December Contents:

1. Featured Article: Training is not an Expense. It's an Investment! by Rich Wolin
2. Thank you to event attendees!
3. In the News: Capical coming to TC, What to watch in 2020, Lean at Moeller
4. On the Web: All about 2020: tips for small manufacturers, optimizing supply chain and sustainability
5. Manufacture Smarter Blog: Catch up on missed posts from December
6. Upcoming Events: LLC and training
7. The Ron Jolly Show featuring TC Guitar Company

Featured Article:


Training is an not an Expense. It's an Investment!

By Rich Wolin, Regional Vice President

Happy 2020!

The new year begins with a level of optimism that outweighs the worry.  It is a time of restarts, resolutions, and renewal of our route. Also this year, 2020, happens to align with the metaphor about 20-20 vision (clear sight) which we would all like in our eyes as well as our business planning.

As a fellow organizational leader, I would like you to consider the long-standing concept that, like any investment, you have to plant seeds today in order to reap the harvest tomorrow. The farmer does not look at the seed as a nonessential expense but rather a necessary investment which, when nurtured, will return much more than its current state.

Employee development is the investment seed of organizational productivity. Knowledge and skill are the investments in people that allow them to be more productive, more efficient, and more valuable. To any organization, this means higher quality, quicker turnaround, less waste, and lower cost. Lifelong employee development is the reason the U.S. is still in the top five nations in productivity all of which invest heavily in knowledge and skills.

This year dire predictions about the looming retirement cliff of baby boomers, the evitable economic cycles, and unfair foreign competition are not going to resolve themselves. Change will continue to come and the only way to win is to have a better educated, more committed workforce.

Recently the northern Michigan office of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center ran a series of free workshops to help organizations think strategically about aligning and planning employee development. The desired outcomes were the following:

Increase Readiness

•      Address skills gaps

•      Develop bench strength and maturity

Improve Succession Planning and Reduce Attrition

•      Identify people for promotion and career progression

•      Address an aging workforce

•      Document unwritten information and procedures

•      Improve employee retention and engagement

Develop a Continuous Improvement Culture

•      Improve safety

•      Raise quality

•      Lower cost

•      Achieve predictable schedules

The intended point was to help organizations improve and sustain their competitive position by aligning and developing their staff. If you need proof of the positive impact that training and development has on your organization and staff, you can find a mountain of data from innumerable studies on the internet. If you search, get ready to be overwhelmed with data about improving profitability, sustainability, and flexibility.

For example:

·         Companies that put a priority on employee development make an average revenue of $169,100 per employee while companies that don’t make an average of $82,800.

·         Association for Talent Development (ATD): Companies that offer comprehensive training programs have 218 percent higher income per employee than companies without formalized training.

·         National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce: Increases in workforce education level were far more effective at increasing productivity than increases in the value of equipment (a 10 percent increase in both produced a productivity gain of 8.6 percent for education versus a mere 3.4 percent increase for upgraded equipment).

·         A national survey of over 400 employees spanning three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials): 70 percent of the respondents indicated that job-related training and development opportunities influenced their decision to stay at their job. Millennials had the most significant results, with 87 percent of them citing access to professional development or career growth opportunities as being very important to their decision of whether to stay or go.

·         In a recent Dale Carnegie survey, companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202 percent.

·         Training and development opportunities fall in the top three characteristics cited by millennials as things they look for in a desirable employer.

On the other hand, just for kicks, I googled “negative organizational effects of training and development” and literally found nothing. Almost all the sightings ended up with a double negative such as “the negative effects of not doing training.”

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

So, despite mediocre economic forecasts, politics at the state and federal levels, and foreign competition, remember to continue to invest in the future by making professional development a priority in 2020 so your organization can attract the best talent, be innovative, and stay strong enough to weather whatever storm the future has to throw at you. 

Thank you to those of you who attended one of our events in Cadilac, Grayling, Petoskey, and Traverse City, on creating your company's 2020 professional development plan! We appreciate the opportunity to help companies and their employees benefit from all the advantages training can provide!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

12/27/2019 - THE CENTER
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. Read More
 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

12/20/2019 - THE CENTER
Wishing you Happy Holidays! Read More
 

A CLOSER LOOK: CURRENT STATE OF CYBERSECURITY IN THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY

12/13/2019 - BY: JEFF WILLIAMS
Over the past decade, cyber threats have grown exponentially more sophisticated and frequent, with trillions of dollars lost each year due to cyber-attacks. This threat is especially prevalent for those in the defense industry, as suppliers at all levels are being targeted. Read More
 

QUALITY DOCUMENT CONTROL - WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?

12/6/2019 - BY: ANDY NICHOLS
Former versions of ISO 9001 detailed the need for a Quality Manual, documented procedures and, at the process-control level, work instructions. These types of documents are no longer prescribed by the international standard.  However, once an organization has determined specific documentation is useful, that documentation must still be controlled to an extent.  Read More