SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET : PART ONE: GETTING AHEAD : Sharpening Your Edge : In-House Training Programs Help Employees and Companies Succeed

How can American companies compete with the Japanese? How can productivity be raised? How can employees work smarter?

“In the early ‘80s, the answer was widely thought to be technology,” said Jack Gordon, editor of Training magazine. But he added that “training has gotten much hotter as an answer to all sorts of questions.”

Indeed, from the assembly line floor to the executive suite, job training is playing an ever-larger role as corporate environments change and workers seek to stay up to date and to get ahead.

Corporate restructuring, growing numbers of competitors and a slower-growing work force are forcing executives to do more with smaller staffs. On the factory floor, employees have to deal with new technology, take on more responsibility and grapple with a new workplace philosophy that emphasizes teamwork.

“Training is a way you begin to fix these problems,” said Audian Dunham, president of Wilson Learning Corp., a job training consulting firm in Minneapolis. “It always comes back to: ‘How can we make sure that we are getting out as much of the potential from our employees as possible?’

“You can easily get financial capital,” said Dunham. “What you can’t get is human capital. It’s becoming more scarce.”

American corporations spend about $30 billion a year on job training. A 1985 study found that 6 out of 10 employers had begun training programs in the previous two years, according to the American Society for Training and Development, an industry group based in Alexandria, Va.

In fact, demand for job training in the United States and abroad is expected to rise into the next decade, executives say. By the year 2000, 75% of all currently employed people will need to be retrained, the American Society for Training and Development reports.

The term “job training” has come to mean everything from orientation for new hires to development of management talent to the teaching of basic reading and math skills.

“The big need for learning is not so much that we are going to have to learn to run new machines,” said Gordon, the magazine editor. “It has more to do with learning problem solving, creative thinking skills, decision-making skills, team-building skills.”

The automated factory and office have created a demand for computer-savvy workers. In Southern California, Manpower Temporary Services uses a computer tutorial to train about 60 people a week.

“We found we could not recruit these people (with computer skills),” said Lois T. Bartell, the Los Angeles area manager for Manpower. She said a typist who learns word processing can expect to make $1 to $2 an hour more. “So we had to train them (so that) we can fill our orders and meet our customer demand.”

Kendis Wilbourne, 30, took a Manpower tutorial this summer to learn word processing. “You make yourself more marketable,” she said. “You also update your skills and you don’t get bored by knowing only one specific” word-processing method.

Meanwhile, companies face a growing need for teaching basic skills. “If you have a smaller labor force to pick from, you have to dig deeper into the labor force,” Gordon said. “You are talking about people who may not be able to read or write or figure as well as you need them to.”

The labor situation may not improve in the near future. Growth of the nation’s work force will slow, according to the Labor Department. The labor pool grew about 35% between 1972 and 1986, but it is expected to expand only another 18% by the year 2000.

A shortage of qualified workers prompted General Dynamics’ Convair division in San Diego to turn to a federally sponsored training program.

Comprehensive Training Systems, a nonprofit community organization in Imperial Beach, is training about 100 assembly workers for General Dynamics, which is under contract to build airplane fuselages for McDonnell Douglas.

“Workers with skills of that type are scarce all up and down the West Coast,” said George Robinson, General Dynamics’ employment supervisor.

Comprehensive’s training program is financed with a $268,000 grant from the Private Industry Council of San Diego, which distributes about $20 million a year in funds provided under the federal Job Training Partnership Act.

“We give them all the math they need, blueprint-reading skills, and then they go into shop skills,” Executive Director Linda Blair Forth said of the program trainees, most of whom are minorities formerly employed as sheet metal workers or fast-food cooks.

During the eight-week program, students are trained in using equipment and methods they can expect to find at General Dynamics. They are also schooled in work habits and employer expectations.

“You can be an excellent assembler,” said Forth, “but if you have poor attendance or bad habits, it won’t help the company any.”

After they go to work for General Dynamics, Forth’s organization will monitor their progress. Comprehensive has an interest in keeping its alumni employed--its grant depends on their staying on the job.

The first 22 trainees arrived at General Dynamics earlier this month; a second group is already in training.

Training is not limited to the factory floor. Increasingly, it is a hot topic in the fast-growing service field. At Disneyland, the hoped-for result of a comprehensive program is improved service.

“In the business that we are in,” said Bill Ross, park vice president of human resources, “we need to enhance our people skills. The only way to do that is training.”

About 30% of the park’s 11,000 workers undergo training every year at Disneyland University, the name for its training, communications and human resources operations.

One such program trains the first level of park managers, called leads, who run the rides, restaurants, shops and other facilities.

The eight-hour development program begins with a morning session on the company’s values and the expectations of guests. There are lessons in Disney-style courtesy. For example, an employee giving directions should gesture with an open hand instead of pointing a finger.

Trainees are also schooled in problem-solving techniques and motivational methods.

At the end of the session, a trainee states his or her goals.

“They are the ones who are interacting with our guests, day in, day out,” said Barbara Duncan, manager of Disneyland University. “The better the training, the better service they provide.”