Mechanical Components Blog

Great topic! Far too many executives layoff employees when times get tough, but what most companies need is not fewer employees. Companies need smarter more innovative employees which open new markets and create products worth buying. Apple proved that the U.S. recession was not as dire as many where predicting when it's new I-phone went on sale in Dec. 2008 and sales exceeded expectations. Again my point: new products drive sales and economic security, not low operating costs.

As for the second part of the topic, do companies back up their "employees are our greatest asset" retoric with the needed investment? Some do, but too few. I read an article on line about how Toyota (in 2009) was using the down time, due to slowing car sales, to retrain workers in a UK plant. Having worked in the B2B training business for several years now I can tell you the number one challenge to training in good economic times is finding time for training. No manager likes to answer questions about why a project is at half staff, or facing potential delays due to a one week training program. Unfortunately this is when the managers can get funding approved for new tools / software and the required training to use them.

Employee training can provide numerous advantages, but not if the employee doesn't have a program to use them on. So it depends on how the cmpany treats the recession. Do we take the bunker mentality and try to weather the storm, or do we brave the storm and risk developing new products to stimulate sales. Many of the manufacturing sector's layoffs during the Bush years (what U.S. congressional leaders wanted to call a recession) were due to productivity gains. How did we get those productivity gains ... technology and training provided manufacturers with a workforce capable of doing more with less.

Additioally also depends on how company managment reacts to the training program. While at Dana Corp. I was offered 2 weeks of training in my first year. The company actually had a goal of 40+ hrs of training per employee each year. However my managers were often at odds with what their employees were taught to do durring training sessions. As a result I can safely say none of the training I recieved, beyond employee orientation, was put into action. Dana went into bancruptcy 2 years after I started. They obviously were not recieving the productivity gains other manufacturerswere finding, and I don't fault the quality of the training.