June 1, 2017
Earlier this year, the stock market experienced what I have heard called the “Trump Bump” and topped 21,000. What a great boon for all of us and the returns on our retirement accounts! Yet as remarkable and significant as these returns might be, there’s another investment opportunity that promises even greater gains.
In this column, I am pleased to write about the newest and most significant expansion of your AICC membership value in recent memory: Effective April 1, 2017, and continuing with your membership renewal—what we like to say is your membership investment—all AICC e-learning education and training courses will be included as part of your Association membership and will be available free of charge online to you and your employees (see article, Page 38). In a move to recognize that our industry faces a serious education and training gap, with the number of retirees increasing and the pool of new workers shrinking, your AICC Board of Directors has doubled down on your membership value in order to help you develop a better-trained and educated workforce, and to help your employees realize their full potential in the service they perform for you.
In April, we began the rollout of this, with 18 ready-to-access courses on AICC’s Packaging School site. Online courses such as “Corrugated Basics,” “Flexo Print Basics,” “Job-Shop Time Management,” and “An Understanding of Accounting and Financial Statements” are now ready for immediate download by your employees. The course catalogue is expansive—meaning it covers a number of in-plant disciplines and distinct areas of industry education. “Paperboard Cartons,” for example, is an overview of the folding carton segment of the industry and is ideal for any newcomers in folding carton plants. This particular course is normally priced at $499, but in your new membership benefit package, it is available free of charge. Do you now see why the title of my column makes sense? If you’re a member company paying us at the higher end of our dues scale—$5,000 or more—and only 10 of your employees take the “Paperboard Cartons” course, you’ve received the value of your dues back immediately. The more employees enroll, the more that dividend keeps paying, so much so that depending on your dues scale, you could see a return of 10 times!
I hope you will take advantage of these and all the associated resources that we are providing with this new member benefit. Review our offerings with your management team; craft a message to your employees that your company is a proud member of AICC, and thus they are all eligible to receive the benefits enjoyed by your company.
AICC has delivered significant returns in membership value to hundreds of companies for more than 42 years. In this, our 43rd year, by making our e-learning an automatic part of your membership, your membership investment will grow times 10!
Steve Young
President, AICC
