by Desiree Schnoor
Many industries are finding a solution to employing more people, and are opening their doors wide to more viable options for new hires. In fact, last year, 50% of people who got hired, don’t have a college degree. This isn’t just talking about jobs not typically requiring a degree. For even advanced manufacturing positions, employers have sought and found other ways of making candidates qualified besides the degrees they hold. Large Fortune 100 companies such as IBM and Lockheed Martin are re-thinking their hiring qualifications by engaging in community college collaborations and apprenticeship and vocational training programs- essentially producing many job ready candidates. Traditional terms like “white” and “blue” collar positions are being replaced with what is known as “new collar”- those positions not requiring the traditional college path and degree, but more practical, vocational training, specific to certain tasks. However, methods like this are slow in coming for many in the manufacturing industry. And for a typical small to medium manufacturing company, expansive, expensive and long-standing training or apprenticeship programs are usually not practical. But what big companies are achieving with a lot of money and a lot of time can be achieved by the rest of us with Video Work Instructions. Video Work Instructions are an affordable way to get many of the same results that large companies do, short-cutting most of the cost, outsourcing and effort. With video, training time is drastically reduced because a video of an expert technician completing a task can be dispersed to all your new hires at once, freeing up your experts to do other things. Now your new hires can perform tasks like experts in a matter of hours, and you can seamlessly cross train on new tasks. Even people with no manufacturing experience can train quickly and effectively with video.
2 Comments
by Desiree Schnoor
In its 37th year, “the training industry’s most trusted source of data on budgets, staffing and programs”, The Training Industry Report offers data from companies over 100 employees. 41% of respondents were midsize companies (1,000 to 9,999 employees) and 61% of those completing the survey were managers or above in the organization. Finally, Manufacturing was well represented (10%) among the industry classifications, third only to Health/Medical Services (17%), and Finance/Banking (11%). While the total training expenditures from 2017 to 2018 decreased 6.4% to $88 billion, “training staff payroll” increased $5 billion, and “spending on outside products and services” increased more than $3 billion. For more specifics about how much all aspects of training are costing U.S businesses, see the accompanying infographic. by Desiree Schnoor
It’s no question that apprenticeships and extended on the job training programs are effective in producing employees who are trained and ready to start working using the skills they’ve acquired. But how much do they cost? How long do they take? How many trainers do we need? Is there a better, faster and more cost-effective way to get employees working on the tasks you need, now? Only 1 out of every 3 Americans has a college degree, yet we spend $180 billion dollars on higher education. That’s a terrible return on investment. Is the answer spending more money? Sadly, more money and time is lost when those who have degrees leave their jobs to get more or different training? There must be a better way to get more people the training they need to get working sooner. Video Work Instructions do just that. Find out how, here. by Desiree Schnoor
A few weeks ago, the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board met to discuss national priorities concerning the intersection between a low unemployment rate, positions that are available but hard to fill, and government and private industries solutions that are re-thinking job classifications and qualifications as a whole. Attendees were private sector managers, state mayors and business CEOs. Two such companies, IBM and Lockheed Martin reported on impressive measures their companies had taken to tackle the issues above. The representative from IBM stressed the adoption of the paradigm shift that there are multiple pathways to good paying jobs and that “skills are as important as a diploma”. IBM noted the number of people in the job pool with traditional 4-year college degrees that are unemployable although they have spent time and money studying a certain discipline, and lack a specific skill or expertise needed in many open positions, or need to be re-skilled part way through their careers. IBM reported that last year 15% of their hires consisted of those with “new collar skills”- not 4-year degrees, and that they’d spent $½ billion re-skilling mid-career employees, such as baristas and veterans, for specific skilled tasks. Last year, Lockheed hired 14,000 new employees, half of which are non-degreed. They have started offering on the job training apprenticeship programs from many of their advanced manufacturing positions. They also team up with community colleges to make apprenticeship programs that make trainees job ready. These two companies, and probably others have had success in bending the traditional methods of hiring and training, in part because of their sizable budgets to do so. But what about smaller companies, ones with the same problems, but that don’t can’t spend billions to make changes? Virtual QE, a quality engineering company has a solution, Video Work Instructions. They allow you to train new hires or cross-train your seasoned workers 10x faster than you currently do, for a fraction of the price IBM and Lockheed are paying. Forget about long, involved, expensive apprenticeship programs when your expert technicians can preserve and duplicate their tribal knowledge an infinite amount of times with Video Work Instructions. To learn more or to find out how much your current way of training is really costing your company, fill out this quick calculator, here. by Desiree Schnoor
Virtual QE continues to make strides to improve the working environment for workers and employers, by making training accessible to employees of differing abilities. Their signature product, Video Work Instructions, may open the door to labor availability for manufactures in even more ways. For example, a new hire who is deaf, can train using a Video Work Instruction, because the combination of video and captioning is more effective than most traditional classroom-like training, which often lack visual aids, or captioned safety films. Speaking of captioning, did you know that any work instruction can have subtitles embedded, in any language? This is another way to instantly open hiring to workers of any language or language preference. Finally, workers of all learning abilities are easily able to understand Video Work Instruction content, in fact, all of our brains prefer to learn with video. The need to hire specialized, skilled workers who understand the technical terms and jargon laden in traditional text instructions, are a thing of the past. by Desiree Schnoor
What if your new hires could perform like your best technicians? Imagine if you could have more of your best people, now. Video Work Instructions are designed to give you an edge in nearly every aspect of your company, from hiring to production to quality scores, and everything in between. Implementing Video Work Instructions can be likened to using a personal trainer; you get accelerated results that you will never want to be without. And like any good workout regimen, the results are seen long after you put the weights back on their racks. In the same way, the impacts of Video Work Instructions can be traced from hiring to training, to cross training, to production, to job satisfaction, to retention, to quality and beyond. What could a personal trainer do for your company? by Desiree Schnoor
Virtual QE’s customers know best the impacts that Video Work Instructions have on their hiring, training, production, quality and retention rates, but what about the impact Virtual QE makes, as a company, on our communities? Shawn Findlater, Virtual QE’s CEO is passionate about giving back. “Our heart is family. We focus on improving quality engineering, and making the manufacturing industry a better place to work. But, we try to keep in mind the employees, the dads and moms who are working for their families, that young millennial, who just started a family, we work to improve not just their work, but their lives.” Just like the benefits of Video Work Instructions have been shown to have a domino-like effect across many aspects of manufacturing companies, it is Virtual QE’s hope that their products and services have a ripple effect that crosses over from work to the rest of life. As a company, Virtual QE gives some of their time and money to organizations that bring hope and support to families across the globe. They understand that a worldwide impact is not just about quality engineering, but an increased quality of life for all. “We are so thankful to our customers, who partner with us, and inspire us to continue to improve and continue to give.” Find out more about the heart of Virtual QE here. by Desiree Schnoor
I bet you’re not surprised that YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world, only Google is searched more often. YouTube gives you instant access to videos about anything, in any language. If the whole world uses video to reduce the learning curve, why not the manufacturing industry? Now, that is changing. Find out how Video Work Instructions allow you to train new hires 10x faster. |
authorDesiree Schnoor holds degrees in psychology and public health. Her interests lie broadly in health and well being. She spends the majority of her efforts and love on her husband and four children. She has used her communication skills in health education and promotion for a large wellness corporation, as well as starting a women's mentoring program. She is utilizing her skill set at Virtual QE to convey the "quality of life" aspects of quality engineering. Archives
May 2019
Categories |