School's In
Jun 9, 2014, 09:10 AM
September/October 2000
Continuing education and training is vital for staying competitive in today’s ever-changing business world.
By Robert L. Reid
Robert L. Reid is managing editor of Scrap.
Remember the old Alice Cooper song in which he pronounced, “School’s out forever”?
Well, the opposite is true in today’s business world.
School—in the way of continuing education and training for employees—is always in.
Forward-thinking scrap companies recognize that their long-term success—even their survival—depends on having a smarter, more skilled work force. As a result, scrap industry employees are part of the estimated 90 million adults in the United States—46 percent of all adults—who are currently involved in some sort of continuing education and training, according to figures from the U.S Department of Education.
These efforts range from highly focused, job-specific certification programs to basic business courses, general computer training, general educational development (GED) classes that substitute for a high school diploma, instruction in English as a second language, and even workplace “quality of life” programs on stress management or retirement planning.
Such courses can be held in a variety of places—on-site, off-site, even out of town—and they’ve never been more popular. Six times as many students participated in such adult education programs last year as enrolled in more traditional higher education courses at U.S. colleges and universities, the Department of Education notes.
In the scrap industry, “continuing education is absolutely critical,” says Jim Lawrence, plant manager of ELG Metals Inc. (McKeesport, Pa.), who has taught ReMA training seminars for nearly 10 years.
Ongoing education and training is essential, he notes, in such specialized areas as scrap processing and handling equipment. “A shredder is so complex, with so many potential operating problems, that people want to know more and more and more,” Lawrence explains.
Then there’s line management. “Foremen usually start as a truck driver, sorter, torch cutter—someone who shows some ability and moves out of the laborer rank to the foreman’s job,” he says.“But they don’t have any training in time management, or leadership, or how to work with their employees.”
And don’t forget scrap specifications. “In specialty steels, we used to just worry about nickel and chrome,” Lawrence points out. “Today, we worry about nickel, chrome, moly, copper, sulfur, carbon—all of which have a direct impact on the quality of the material we ship our customers.”
Jeff Wilke, corporate director of safety at OmniSource Corp. (Fort Wayne, Ind.), agrees that there’s a lot for scrap plant employees to know these days—and that continuing education and training is vital to running a modern scrap facility. “Our guys in maintenance know their job very well, but in the scrap industry you need people to be masters of everything,” says Wilke. “You don’t have the luxury of having people who can just work on hydraulics or weld all day or just work electrical.”
Nor can managers get by these days just by managing—at least not at Grossman Iron & Steel Co. (St. Louis). All Grossman managers are required to take the company’s equipment training programs, notes Harry Garber, plant manager. “They don’t have to be proficient in production,” he says, “but they should know how to operate all the machinery, how to get in and out safely, move a piece of equipment, and operate it in an emergency.”
Safety First and Foremost
Garber’s reference to safety is telling. Ask most scrap executives about continuing education and training and, chances are, the first thing they’ll mention is safety. Often, the person in charge of safety also wears the hat for continuing education and training. And even if the word “safety” isn’t part of that person’s title, it’s definitely tops in his or her thoughts.
“Operator training is intertwined with safety training” at Grossman Iron & Steel, says Garber. “It’s all combined—the whole plant revolves around safe production.”
Likewise, Rosie Neisz, director of safety and loss control for Schnitzer Steel Group (Portland, Ore.), says her company often integrates other forms of training with the safety department’s programs “because people associate training with safety.”
Another key reason for safety’s preeminent part in continuing education and training is the need to constantly reinforce the safety message, notes Mike Mattia, ISRI’s director of risk management. Just teaching a safety lesson once and then moving on is like “learning algebra in high school,” he says. “You learned it—but six years later, could you use it if you had to? If you didn’t reinforce it and use it continually, it has come and gone.”
Keep It Practical
Mattia also stresses the need for a practical, hands-on approach to any continuing education and training, especially safety training. If you’re teaching lockout/tagout procedures, for instance, “don’t bring them into the classroom to talk about what’s happening at the machinery—do it at the machinery,” he suggests. Do the training “in the environment where they’re going to need the information.”
When ReMA started offering its hydraulics maintenance seminar, Mattia notes, most of the course took place in a hotel. But that proved impractical because starting a piece of machinery inside posed problems with smoke and dripping hydraulic oil. Besides, Mattia jokes, “most of these guys aren’t going to work on a hydraulic motor in a carpeted ballroom.” So over time, the program evolved into one that begins with a short introduction to hydraulics principles and then swiftly shifts to more hands-on learning—first at, say, a baler manufacturer where attendees can see how the equipment is manufactured and how the various parts work together, then at a local scrap plant with hydraulic equipment such as cranes available for the attendees to study and try out.
“People could come up to the crane, touch, take this part off, look at it—because that’s going to be their job,” Mattia says. “The only people who should spend all their time learning in a classroom are teachers because that’s their work environment.”
Though there are plenty of “canned” training programs available for general maintenance principles or commonly used equipment like cranes, companies like OmniSource and Grossman Iron & Steel prefer to develop their own programs.
OmniSource, for instance, has worked with local technical schools to develop customized training because “a lot of books [from canned programs] really don’t apply to our industry,” Wilke says. So in its crane training, OmniSource includes photos of its own equipment for the classroom portion. Trainees appreciate that “because it’s site-specific,” he explains. “They see the crane they’re working on, or the machine they’re loading. It keeps their attention and makes them want to learn more.”
Likewise, Grossman Iron & Steel culled information from various sources—equipment manufacturers, other textbooks—to create its own training materials, notes Garber.
Location, Timing, and Convenience
While the hands-on part of continuing education and training programs should take place in the actual work setting, opinions vary over how closely the classroom portion should mimic a real classroom.
Many adults have an aversion to “education” because it reminds them too much of previous bad experiences in school, Mattia says. So putting that sort of employee in a mock classroom “can make them feel threatened or anxious.” One supporter of the classroom approach, however, is Grossman Iron & Steel, which took a lunchroom trailer and “tried to make it as real to the classroom experience as possible to have credibility,” notes Garber.
The company even calls its continuing education program GISCO University and describes its training materials as “textbooks,” posts course schedules, and expects trainees to do an adult version of homework (such as reading material outside of class). Ultimately, GISCO University students must pass tests to achieve certification after completing a set number of training hours for specific positions—such as 40 hours to operate a yard tractor or 80 hours to operate a crawler crane.
Many scrap companies offer training either before or after an employee’s shift (with overtime pay, of course), but others include the training as part of the regular workday. OmniSource, for one, sends trainees to continuing education and training classes during their normal working hours. That way, Wilke says, the employee knows that the firm is serious enough about the training to pull them away from production.
And while supervisors and executives may balk at letting employees substitute training for their “real” work, the time commitment doesn’t have to be great, Mattia notes. A half-hour class once a week or even a few minutes a day on a single topic is often enough, he says. In fact, the shorter the lesson, the better.
“It’s more important to do five or 10 minutes of training a day than a full hour once a month,” he says, “because you’ll cram too much information into that hour and people won’t pay attention.”
Mattia also advises making the course as convenient for employees as possible. Holding it on-site is best. If the course must be taught at a local community college or other off-site location, try to offer at least the first class or classes at your facility so that employees will make that initial commitment to the course before they have to start fighting traffic, parking, and other obstacles that could discourage them from attending.
Small Groups, Far Reaches
Once a training class begins, notes Jim Lawrence, don’t just leave the trainees in one big group. Instead, break them into smaller groups to promote participation and interaction. “When you’re sitting there with 50 or 60 other participants, it can be intimidating,” he says. “Many people don’t want to open up, ask a question, or make a statement because they’re shy about that. But when you do breakout sessions and you have a group of seven or eight, then you get them interacting as buddies, and it really opens things up.”
At OmniSource, a classroom and hands-on crane training program holds class sizes to only six or seven operators at a time, Wilke notes. “We could stick 30 people in the crane class and slowly roll them through the hands-on portion,” he says. “But this way we get done in about two and a half days—they see the visuals and work in the workbook [in the classroom], and a day later they’re out there, working hands-on with the cranes, and that helps them retain the information.”
Though that program predated OmniSource’s recent move to use only Caterpillar Inc. cranes and loaders, it will become a key part of preparing workers for the new equipment, Wilke notes. As such, both new crane operators and those with decades of experience are going through the classes together, which produces “a good mix that generates a lot of discussion,” he notes, “especially when the younger guys pay attention to the stories from the veterans.”
There’s a similar benefit to be gained from sending your employees to seminars or courses where they can intermingle with individuals from other scrap firms around the country, notes Bob Toth, human resources manager for Annaco Inc. (Akron, Ohio).
In addition to learning through the course itself, “you meet people who are in your same industry, talk about how they do things, learn how the other half lives,” Toth says. “If you just stay home in your own little corner and always do things the way you’ve always done them, you won’t learn anything. But at the seminar you can hear that ‘On the West Coast, we sort our aluminum like this,’ or ‘We don’t do it like that in New York.’”
As part of its continuing education efforts, Annaco even sends both hourly and supervisory employees to tour customer and supplier sites, such as foundries, auto manufacturing facilities, even other scrap companies so they can learn where the product comes from and what happens to it after it’s shipped out, Toth notes.
Learning for Life
While much continuing education and training is aimed at improving the work skills and knowledge of scrap employees, some courses are offered to simply improve their lives.
OmniSource, for instance, requires employees who aren’t proficient in English to take English as a second language classes on company time and even hired a full-time liaison to help interpret for the company’s Spanish-speaking workers. Among her duties, the liaison interprets during various training courses and helps explain instructions from supervisors and the responses from line workers, says Ben Eisbart, OmniSource’s vice president of administration/human resources.
In addition, companies like OmniSource and Annaco have offered courses on different “quality of life” issues, such as retirement planning, stress and anger management, balancing a checkbook, or dealing with family crises. Annaco even brought in a consultant who was good at encouraging hourly workers to attend such courses, which were offered on company time and aimed at combating a growing sense of burnout in the work force, notes Toth.
Some companies encourage employees to join professional organizations, earn a high school equivalency degree, or take courses in accounting, computers, or general business skills at a local college—often with full tuition reimbursed for employees who earn a high grade or partially reimbursed for lower scores.
And while taking continuing education and training courses can reap personal gains, there can also be a financial reward. Schnitzer Steel Group, for instance, normally gives employees who complete their GED a $50 gift certificate, says Rosie Neisz, “because we think it’s really quite an accomplishment for someone to go back to school.”
Likewise, OmniSource is developing a bonus system to encourage participation in its upcoming maintenance program, while at Annaco maintenance mechanics know that “the more knowledge they can absorb, the further up the ladder they’ll go, and the more money they’ll earn,” explains Toth.
Even Annaco supervisors can expect to be evaluated on how much training they take in a given year, he adds.
Obstacles and Expenses
Of course, one great barrier to continuing education and training is the cost of attending a given course or seminar.
Employees are “thirsty for knowledge,” notes Jim Lawrence, “but one of the biggest obstacles is getting the owners of companies to allow them to come, to spend the money to get them to the seminars.” And when someone is allowed to travel for educational or networking events, it’s too often just the buyers and traders or top management, he says. What’s needed are more programs for the operating people, especially foremen who moved up the ranks, he suggests.
Unfortunately, Mike Mattia notes, training that involves travel is not only expensive, it’s also seen as a perk—so line workers often won’t be sent if the seminar is being held in a destination city such as San Francisco. Moreover, even if a supervisor of, say, 10 hydraulics employees is sent on behalf of the whole team, there’s no guarantee that the supervisor has any training skills to then share the information learned, Mattia says.
That’s why he and others advocate bringing outside training directly to the work site through distance learning tools such as CD-ROMs or Internet broadcasts, as well as on-site seminars. Companies can spend a couple of thousand dollars to send one or two people to an off-site seminar, Mattia notes, assuming the date and location are convenient. Or, he adds, for probably the same amount of money, they can train their entire work force, in their own workplace, and on their own schedule. (As part of ISRI’s training programs, Mattia has conducted on-site seminars in topics such as visual identification of radioactive sources, the psychology of safety/training the safety trainer, and surviving an OSHA inspection. For more information, see the Editor’s Note at the end of this article.)
Measuring Success
Finally, once a continuing education and training course is completed, how do scrap companies measure the program’s success?
For many, the most important measurement is found in those signs that read: “This site has gone 365 days [or longer] without a lost-time injury or accident.” Safety, again, is the first aim of much continuing education and training. That’s why Harry Garber will go over all the answers for a training test as many times as it takes—before the trainees take the test—to be sure they know and understand the material. It’s the knowledge and understanding that’s most important, not simply passing the exam.
There are other less-tangible results as well. A trainee “may not come back and say, ‘Gee, I’ve learned everything I need to know about this or that,’” notes Annaco’s Toth. “But a month down the road, he’ll be sorting a piece of material or buying a load of metal, and he’ll remember something from the training class that could turn that particular load into a big moneymaker where it could have been a loser.”
Likewise, OmniSource’s crane training program has helped operators take greater pride in their work, notes Wilke. Thus, the company is seeing less damage to equipment, which should eventually reduce maintenance costs and enable the equipment to run longer and better as well as have greater value when it’s traded in.
Plus, employees who have the opportunity to grow are more likely to remain happy on the job, says Eisbart, who credits OmniSource’s commitment to continuing education and training with helping to keep its turnover rate below 2 percent.
Nothing guarantees that people will stay, of course. And OmniSource, like any other company today, can’t guarantee employment for life.
“But if you participate in these training programs,” Eisbart stresses, “we can guarantee that you’ll be employable.”
So who knows what new kinds of metallurgy or scrap processing techniques are out there to be learned? asks Toth, who adds that you can’t stay competitive if you don’t keep your eyes open to learning new things.
“And with the speed of business today,” he concludes, “there are only two types of companies—competitive and closed.” •
Editor’s Note: ReMA offers the most comprehensive selection of education and training programs designed specifically for scrap recycling personnel. For a list of upcoming ReMA and other programs, see “Meetings” on pages 121-125. Also, Mike Mattia, ISRI’s director of risk management, is available for on-site training seminars on a variety of topics, including the visual identification of radioactive materials and the psychology of safety. For more information, contact Mattia at 202/662-8515. In addition, ISRI’s Web site at www.isri.org provides up-to-date information and registration forms for the association’s education and training offerings.
Continuing education and training is vital for staying competitive in today’s ever-changing business world.