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Chris Connell / The Hechinger Report
From cable guy to nuclear technician: John Hoffmeister.
LYNCHBURG, Va. — Cable TV installer John Hoffmeister was strapped to a utility pole 30 feet in the air when his cellphone rang with the offer of a better job.
The energy company AREVA was calling to say that it would train Hoffmeister to repair nuclear reactors and at the same time send him to a community college in Lynchburg, Va., for an associate’s degree. He’d draw his full salary while spending 10 weeks a year in two compressed semesters of classes that the company helped devise.
For Hoffmeister, 37 — who had started college after high school but dropped out, and ended up installing home-security systems, delivering pizzas and even working as a cattle hand — it was a perfect second chance.
“When you find out about a program like this where you can kind of turn back the hands of time and get, essentially, a scholarship, it works out amazing,” said Hoffmeister, who received his associate’s degree four years after starting in the program. It also served AREVA by helping fill a glaring need for trained employees that many companies say the nation’s higher-education system isn’t turning out with the skills, and at the speed, they need.
The AREVA collaboration with its hometown community college is an example of an approach that has come to be called “learn and earn,” which the Obama administration and many higher education experts say the country needs to stay competitive: It offers more opportunities for working adults to earn a living, often supported by their employers, while they upgrade skills to take on specific, high-demand jobs.
Instead of just picking up stray credits and classes, older students like Hoffmeister are steered into carefully planned and structured programs that lead to degrees and certificates in particular fields in the shortest time possible.
Hospitals in Cincinnati, Ohio; Louisville, Ky., and elsewhere are providing higher-level training to prospective nurses and technicians they’ve already hired for lower-level jobs. Shipyard trainees in Newport News, Va., and newly minted jet mechanics and machinists in Seattle, too, are earning college credits while starting their careers, preparing them to advance to more sophisticated work.
Some of the biggest companies in America have joined the push to expand opportunities like this for low-income workers in dead-end jobs. Corporate Voices for Working Families, a non-profit business membership organization, has published case studies showcasing some of the best models like AREVA’s.
Business-community college partnerships like these are getting a push from a little-known, $2 billion U.S. Department of Labor initiative to improve career pathways at community colleges and address dismal graduation rates. While it sounds like common sense that everyone entering a community college would be enrolled in targeted, carefully focused programs of study, most students aren’t. They wander in, take a few credits and wander off again — a few because they land new jobs or promotions, but many because their educations were taking too much time or didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere. Meanwhile, an estimated 3.7 million jobs remain vacant because employers say they can’t find applicants with the right skills.
Only half of 62,000 students in community colleges in Washington state, for example, tracked over seven years by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College at Columbia University, passed at least three courses in a single field, and fewer than 30 percent earned certificates or degrees or transferred to four-year institutions.
But for those who found their ways into concentrated programs of study, the success rate approached 50 percent — especially if they did so right off the bat.
“All the data says the same thing: If you know where you’re going, you’re more likely to get there,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
25 percent high school drop-out rate
The Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program is a remnant of the American Graduation Initiative, which President Barack Obama proposed early in his first term as part of efforts to regain by 2020 America’s standing as the country with the highest proportion of college-educated people.
That remains a goal. But it’s a tall order with 25 percent of teenagers dropping out of high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and anemic community-college graduation rates that have helped sink the United States from first to 16th among developed countries in the proportion of its population with college and university degrees.
It’s also why policymakers, educators, employers and foundations are pushing to make community college courses more relevant to available jobs and speed up the journey to degrees and certificates.
Colleges including Central Virginia and Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville dovetail instruction to the needs of older, working students and the requirements of local businesses.
Related: Economic reality marries apprenticeships, college
Norton Healthcare and other hospitals in Louisville are working with Jefferson to fill their ranks of medical lab technicians and therapists’ assistants by sending them to specially designed evening classes at the college that help entry-level hospital workers advance into higher-paid, more demanding positions.
Gail Kuper, a receptionist in a Norton physicians’ practice, jumped at the opportunity and is on her way to becoming a medical assistant with an associate’s degree.
“What a mistake I made not going to college right out of high school, but I got married and had two kids. It just wasn’t in the cards at the time,” said the 43-year-old grandmother. Now she spends 15 hours in classes each week in addition to her day job.
In Cincinnati, a successful hospital-college partnership has propelled Carrie Martin from taking vital signs and administering shots in a clinic into the better-paid position of registered nurse. The Health Careers Collaborative that local hospitals launched with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College has become a national model. Cincinnati State and Jefferson are among 10 colleges that shared a $20 million U.S. Department of Labor grant last year to continue to expand pathways into high-demand medical professions.
It took Martin, who is 37, four years of evening classes, but she earned an associate’s degree and her nurse’s cap in 2010, then went on to get a bachelor’s degree the next year. Now she’s halfway through a master’s program from which she will emerge as a nurse practitioner, making $60,000 to $70,000 a year to start, all while working full time at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Community college 'boot camps'
Some learn and earn programs, like AREVA’s, pay workers’ salaries while they take classes. AREVA enrolls about 24 new technicians each year at Central Virginia, who take math, computer and general education classes while training at the company’s Lynchburg facility or going on the road to maintain or repair nuclear power plants.
Chris Connell / The Hechinger Report
The UPS Worldport is a noisy mammoth of a place, a whirligig of conveyor belts and bins. Lasers guide 1.6 million packages each night into the right bins so they can be trundled back onto the UPS fleet of 130 jets.
In Louisville, some 2,000 students at Jefferson and the University of Louisville are getting their full college tuition paid by working part-time on the midnight shift at UPS Worldport, the package delivery giant’s huge facility at the Louisville International Airport. The college students and other workers unload 130 UPS jets that converge there each evening, feed the packages onto conveyor belts that sort them into the right bins, then load them back again.
UPS was having trouble finding reliable workers for the 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift before it began a $1 billion expansion of Worldport in 1999. Rather than risk losing one of the city’s major employers, the state offered the company tax credits to cover half the cost of employees’ community-college tuition, and a collaboration called Metropolitan College was born.
It’s still an expensive proposition for UPS, but it has produced a dependable, highly productive and stable workforce, said Tom Volta, vice president for human resources. “People aren’t moving packages in the wrong places and sending them off to destinations unknown,” he said. The college students, added personnel manager Steve Oppel, “make the best employees because they have a lot more at stake. They don’t want to jeopardize their job.”
Since Metropolitan College’s inception 12,000 UPS workers have availed themselves of free tuition to earn 3,000 degrees and 4,000 certificates.
Utility companies in Georgia and elsewhere, worried about a looming shortage of line-workers among their aging workforce, have teamed up with community colleges to run “boot camps” that groom students for those critical jobs.
With help from an industry-sponsored organization called the Center for Energy Workforce Development, the utilities and colleges produced a curriculum for an eight-week electrical line-worker training program that combines classroom instruction about working safely with electricity with outdoor practice climbs on utility poles. Students earn 12 college credits and first crack at jobs that pay $14 to $16 an hour.
The five enthusiastic students at the boot camp last summer at Georgia Piedmont Technical College outside Atlanta included a laid-off machinist, a laid-off metalworker, a house painter, an electrician and a yard worker, ages 21 to 31. Corey Willard, the youngest, quit his last job because “I wanted more of a career than cutting people’s grass for $9 an hour.” The oldest, machinist Kenny Minish, said, “I’m a believer. I always wanted to be a lineman and this was the perfect opportunity.”
The Georgia Piedmont program “has been a godsend for us,” said Victor Hurst, vice president of line services for Snapping Shoals Electric Membership Corporation. “We were just failing too often hiring straight off the street.” And, he said, the college classes serve an additional purpose: letting the future line-workers know they need to keep learning.
“The equipment, the technology they have to work with, changes and changes fast. It’s getting hard for us to keep them abreast of the things they need to work on. They are constantly going to class,” said Hurst. “Training is part of what you’ll be doing in this business until the day you say, ‘I’m ready to retire.’”
This article, "Impatient employers step in to educate prospective workers," was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.
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"Earn and Learn" used to be called "OJT" or, on the job training. Before the manipulated idea that everyone must have a college degree, OJT was the way most people learned their jobs. Of course we had much more in the way of manufacturing jobs, customers service jobs, etc.
Nothing new under the sun.......
We need to implement the "apprentice" program. The REAL one, not the BS that that lunatic Trump has on his show.
Students need to realize that earning a degree in History or something really easy, while they got a $200,000 loan debt, is not the way to go. If they are going to get in that much debt, they need to get a math or science degree. SOMETHING THAT WILL EARN THEM MONEY. NOT EVERYBODY WILL BE ABLE TO GET A DO-NOTHING CUSHY JOB IN CONGRESS.
OJT went by the wayside when most manufacturers also went to JIT (Just In Time) production. I know...I worked in plant engineering for CSC curing that time period in the 80's/early 90's. It is also when more and more industries were converting their production lines over to "high-speed" electronic production and the maintenance departments had a real challenge to train their crews to keep up with the knowledge needed to maintain that electronic equipment and the line workers sure had a hard time dealing with it. Management had no real understanding of the problems these conversions were creating and didn't want to spend the money to make sure that their employees were getting the training they needed on this new equipment before installing it.
I was working as a "rent-a-pencil" draftsman at the time I first went to CSC on contract. I had learned electrical CAD design drafting while on contract with OCF, through courses taught at a community college by my supervisor in the electrical design department of OCF. This was in the early 80's when computer aided design drafting was just getting a real start with a huge mainframe/satellite desktop system. I also taught myself most of the other software programs that I now use (Adobe/Quark/CorelDRAW, etc.) that aided me in transitioning into the advertising business in the late 90's when I moved to St. Croix USVI. Even today, at age 68, I'm still learning more each day through my independent study, reading books and online. I do custom machine embroidery, apparel printing, inkjet refilling, confectionaries (chocolates, cookies, cakes, etc.), landscaping, and construction (design and build.) I'm also an OH licensed massage therapist who went back to school for that in '92 at the age of 48. It is not all up to the business owner to do the training. The worker has to WANT to get new training for either his/her current job or a potential new one.
I guess growing up on a farm taught me how to be self-sufficient and survive in this constantly changing world.
I am an IT professional with 3 college degrees. When I first entered the work force, employers routinely provided ongoing training. They stopped and eliminated the budgets (saving money). They tried to get the government to take over (at the tapayer's expense). Most recently they are all about temporary workers filling the need for the moment. Every thing is a contract of x duration. It has not worked well because each business has unique needs. There is no continuity of knowledge relying on short term employees. They then cried that they could not find qualified people.
I continue to invest in myself thru self study and self training.
However, we need to get back to companies investing in people. We are not an expendable commodity like pencils. We are vital to the success of the company.
The military trains a lot of people in advanced fields that with a little training can be used in civilian life, but the military wants riflemen today not electronic specialists. Its too bad that the govt allows people to take out loans in fields when there is little chance of getting a job in it. But imagine the uproar in the soft sciences education departments if we restricted loans in those areas.
Duh!
This is nothing new, OJT. Businesess stopped doing it because it cost, also fear they would train someone and they would leave for better pay.
Pay a decent wage w/benifits and people may not leave. CEOs and Bean Counters don't make product.
Yes and it worked well for many jobs but now all technical jobs require external training and more knowledge. Unions were famous for training people and you had to put in your time before you could get promoted or go a step up but we all know what happened to unions.
OJT is time consuming and not very efficient, I was an OJT'ee and later an OJT'er. Later a business owner needing skilled and trained employees but still found it better to train in house because there were no schools teaching exactly what my employees needed to know. If I could have design my own course outside the business it would have been great.
OJT, union apprentice programs used to be common. Employers need to step up if they want trained employees and help out . Many companies want people that have experience for that specific company- how do you get that anywhere else?
I think is a little better than the old school OJT programs. This offers true text book and in class schooling by a real teacher and then hands on training at your place of employment. I think utilizing both learning techniques can and does allow for a much faster learning curve. I wish more companies offered such a thing.
I think is a little better than the old school OJT programs. This offers true text book and in class schooling by a real teacher and then hands on training at your place of employment. I think utilizing both learning techniques can and does allow for a much faster learning curve. I wish more companies offered such a thing.
I think is a little better than the old school OJT programs. This offers true text book and in class schooling by a real teacher and then hands on training at your place of employment. I think utilizing both learning techniques can and does allow for a much faster learning curve. I wish more companies offered such a thing.
What a concept, corporations actually training employees. A lot of corporations expect the government to subsidize employee training and benefits, yet scream about paying any taxes.
Sorry for the triple post. Don't know why that happened, I didn't click it but one time.
An apprenticeship program, like in European countries, is what is needed. OJT does nothing in way of education for the mind. It is purely for how to perform some tasks but not for learning the ins and outs of a profession which goes beyond on how to "turn a wrench".
Plus, parents, make sure your oh so beloved youngsters learn something in school besides BS and dressing like idiots.
@Evelyn, I understand completely. Here at my company the only software developers they're hiring are temporary contract programmers here from India on H1B visas.
First they RIF'ed a bunch of full-time people, then they filled the resulting open positions with contractors.
IT's OJT, but it's funded by taxes, not the corporations. It's corporate welfare if the trained person stays at the corporation and the corporation really cashes in then. But if the person leaves the corp and goes somewhere else it's not a loss to the first corp since they didn't pay for the training. It's good because a trained person is still there doing what the taxpayers paid them to do. If the trainee takes the money and spends it on things made in the US, then it's a win for the taxpayers too because someone is helping produce a positive econ effect in "our" economy. IF the trainee spends all they earn buying foreign made stuff it's a loser for the taxpayers. The guy is supporting people in another country. We shall see if this helps us, or is just another "throw money at a problem" program. Since this is paid by the taxpayers they ought to require the trainees to go to econ classes (not taught by a globalist) so they know how the multiplier effect of wealth generation works.
Severed HEad: First they RIF'ed a bunch of full-time people, then they filled the resulting open positions with contractors.
When corporate types are interviewed by media, or testify at legislative committees, they swear they don't do this. We need a disgruntled HR person at a Corp to get some smoking gun documents to the right reporter and get this exposed.
It's not that easy. Here's how it works... lay people off based on the notion that their positions are no longer needed. Create a new set of positions with different titles and similar, but different, job descriptions. Bring in contract workers and reap the benefits of not having to pay benefits, vacation, or overhead costs... do so while keeping the management protected and in place.
It's defensible because the old positions were "eliminated" due to (fill-in-blank) and the new positions are "different" because they fill a new need.
On the Government's $2BILLION! Would this be happening if the companies had to foot the bill?
These "employers" will be requested to "train" the thousands of Illegal Immigrants (Aliens) who will be selected at a JOBS FAIR IN MEXICO being promoted by Washington State.
Wait a minute.....
Washington State is also EXPANDING it's Medicare Program, is giving out Driver Licenses to Illegal Aliens (Immigrants), is supporting the Federal Government's request for more Section 8 housing recipients, and is seeking folks who are on Food Stamps or Medicare to apply for a FREE cellphone. Meanwhile, Washington State is drowning in debt as is other States.
Yep, Mr. Obama's AMNESTY program is about to get into full swing.
Ido you, left the I and T out of your name!
The important thing is employers are training Americans for jobs here- not abroad.
Ido
If you don't like Mr. Obama's immigration policies I suggest you write your Republican Congress members and ask them to work on a bipartisan Immigration Bill.
anti-trust proponent
Ditto, Love the moniker, by the way.
If I had my way I would bust up the banks, big box stores, and the conglomerates. I would just go to town on 'em. But I'll never get my way. :-(
david9000: you are right. IT's not easy. But as with all scams eventually the story breaks. It's like a pirate ship. The Capn has to keep the crew satiated with what they want or they get restless, could be a mutiny. So somewhere a corporate officer who knows the story and has documents will have a falling out with his co-conspirators. It's sad for them when cheaters turn on their old Friends who are also cheaters. Somewhere the practice goes on so long they fail to be diligent and documents go into the computer or files that complete the puzzle and a mid manager gets fired, feels betrayed and lets the docs out. Tobacco companies fought over 40 years insisting they didn't make cigarettes addictive through additives. Won every court case for over 40 years. Man what a record. Eventually their own documents proving otherwise got out. They were liars to the core. Same thing will happen with these guys.
David is not right. That is Union Propaganda, foolishness. If a company is going to "lay off" and rehire, they are going to do so, off shore. If a company has to "lay off" then it is either do to fiscal difficulty, either internally or externally driven. Many of the times it is internal, it is do to a build up of union demands over a long time period. (Part of the reason Hostess Brands {NOT ALL OF THE REASON}, was that Hostess Products had to be delivered in separate vehicles (breads on one, cakes on another), a union demand, job security I guess)
But even if he is right, what is the solution, more Government Regulation, saying they can't do that. That is the problem in the first place. TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT REGULATION, When a small company has to hire an individual, just to ensure they are following all the Government Requirements, then I say we have too many requirements. Also, like I said, go to town with the Anti Trust laws, Break up these huge companies, reduce the distance between the owner or CEO (Chief EMPLOYEE Only), get them to a size where they can be more responsive to the workers.
Also, I don't hire Employees, it has a sense or connotation of Entitlement to it. (Like I am entitled to Healthcare, because I am employed here) No, I hire workers, people with the attitude, "I was hired to do a job, just like I hire people to work on my car or on my house. I don't like when they screw me, so I am not going to screw my boss".
Also, nicotine is not addictive, nor do cigarettes cause cancer, to say so is PATENTLY FALSE. I have chewed skoal for over 40 years. When I work in the office, (8 to 10 hour days) I don't chew, no cravings, never have. Every time I go on vacation, I leave it at home, gone a week, 10 days, no cravings, it is only when I get home, into familiar surrounding and old patterns, that the HABIT returns. To say it is addictive would mean I should have withdrawal symptoms if I go without it for more than 24 or 48 hours. And if cigarettes cause cancer, then every one who ever smoked cigarettes will get cancer. No, it is only habitual, and it only increases the risk of cancer. Having said all that, I wish they would at least ban cigarettes, vile disgusting things, stink up a room in 30 seconds and takes three days to clear out. And the stench and sloth of the typical smoker is appalling and repulsive, cannabis is no better.
Quote Joe Scarburough: Republicans need to stop denying science.
So when did it become public educations job to train employees for specific jobs? I am sorry but in the old capitolist days companies did their own training. One more benefit the public is providing for the poor and needy corporate world. I can not find employees but China has the ones we need already trained, then they find out they are to trained and end up stealing all their secrets. You got to love a global community of corporate begars.
Isitreal, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. In the old capitalist days we had strong public vocational education programs that taught people the basics of electronics or tool making etc. which provided a baseline education to people who where then trained on specific jobs by their employers, but they already had the basic knowledge.
Did you even read the article before you began your carping? How do you outsource a lineman's job, or a healthcare workers job to China?
Obviously critical thinking isn't your strong suit, but useless carping is.
Istreal, public education should deliver a educated student which can be trained with a little work, but I agree that with the specialization of work today that its impossible for education to train for specific jobs. Companys seem to want employees trained with experience ready to go to work the next day.
Blah, blah, blah - that's all I hear coming from Istreal. This story gives me some hope that there are still some people in the know out there willing to take a chance on their fellow Americans. I hope this catches on all across America - and soon.
Once again, taxpayers ultimately pay to help corporations. The company needs the employees....let them pay to develop them on THEIR dime, not through tax breaks.
Then there should be little or not tax to companies. This is what Conseratives have been saying all along.
So JW and Phil, you're ok with the un-employment rate just as it is and have no interest in doing ANYTHING to get it lower? I think those such as the two of you like to whine just to be whining.
As a retired educator, I can state that the rate of technological advancement makes many degrees obsolete almost as soon as a student graduates. From 1990-1996, I taught electronic repair. Although I'm an electrical engineer, I spent years as a consultant working on the early internet. The electronic repair jobs evaporated in the mid 1990's. Several 2 & 4 year colleges quickly changed emphasis to IT education. Those jobs were dependent on the software/hardware of their times, and quickly became obsolete. After China was allowed into the WTO, in 2002, all bets were off. I quit teaching and started my own business. As a condition of my subcontractor agreements, each sub was required to maintain a level of technological "moderness". In a world that evolves so rapidly, education has become a once or twice a year requirement, just to keep up.
As my uncle always said, "You are a student from the day you are born until the day you die". He was a technical writer in the Navy during WWII, then for Raytheon before he retired, then did his own research on alternative energy systems and wrote several books on the subject. He still took writing classes in colleges until he was 94 just to keep his mind alert. He died at 96.
He/she who stops learning by choice or any other reason becomes obsolete.
As a former IT contractor, the biggest problem with that is that you're faced with a choice between taking classes and training, or working to pay for those continuing classes and training.Every time I'd finish spending $2,500 for a certification course from Microsoft, Cisco, or Avaya, six months later there would be a new course or certification course. And employers of contract workers always want the latest and greatest training and certs.
Severed Head in a Jar...I fully concur as your example is accurate. In fact some may not know but in the IT field certification/training can be far costlier than your reference. The IT field certification/training can be upwards of $13K per individual. The training is usually one week of intense focused class instruction with certification upon completion. I don't know anyone who has the means to afford such for multiple tpes of IT equipment at a given time. I'll add that many employers refuse to invest in continued training for employees. They hire those whose training is current at the expense of others. The argument that an employee will leave once trained is bogus. I know many companies who require the employee to sign an agreement. The agreement is that if the employee leaves before a given time period they repay the employer for the expense of training. Usually employees don't leave and remain long after the agreed amount of time.
I'll also add that many older workers seem to be those who are being impacted the most. I know many who for decades worked for the same company. The company often paid for their continued certification and training in the past. Workers whose skills have been in the IT field and who are very good at their jobs. I don't know why but in the past seven years smaller business owners suddenly stopped paying for such certification/training. I don't know if the tax code made it costly or the continuously changing IT field resulted in the change. Larger employers seem to have adopted the same logic and no longer invest in certification/training unlike the past.
I also know many companies for the lack of a better term that are cleansing their ranks of older workers not because of benefits or pay. These older workers are not ready or prepared to retire and are using their savings or retirement funds to survive. My fear is if we don't invest in our workers including those who are older we will create the single largest dependancy on government ever. Especially older workers who have depleted their savings and retirement funds. They will turn to the government for help. These older workers happen to belong to the largest demographic group in our nation the baby boomers. I really hope this article means the trend is changing back to investing in the American worker. I know many who want to work much longer and fear their age will work against them. How sad and shame on us.
I'll sleep soundly knowing that the nearby nuclear reactor is being repaired by the finest college dropout and pizza-delivery technician that the company could find.
The nuclear reactor will be repaired by someone who has qualified to be a nuclear reactor repair technician, regardless of what he or she did before they met that qualification. Your sneering comment is uncalled for.
As oppossed to someone with a degree in fine arts or journalism from Obama College. I will take this guy with his Associates Degree and OJT anyday.
Phil and Wilmer are a fine example of what's wrong with this country.
Obama College????? What are you trying to say? Just for your information, Obama's colleges were Occidental, Columbia and Harvard ..... not at bad trio. His degree is in law, not Fine Arts or Journalism ...... but I really don't understand what you have against Fine Arts or Journalism either. It just seems to me that you are cranky and opposed to President Obama and Newsvine gives you a forum for your bitching.
Back in the seventies, I left teaching to go into a four month paid management training program for (then) Michigan Bell. Those were the days when corporations valued their employees, gave raises, paid benefits and worked cooperatively with their unions. They were inclusive, a second family. Their employees took care of them and they took care of their employees. Almost all of the employees working in the Bell System were high school graduates, and were trained on the job. It's amazing how corporations have changed their cultures to be self serving, money hoarding conglomerates where the focus is on money at the top. Continuous learning has been preached for the past thirty years, acknowledging the speed of change in our world, but the corporations backed out of their focus on internal training or of valuing their employees, and have evolved a blind sided attitude toward their most important resources. It's all about money, more money, and then more money. Sad to look around the world and see how far behind we have fallen.
Well said. My current employer makes taking classes in my field a pain (paperwork). I was told to pay for it myself because reimbursement would be difficult.
At our company the training budget is first come, first served. when the money runs out that's it. So if a particular course isn't offered until, say, September, you're pretty much screwed.
where do I sign up?
The key to any real success is finding a position that needs filling. If the world is run by sprocketed widgets, and only green sprockets are being used, then be the supplier of what makes them green.
A certain group of people in the world require really large shoes, and they must be designed for a variety of functions and dress wear. Most of what currently exists are the standard athletic shoes, and they won't do for dressy occasions. The smart cobbler will target this group and specialize in making the really big shoes, and s/he will make a living from it. Find the niche, and fill it.
Smart employers will train their employees to fill their needs. A smart employee will fill the employer's need, but will also be on the lookout for what will boost them up the ladder to more success. The door swings both ways. Whether learning from OJT, apprenticeships or educational classes, the employee and employers are ahead on all fronts.
Obama's and Democrats big plan is to have everyone making 10$/hour or on welfare. They have sent our jobs to China and taken the wealth we had. Agenda 21. The goal is to have everyone equally poor with the elites fat and rich taking Hawaii vacations on your tax dime.
Not at all.
Of course. It's always a liberal conspiracy. Thanks for letting us all know.
Time to dust off the word "apprentice," once again, and, not limit it to persons only 35 and under (Skilled Trades here is looking at you...ignoring the skills of those 36+, of course, I haven't looked into those jobs for awhile, my data may be outdated.). =)
I see the job ads all the time calling for experience impossible to get unless one can get the job in the first place and be trained by an employer. I wonder how the companies in my state, calling out ceaselessly for skilled labor can just sit on their bums and keep complaining rather than doing something about it as more and more $$$ are funneled away from the Public Education System.
Now, if we can get some of the old-fashion Employer Benefits back...
Instead of whining that applicants are not qualified for their specific jobs, this is exactly what business needs to be doing. Such programs will provide business with the qualified workers they need at just about every level and help reduce the huge amount of debt people bring with them entering the workforce for college level degrees that no one in business really values or consider relevant anyway. The explosion of college debt is in part at least caused by the "professionalization" of just about everything.
My father came to this country after WW2. His employer trained him and sent him to Junior college. In exchange, my father worked for the same company for 20 years (until he stared his own business). He never stopped praising his first employer even. As I write this, I have on my desk a pen and pencil holder with the name of my father's first employer printed on the face.
I paid for my own college education, put up with several corporate bankruptcies where I lost my job and after achieving some financial success retired early. After 30 years, I went through 8 employers with no positive feelings about any of them. I have nothing on my desk with the name of any of my employers.
Perhaps the next generation of employers will behave more like my father's generation rather than mine.
This is how companies just to do things and we were a better and stronger country/workforce for it. In the last 20 years or so companies have decided to hire college grads and hold management positions only for those with degrees. Unfortunately the people being hired have no clue how things work within the company or "from the floor to the door" as they say. These elitist college grads also demand higher wages to pay for their college debt. You can't teach some things out of a text book. Get back to the basics. If you have a dependable and reliable employee then train him/her and advance them through the ranks. You will have a better and stronger company for it.
What you are suggesting is that companies invest in employees, gain loyalty and prosper. A very good, positive theory. But, the human aspect screws it up. You invest in an employee and they are offered more money elsewhere because that other company doesn't train their employees, but puts their money into salaries.
Not true. I have been offered better jobs but have been loyal because my company takes care of me.
Employees leave greedy, self centered companies for greener pastures.
Sounds good , but we need more jobs for our unemployed. The jobs that went to India and China need to return. i hope that they will not bring students on visas to lower wages-our congress just wants to enrich the already rich. Our leadership does not even read the bills they pass-how can they improve anything ?
When we had strong unions, we had apprenticeship programs. And every 3 to 4 years there were fully qualified personnel to step into those jobs fully trained. The benefits to the company and the workers were mutual, as the company got lower paid workers for several years while they learned specifically to the job they were working at, and the workers got both trained and incremental wage increases as they learned the job from both schools and veteran workers. It's unfortunate that this country (pushed mainly by the right and big businesses) were in such a rush to destroy unions instead of taking the good parts of it and trying to evolve it into a modern day labor force. Companies are now learning that they threw out the baby with the bath water.
apprenticeship programs are catching on in Washington State. Fake college degrees are not.
OMG! companies finally realizing that people aren't born with the skills companies need.
They've always realized that. They just want those skills to come from someone elses time and dollar, not theirs.
I wonder if part of a companys reluctance to train employees is when after they spend that money for training their competitor will hire away that same employee bringing their skills and knowledge without paying for it.
That is why employers need to have competitive compensation.
When employers invest in training an employee they should have a contract with them for long enough to realize their investment. They have contracts with their managers - why not with the workers?
.It's because every company wants to be that company that hires away the trained worker and gets the "skills and knowledge without paying for it."
I think OTJ training still has a place in today's job market, or should. If a candidate has 80+% of the skills you want, hire them and get them the rest. Some fields are so big/diverse that it's impossible for people looking to enter or switch jobs to acquire every single skill and what's hot while you're in school may be outdated by the time you finish.
Good, this is how it needs to be if the USA is ever going to get back to high level competitveness. There are a lot of motivated people out there who want to work and have a strong desire to be productive. Joint efforts like the ones discussed in this article will help find Americans with the ambition to learn and work. Stuctured programs designed by employers and implemented at community colleges is a win win for the employee and the company.
I'm surprised there are only a couple right-wing crazies posting "that's socialism, not capitalism!" rants about this good report.
OJT and training people is the way it ALWAYS was. This is nothing new. Funny that in the last five years, no matter what Masters degree or other one has in America...we are all considered dumb and employers must go somewhere else to find capable employees. This is all part of a greater agenda to make U.S. citizens poorer and a cheap labor pool. Get used to it and be prepared to find your new career at Wendy's.
My experience has been that the gifted leaders of industry doing the interview have little practical knowledge of the job they are interviewing the applicant for.
As a skilled tradesman, I have long since lost count of the times some kollidge edjoocated twit has told me "anyone can do YOUR job". Wouldn't it be beneficial if management were actually required to have some life experience to bolster that time spent in a classroom ogling co-eds and thinking about the next frat party?
so, in your infinite wisdom, you decide to bag on them for their "kollidge edjoocation" instead of bagging on them for being the a$$ that they really are. In a way, it's like the pot calling the kettle black. and that makes you an a$$ too, don'tya think?
It has been my experience employers were always willing to train people for the job. The problem these days is employers in many cases need to teach employees in remedial subjects like math before they can be trained to do the job.
Well, in the past 15 years most of the companies I've worked for have taken the approach that I can have all the technical training I can pay for myself. Not remedial stuff.
I worked (briefly) for an outfit who not only expected me to pay to maintain my existing certifications, they also expected me to either use vacation time, or unpaid days off to do it.
Needless to say I lasted there about four months.
Well these companies brought in on themselves. You laid off most of the older workforce who knew what they were doing. The companies didn't want to pay them the money they were worth. We are seeing how that worked out.
Spin it anyway you want, but if you want educated workers, then once you get them, you make sure they are taken care of. And those educated workers will make your company money. But as the GOP is all for taking action against the teachers union, which in reality, means they are dumbing down the workforce.
Yep, that is one of the step being taken so we have the Kings and the serfs. And the low informed GOP base don't realize they will also be part of the serf's, not the Kings. And when that day comes, man will they be crying and gnashing their teeth, worse than they do now.
Progressive liberals have destroyed the US education system with labor unions and incompetent teachers. Private companies are going to have to train people themselves. They will not let the trainees go to a school run by union thugs.
How did teachers get into college and graduate if they're so incompetent? It's American culture that has produced a new generation that is coddled and feels entitled. Our education system only demands teacher accountability but not STUDENT ACCOUNTABILITY.
For instance, at a staff meeting this morning we were told a new state law that is now in effect that prohibits a school from suspending a student for "tagging", unless an "intervention" has been conducted before the incident (i.e. they get a warning, no punishment). Teachers unions have nothing to do with that BS, but that's the kind of thing that has become a cancer to education.
Your complaint about unions is only relevant when talking about sustainable state & local economies, not when it comes to how U.S. students suck at academic achievement. Simple answer is KIDS DON'T READ. How is that the fault of a high school teacher like me? You expect all teachers to be miracle workers. When kids have continually asked me the last 8 years: "if I get an A will my grade go up?" Am I supposed to blame their 3rd grade teacher, or whatever for their lack of common sense? Your whining is so simplistic.
Right! What we need is a return to a system of lords and serfs.
Macdeezy....first, almost anyone can get into a college and graduate...it's getting into the top colleges and universities that is difficult. 2nd, "our education system only demands teacher accountability..." Wrong...whenever we try to demand teacher accountability, teachers go on strike, ie. Chicago just last year! Teachers don't want to be held to a standard. With regards to student accountability, I agree 100% with you. Students today are idiots. Now, about the new state law you were talking about...what state are you in? Because I would bet money that any state that passed that law is probably a state where the gov and the legislature are controlled by Dems. Teachers overwhelming support Dems (because Dems pander to the teachers' unions). So, yes, teachers and their unions do have something to do with those BS rules....
what would YOU recommend? time only marches forward. without progress we would still be living in caves or mud huts, wearing leaves and animal skins and eating all our food "al carbon", so don't condemn progress.
What a crazy concept. Private businesses actually training thier own employees to perform thier work. Jesus Martha! What were they waiting for; the government to do it for them? Apprenticeship is not a new concept. It goes back to the middle ages. Some times the private sector blames government for all of it's woes when they are really to blame themselves for not taking the bull by the horns and spending some of thier own money to train workers.
Maybe the private sector too is amoung the 47% that Mitt said was dependent on the government. The private sector needs to stop resting on thier laurels and take care of thier own needs. Show us you can do it without government help. That's the basic premise of the capitolist system that so many in our country say is the best system in the world. Get after it private sector. It's your time to shine.