Southern California Job Market : Surviving in the ‘90s : New Skills, New Challenges : A retraining program can extend a career or improve it. But it’s the employee’s responsibility to make it work.
Pacific Bell is faced with the bloody task of cutting nearly 11,000 jobs during the next five years--about 16% of its work force. And the main operating unit of San Francisco-based Pacific Telesis Group is trying to do it without laying anybody off.
The answer, officials at the telecommunications company are hoping, will be found in aggressive retraining of its employees, coupled with natural attrition and early retirement.
“Some of the options facing some of our employees may not be what they would like, but it beats being laid off,” Pacific Bell spokeswoman Kate Flynn said.
During the next decade, workers who thought they were long past the age of matriculation will find themselves once again in a classroom. They will be seeking new skills because they have been laid off by a company in a troubled industry--maybe an aerospace company or a savings and loan--or they may be desperately trying to hold onto the job they have in a world of technological change.
Indeed, retraining has become a booming industry itself. But while training programs abound through governmental agencies, colleges and even some employers, such as Pacific Bell, there may be a shortage of the right kind of training, experts say.
“If we were to try to retrain all the people that need retraining or teach all the skills that need to be taught, we’d never get a plane out the door,” said a training coordinator at layoff-plagued Lockheed, which does devote significant resources to employee training programs.
In the end, experts say, it is up to the individual employee to seek out the right training program and get the most possible from it.
“The old view of career decision-making was ‘once I get out of school, I make one decision--I get on the career train and stay there for the rest of my life,’ ” said Richard Knowdell, executive director of the Career Planning & Adult Development Network, a nationwide network of career counselors.
“Now the expectation is people will change jobs and change careers several times,” he said.
Some of the change will be by choice; some will not, Knowdell said. Either way, “there’s going to be a huge need for training and retraining.”
A recent study by the Commission on the Skills of the American Work Force found that the skills of U.S. workers are lagging their counterparts overseas, causing a crisis in productivity. Among other things, the commission called on the U.S. government to immediately pour billions of dollars into public schools and on-the-job training and recommended that U.S. businesses be required to invest an amount equal to 1% of their payrolls on worker training.
“Retraining is not only for people who are being laid off, but for people who are remaining with their company in the labor force,” said Sonja S. Marchand, director of the division of business and industry services of the Office of Continuing Education at Cal State Northridge. “Even people who aren’t being laid off will lose their jobs if they don’t continually keep on top of what’s happening.”
The aerospace industry is a perfect example because it is both shrinking and adjusting payroll to training, Rodriguez said.
There are many training programs sponsored by such agencies as the state Employment Development Department, the California Employment Training Panel, which channels much of its training money through local Private Industry Councils, and employers themselves. They support an ever-growing army of schools, consultants and trainers, Knowdell said.
“Companies pay top dollar” and private trainers frequently earn $1,500 to $2,000 a day, said Knowdell, who also conducts training classes for businesses. “It’s a good living.”
Yet, in the face of increasing demand, some worry that enough of the right kind of training might not be available. Budget cuts at the state’s educational institutions are an ominous sign as well, they say.
Many government-funded programs don’t have a good track record when it comes to deciding what kind of training to provide, said Duane E. Leigh, an economics professor at Washington State University and author of “Does Training Work for Displaced Workers?” a book published recently by the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
Leigh studied several government training programs for displaced workers and found that job search assistance--helping workers develop their job-seeking skills--was clearly the most effective form of training.
“The job search assistance looks awfully good for displaced workers in project after project,” Leigh said. But more intensive classroom skills training and on-the-job training were more questionable and more costly.
In most of the programs he studied, “It wasn’t clear that the training provided was really going to be helpful to people in terms of the jobs available in the community,” Leigh said.
A particularly unsuccessful program in Houston took highly educated white-collar workers laid off by petrochemical plants and trained many of them to maintain air conditioners, computers and refrigeration units.
In contrast, the California Employment Training Panel designs programs tailored to the needs of employers, rather than training for jobs it hopes will exist, Leigh said. The ETP reimburses the company for training costs only if the worker is placed in a job using his or her new skills and remains there at least 90 days. “In the absence of an indication from the employer of what skills are going to be needed, it’s kind of hard to predict for him,” he said. “It’s just hopeless to try to forecast manpower training needs.”
Ultimately, most of the responsibility for finding the right training program and making a success of it belongs with the employee.
“The company gives some, but the employee has to give some, too,” said a Lockheed official. “If you leave here, you don’t leave your training knowledge with your Lockheed employee badge.”
RESOURCE: TIPS ON TRAINING:
* Figure out what you really want. Training may not be the answer for everyone.
* Ask questions.
* Be willing to commit yourself to training.
* Go beyond what is assigned.
* Try to put into practice what you learn.
* Form a study group.
* Keep an open mind. look at the situation as an opportunity.
* Don’t overlook any options.
* Try not to get discouraged.
* Ask for help if you need it.
