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Fabricating a Future for Workplace Learning
Like most businesses these days, Canada’s textile industry is dealing with its share of economic challenges.
The $6.6-billion dollar industry, which is responsible for a host of products that are used in everything from clothing and furniture to bomb suits and synthetic skin, is coping with a rising Canadian dollar, an aging workforce and constant technological advancements—not to mention increasingly stiff competition from overseas companies.
That's why THRC created the Skills and Learning Sites and Portal; a members-only website that provides 24-hour access to hundreds of courses and training programs, including computer skills courses, business and personal development programs, and textile manufacturing skills courses. When it was unveiled in 2003, it stood as one of the most ambitious workplace training initiatives ever undertaken in Canada. Today it remains a state-of-the-art case study in the value of investing in workplace training.
Starting as a partnership with the federal government, the Skills and Learning Sites Portal saw 32 “learning spaces” set up in textile companies spread out across four provinces (Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec). Furnished with computers and designed to encourage workers to use the online resource, these spaces served as the initial venue for the learning portal. The spaces proved so popular, that access was expanded to employees from home.
The easy-to-use site allows employees to access specific courses from basic computer skills—such as learning Microsoft Excel or Word programs—to health and safety, English courses, stress management courses and industry-specific knowledge, like the basics of weaving and “how-to’s” focusing on yarn and fibre manufacturing.
More importantly, each company can tailor its mini-site to its specific needs or business objectives—allowing them to directly address skill shortages before they become a problem.
The combination of workplace training courses and the around-the-clock free access, gives employees the chance to develop specific skills and meet industry standards.
“The idea was to give employees the most flexibility possible to do their own jobs the best they can do, and to understand the environment they're working in,” says Sarah Watts-Rynard, Director of Communications and Operations at THRC, a non-profit industry association.
Watts-Rynard says the Portal is the foundation for what she hopes will become an overall learning culture within the industry. The results could range from better productivity and more employee engagement or reduction of time lost to injuries.
“We have to get people in the mind-set that learning has to be continuous and has to happen all the time,” she says. “And it has to happen at work, because it's not happening in the education sector. There is no post-secondary infrastructure [for the textile industry] there.”
Because Canada's textile mills, finishing mills and manufacturing sites are spread out across the country in largely rural areas, the distance learning approach was crucial to the project’s success. It allows employees and companies to learn at their own pace and to add components as needed.
“It's all free of charge, as part of a company's membership in the THRC,” says Watts-Rynard. “They can enroll in as many courses as they like.”
Today, in addition to the dedicated Skills and Learning Sites in the four original provinces where the project began, employees at another 70 textile companies across Canada can log in to the site. To date, more than 10,500 of the industry’s 48,300 employees have enrolled in some kind of learning plan.
Jacques Levesque is among them. The training technician at Concert Airlaid, a Gatineau, Quebec-company that manufactures products like baby wipes and anti-bacterial wipes for the likes Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble, Levesque has been using the service since June 2008. That’s when Concert Airlaid installed a customized learning site of its own which he’s used to train new hires about the company’s health and safety rules.
In the months since, the 45-year-old has used the portal for his own education, learning about everything from the essentials of textile fabrication and non-woven technology to Microsoft Excel II and how to handle a security lockdown. (At home, his wife has even used the site to learn basic computer skills—something the company encourages.)
“I like it very much, because not only did I learn new things about health and safety, I learned about how to use a computer.”
He’s not alone. Some of his colleagues had never used a computer before training on the portal, and are now using their new skills on the production floor to record the raw materials they use, the rolls of paper they make, their machines' down time, and the number of reject products it produces. Prior to this they had to dutifully record these numbers by hand, which has had the unexpected benefit of reducing errors not to mention saving the time and money it costs to hire people to verify the paperwork.
In the increasingly automated industry, these are crucial skills for Concert Airlaid employees, many of whom have no post-secondary education says Levesque. The online system has not only saved the company money but made it possible to track whether employees have completed required training, such as yearly health and safety courses.
“Management is very happy about it,” he says.
Employees are encouraged to use the learning site during their working hours, or when one of the paper machines is shut down for maintenance. Because Levesque can easily track and schedule required training, the new system also cuts down on the overtime that used to be necessary to fit all the training in. There's no doubt the learning site has been a good investment, he says. Some other companies designate a specific number of hours for which employees are paid every month to access the learning system.
Overall, the Skills and Learning Portal cost THRC about $2.2 million in cash (according to a 2008 report by the Conference Board of Canada). The council is currently assessing the return on investment and overall business impact of the portal.
“The business impact is going to be the difference between it becoming a part of the culture and not,” says Watts-Rynard.
Early indications though are positive. Woodstock, Ontario’s Firestone Textiles used the portal's trademarked “eVolution learning system” to design a training program to address a production problem that was costing the company $10,000 a month in wasted materials.
The result? An 80% improvement in employee problem-solving skills according to the Conference Board of Canada study, and a resulting “significant savings” in materials used.
The council hopes that results like these will encourage more companies, and more employees, to sign on with the program.
'I don't think that full take-up is going to happen overnight,” says Watts-Rynard. “It's something that we have to continue to work on. It has to happen one company at a time, one management team at a time.
“It's labour-intensive, but we've found that as soon as people understand how the system can work, the take-up is there.”