INDUSTRIAL SKILLS TRAINING: A NEW DIRECTION”

November 19, 2014

Wikipedia defines “training” as follows: “Training is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies.”

Narrowing that definition to Industrial Skills Training we can describe it as a branch of training designed to develop the skills and knowledge required of workers in the process and manufacturing industries.

Working in industry today requires a solid background in learning fundamentals such as safety, work practice, tool use, computer familiarity, mathematics, plus reading and writing. These are all critical elements in any modern industrial training program and particularly for those employees working in electrical maintenance, mechanical maintenance, operations, and instrumentation.

While the number of industrial workers has declined, the United States will continue to rely on manufacturing and process activities for the foreseeable future. However, changes in American business are resulting in an increase in the skills required of our modern industrial workforce.

In 1950, 80% of all jobs in the United States were classified as unskilled. Today, 85% of jobs are classified as skilled, meaning that the importance of effective Industrial Skills Training is more critical than ever before.

Not only is it vital to our nation’s economic health — to be truly effective, the training must be provided in the learning culture of the modern workforce — a workforce that has cultivated many of their learning habits from smartphones, tablets, computers, and television. Much of the information they acquire today comes from what they see and hear rather than from what they read in print.

Smart corporations and organizations are learning to adapt to that new learning culture and are providing their employees with multi-sensory media training that can be successfully delivered via any, and all, delivery devices. That’s where investment reaps rich rewards today.

The training that returns the greatest value to both the workers and their employers is the training that incorporates video, optional full audio, and sophisticated instructional design, all necessary in today’s world in which almost half of our workforce does not successfully comprehend anything written above a 4th grade reading level.

We must recognize that an increasing emphasis on Industrial Skills Training is in our best interest —- but, from a new, and more enlightened, direction!