About three years before retiring a new position came open in our plant. Being a union factory all shop jobs were assigned by seniority whether the person was qualified or not. This job was different. It would not be assigned by seniority, and the union would select the person. The person who got the job would be a contact person for every customer the plant had. This was the person who received information about quality issues for all the products our plant produced and had the responsibility to find out what went wrong and what corrections were needed to ensure it didn't happen again. I became the person selected for the position.
It was quite a change for someone who was used to coming to work every day running machines that manufactured cast iron pulleys. I had an cubicle in the office area and reported directly to the Quality Manager and the Plant Manager. When I went out on the floor with a problem every supervisor knew that they had to work with me to resolve it. I received phone calls from customers all over the world. One day I had a conference call with customers in Scotland and Brazil. When I began my new job our plant quality wasn't very good; when I left it three years later our defect rate was one of the lowest in our company.
To this day I am convinced that one of the primary reasons I was selected for the job was because I was working on my college degree. That didn't make me smarter than anyone else, but it did demonstrate I had the capacity to learn and the ability to relate to others. Having to write papers made it more likely that I could handle the written communication the job demanded. The reduction in our quality issues on my watch demonstrated the union rep made a good choice in selecting me, and the investment in my college education was one that paid off quite well for the company.
Some companies seem to understand the importance of training their team members while others still view them merely as production units. I've heard some argue that they were not going to spend much time training them beyond what they needed to do their job because they would just leave anyway. That may be true, but as Zig Ziglar says, "The only thing worse than training someone and losing them is not training them and keeping them." Providing regular training opportunities often brings dividends to a company they never expected. At the time I began my college education the job I would later get didn't even exist in our company.
Most small businesses would struggle paying for college tuition for their employees, but there are numerous training opportunities for people that are fairly inexpensive. A local community college might offer a course that would be helpful or interesting to some of your team members. There may be a seminar you could take people to. Many offer significant discounts for additional team members to attend making them very affordable. There are many on-line courses that some of your team members may enjoy. Investing in their training makes them more valuable to your company and will often make them less likely to want to leave your company. Many return your commitment to their growth with a greater commitment to you. Making training available to your employees is the smart thing for every business to do.
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