August 7, 2017
The world we live in today is radically different than where we were not only 50, or 20, but even five years ago. As Bob Dylan said, the times, they are a-changin’. Truly, only a decade ago the first iPhone was released into the world. Can you imagine your life without a smartphone now?
With the commoditization of distribution, anyone can launch a product to the marketplace, and options are more plentiful than ever. New technologies are increasingly becoming integral parts of our daily life. How is one to keep up with it all? Why would we ever strive to? Especially when we operate in an industry whose key ingredient is as old as the Earth itself—trees!
Packaging facilities are geographically dispersed, making it easy to simply focus on opportunities within the local vicinity. But, if we fail to look beyond our backyards, we may miss out on opportunities to increase performance or be caught unprepared when socio-
economic changes take a toll on our bottom line. Even keeping up with the 24-hour news cycle and scanning email headlines doesn’t go far to instruct you on how to utilize industry trends to your advantage. You have to develop a disciplined strategy to stay abreast of change and use it to remain relevant in our innovation-prolific society.
Continuing education is the key to keeping up-to-date with new technologies, best practices, and overall industry trends. Surely, you’ve heard this before. Hopefully, you already engage in some form of training, but perhaps you do not have a formal program in place. A constant rebuttal to the argument for providing continuing education and training is the cost incurred to send employees to seminars and workshops—paying for not only the session itself, but also travel and lodging costs. Not to mention the opportunity cost in the absence of those employees and slowed production. With the fairly high turnover rate common to our industry, you may even wonder if training is worth the investment.
Maybe you’ve heard the old business joke:
CFO asks CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people, and they leave us?”
CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”
Human capital is your company’s most valuable resource. It is critical to train your employees, because it manages performance expectations, and increases productivity and employee retention. As Richard Branson said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
Productivity
Companies often keep careful track of how many candidates they’ve screened, how many made it to the full interview process, and how many were hired. These statistics are interesting, but the most important indicator of business performance is missing: How many truly productive employees have they added? Because metrics surround only the employment status of hiring and firing, the real goal of being 100 percent efficient is overlooked. By measuring productivity, these companies would see that much of the time spent recruiting, hiring, and integrating is going to waste. Even when they are made aware of the lack of productivity among new employees, many CEOs and managers think they don’t have time to invest in training.
Even when they are made aware of the lack of productivity among new employees, many CEOs and managers think they don’t have time to invest in training.
Consider for a moment the scenario of enrolling members of your department in AICC’s Safety Basics online course. Let’s assume an average of three hours per student to complete the course. Say that you have 10 students register—that’s 30 hours of training in total. Next year, those 10 people will work a total of about 20,000 hours for your organization. If the safety training efforts result in a 1 percent decrease in employee downtime, it gains your company the equivalent of 200 hours of productivity. All for 30 training hours.
Performance Expectations
How do you know whether or not an employee is meeting expectations? You clearly outline expectations by training them for the job. By not training your people, you set forth no foundation for performance management. By utilizing training, you ensure expectations are outlined and understood from the start. By using online training, in particular, you are able to craft consistency in learning across all departments.
Retention
Recently, a business owner had one of his most productive press operators, Henry, leave to pursue a managerial position with a competitor. The CEO reached out to Henry, thinking he might have been unhappy, prompting him to leave. As it turned out, he was very happy at the company—he just never thought a similar opportunity existed where he was. By outlining performance goals and setting forth a training track that an employee can complete to enter the pool of candidates qualified for a promotion, you encourage them to reach their goals.
Online Learning Fits Our Modern Lifestyle
Back to the ubiquitous smartphones. They enable us to access information at rapid speed and in short bursts. Think about the last time you wanted to look something up: Did you get out a textbook and skim the table of contents, or did you hop on your smartphone and do a quick search?
Your last encounter with online education may have felt antiquated, but the times, they are a-changin’ in this realm, too. The Packaging School uses a technology platform that is not only accessible on any device, but is also organized in a way that allows for learning in short, easily consumable portions.
Bite Size Is the Right Size
We use a technique called MicroLearning to break difficult topics down into lessons of bite-sized chunks that the learner can engage with on any device. These lessons take the form of infographics, quick readings, videos, animations, discussions, and interactive slides. This delivery method empowers you to complete courses on your schedule and gain essential education. You can rest easy that the content is up-to-date, correct, and meaningful to your work. Short, focused sessions avoid mental burnout and cater to adult learning styles.
Access Anytime, Anywhere
Once you’ve completed a course module, you retain access to it, and it can be used as a performance aid or quick problem-solving tool on the job.
Your last encounter with online education may have felt antiquated, but the times, they are a-changin’ in this realm, too.
So, what does this all mean for you? Thanks to AICC’s partnership with The Packaging School, member companies and all their respective employees now have the value-add of training programs online for free. The Certificate of Packaging Science is a 12-course online program that teaches the materials, processes, and influences shaping the advancement of the packaging industry. This packaging e-learning program provides relevant and comprehensive education on the role packaging plays globally in business and society.
Employees at AICC member companies can take advantage of this membership benefit immediately. As your human resources and training managers are looking at strategic planning initiatives for 2017 and beyond, have them begin by visiting www.aiccbox.org/packagingschool, and start registering all your associates for any online course.
Sara Shumpert is director of The Packaging School. She can be reached at 864-986-3033 or sara@packagingschool.com.
