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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Manufacturing

They are talking about this topic: Needs & Challenges in Continuing Education

 

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The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers are interested in more extensive partnering with MnSCU on incumbent training programs. They are in need of training and certificate programs that are customized, on-site, and flexible. Ideally, this type of training could be offered without interrupting the production process.

Employer Quote Region
"Question: You're talking about taking your assembly workers and then putting them into welding positions. So, if you could put some of them in a class that is already offered, wouldn't you do that?

Employer 1: Yeah, I'd rather have a professional educator do that than have us do that."		 Southeast
"Proximity is probably an issue. Training programs are primarily in the Twin Cities area." Southeast
"I think it's a very important strategic position to take the workers that we have, enhance their skills, and make sure that we can draw that connection into the bottom line of the business. So, how do we increase the efficiency of the work groups? How do we increase the knowledge? How do we create self-directed work groups who can leverage the data and the processes that we provide them in order to make it better? I think there's a significant need for that kind of focused training. I don't mean to be cynical, but having a work group getting a two-year degree with geography and geology being some of the courses might be good for self-development, but I have a hard time linking that to the bottom line of how do increase productivity? How do you improve safety? How do you decrease your defects? So, having some very specific training on worker-based tools, I think, is really critical. I don't see many of those types of classes being offered yet, even though that's a 20-year-old strategy." Southeast
"I think flexibility is key. At our company, we have two levels. One's an operator level, and the other is technician. The operators are a lot easier to find—easier to come in at the entry-level. A lot of them are high school graduates, but for them to make that next step requires some additional education. Some are just not excited to take classes. We offer continuing education. The hours don't match up perfectly. It's a hindrance for the times programs are offered. If we're trying to make it incredibly easy to do the program around industrial maintenance, it would be about a three-hour program. You can take one as you wish; so, you wouldn't have to be a full-time student. You wouldn't have to commit to a certificate program. You can go in and out. There's flexibility." Southeast
"Employer 1: I think MnSCU probably looks a lot like it did when we went to school, and I really think it needs to transform itself to be a little more nimble around this stuff, to be a little more flexible. There are some barriers. There's some bureaucracy that people have to work through. These customized training units, I think, they try to be very flexible, but you still run into prerequisites or, 'Gosh, we only offer these classes here, and this is what we do.' Or, 'This instructor can't do that.' And we've got to work with this union group to try to do this. MnSCU, I think, really needs to look inward to see what they can do to be a little more accommodating and flexible to meet the needs of the employers here.

Question: Could you be specific? In terms of your company, what might be helpful?

Employer 1: Yeah. We are a three-shift operation. We might need to deliver classes, and we've done that. We've partnered with [MnSCU college] and they've offered classes on-site. And we now have a small campus in a city that's very near. But we all have different hours and so on. Maybe online might be the way that we go with some of this. You'll probably always run into the issue of how many students would you have in that program? Three? Five? Maybe six? You may need 18 students to run a program efficiently. But employers still need those people—just because there aren't 20 students to fill the class—employers still have the need to have those five or six trained."		 Southeast
"Employer 1: We have a group in our plant that maybe dramatizes that situation when we talk about flexibility. This group is not going on, at least in our plant, to post-secondary education. They've kind of stopped. They're raising families. I don't know what outreach we've done. I think, for us, it's a huge opportunity that we haven't been able to crack.

Question: So, what would be helpful to you? What do you need to do that?

Employer 1: I go back to that flexibility. I don't know the answer—except that I know that after a day of work, after a 12-hour shift—that they're not ready to sit in a classroom for three hours. It might be partly our issue because they're working 12-hour shifts. But there's an opportunity there. At least for many people in this community that might have some other bearings. I don't know if language issues, cultural issues, or other things are preventing them from going into technical colleges.

Question: Is that something you can do entirely—I mean partly with a local institution to figure out a way to build it...

Employer 1: Well, we have. Because there's not an easy entry point from outside into our organization, most of the training we do is on-the-job. We've partnered with [MnSCU college] to come in, but the threshold there is having 12, 18, or 24 people. That's 25 percent of our workforce, so we can't do that."		 Southeast
"Employer 1: It is critical. It is absolutely critical. But companies have to realize that those programs are not necessarily going to give you bottom line return-on-investment numbers that you can crank out. And if a company is paying for customized training, what I see a lot of times, is that they're focused on getting that return-on-investment. So, that's a challenge at times. The other thing we run into is robotics and things like that, absolute CNC training, all those kinds of things. We can do that on a customized basis, but what we run into a lot of times is that this company has different software and a different brand of machine than this other company. So, we really need to find a way to reach enough companies to make a critical mass to make that training work.

And sometimes, you get a roomful of manufacturers, and none of them agree on an area. I spent 25 years in manufacturing, so I know what it's like. You get an area that they agree on, but when you start getting down to specifics, it needs to get more and more customized because every company is different, and everybody's got different equipment and needs.

Question: Why do you need a critical mass?

Employer 1: You need enough people because, otherwise, it is very costly to bring that program in-house for just three employees at a company. So, maybe it's a combination of using some online training for the instructional piece, and then having a hands-on lab type thing."		 Southeast