is the ability to raise people up! When you connect your organization’s efforts with a broader effort, you move away from an old ‘hiring and firing’ model to one focused on ‘growing and empowering’ your people. With resources such as the Solutions Vault, finding training materials is not the biggest challenge. The place to start is with a serious and focused discussion on the impact low-skilled employees will have on your bottom line if action is not taken to address existing knowledge gaps. The time is now to act to improve your position in the market, by finding ways to improve your employee’s position in life. Together, you will succeed.

Note: Use the links in this article to connect directly with the research PDF.

DARE TO BE GREAT!
Your Solutions Vault Team