SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS : MAKING IT WORK : Lifelong Training: It Can Be the Key to Long-Term Employment

Long before Southern California’s aerospace industry began going through convulsions in the late 1980s, Norman Schaffer sensed that the good times weren’t going to last forever.

Hired by Lockheed in 1980 as a metalworker, Schaffer realized that if the company’s business slowed down, he could be out on the street. Sure enough, Schaffer wound up being laid off by Lockheed in 1992 as the company wound down its operations in Burbank.

But unlike so many of his counterparts from the ravaged aerospace industry, Schaffer, now 42, quickly found another job. The reason: He had taken the initiative, years earlier, of beginning extended training in a trade where skilled workers are badly needed: air-conditioning maintenance.

Schaffer’s story of survival in today’s turbulent job market could be a harbinger for the American work force. In a world where technology is transforming the nature of work and where job security is disappearing, training advocates and career counselors say perhaps the best way to stay employed is through what has come to be known as lifelong learning.

In other words, these employment specialists say, workers need to continually develop marketable new talents and skills that enhance their value in the job market. The aim is to help workers remain valuable to their current employers or, in the event of a layoff, find new jobs more easily.

“It’s common sense. Nobody is going to take care of us anymore,” said Judith A. Waterman, head of a career counseling firm in San Mateo, Calif., and co-author of a recent Harvard Business Review article concerning lifelong learning and developing a “career-resilient” work force.

Lifelong learning can involve enrolling in anything from government job-training programs to community college art courses. Worthwhile classes are also offered by university extension programs, for-profit schools and even the local computer store.

At the same time, lifelong learning may mean volunteering for a special work assignment offering a chance to try something new. The important thing is to seize opportunities to learn skills that are prized in the general job market.

If you consider yourself a computer illiterate, it’s probably time to learn your way around the keyboard. A recent survey by Olsten Corp., a human resources consulting firm, found that within a few years, employers will want almost all of their employees to possess computer skills.

Experts also encourage people with specialized backgrounds to round out their knowledge. If you are a numbers cruncher, try learning more about negotiating, customer service skills and dealing with different types of people. In fact, those types of courses are helpful for employees in many lines of work.

When people “don’t fit” in their jobs, Waterman said, “it’s more often because of their social skills than for any other reason.”

But if you’re, say, a marketing specialist already savvy in interpersonal relations, you might want to take an accounting course to improve your grasp of financial issues.

While career counselors advise workers to take the initiative in pursuing training and other forms of lifelong learning, some high-tech companies and other employers offer a helping hand--or a strong push.

Motorola Inc., for instance, in 1990 started requiring all employees to receive at least five days of training, job-related or otherwise, every year. The company also encouraged more employees to take college courses by paying for tuition in advance, rather than having employees pay first and be reimbursed later.

To some skeptics, spending lots of money on general training and education in an era when employees freely move from company to company doesn’t make economic sense. But Susan Harwood, director of human and organization development for a Phoenix-based unit of Motorola, counters that good training programs build employee loyalty and keep talented workers from leaving.

“If you don’t invest in your people, why would they invest in you?” she said.

In addition, Harwood said, such programs give more Motorola workers the skills to transfer from the company’s shrinking business units to new jobs in expanding operations. That, in turn, means the company has to lay off fewer employees and pay less in severance benefits. “Everyone benefits,” she said.

Among the major roadblocks to lifelong learning, however, is a lack of time, awareness or motivation among many workers, especially those who aren’t getting encouragement from their employers. “How many people are proactive? As I look around, I don’t see that many,” said Charlene Walker, co-owner of Womens Focus/Career Focus, a career development and outplacement company in Tustin.

“Most people will sit and keep their jobs as long as the paycheck comes in,” Walker said. “Only when push comes to shove do they go out and look for new training.”

At Lockheed, Schaffer said, even when the company announced that layoffs were imminent, “most people took the attitude that ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it’ ” instead of embarking on job-training programs.

By starting to take air-conditioning courses in the mid-1980s, Schaffer said, “I was trying to cross the bridge before I ever saw it.” He now earns $15.50 an hour maintaining the air-conditioning system at Simi Valley Hospital.

An indication of how few employees pursue training came in a study released last November by Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm. It found that at 858 companies offering tuition-reimbursement programs, only 6.5% of eligible employees took advantage of them.

Many workers simply can’t find the time for such courses. “It’s hard enough to hold a job and raise a family,” said Denise Georgemiller, who directed the Hewitt study. In other cases, she said, employers have done little to publicize the programs.

For those willing to make the commitment, the key is finding out what kind of training would most likely provide a boost in the job market. But how do you do it? For starters, check out the newspaper help-wanted ads.

Is there a type of computer expertise or knowledge of a particular software required for job openings in your field or the field you want to enter? If so and you don’t have that training, go get it.

Many companies cling to proprietary or out-of-fashion software for such tasks as word processing; if that’s the only kind of software you are familiar with, it’s a good idea to learn how to work with the most widely used word-processing programs, such as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word.

If you are interested in switching to a new field, talk to people already in that line of work, preferably someone who does hiring. Find out what type of training you would need to be a serious candidate.

People who turn their personal interests and hobbies into careers are often a step ahead of the pack when it comes to training. “If you’re doing what you love to do, you’re almost naturally going to stay up-to-date” with changes in the field, said David H. Hendon, manager of the federally funded Verdugo Center for Jobs and Retraining in Burbank.

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have turned your personal passion into a job, training specialists say, it’s important to identify new skills that can broaden your expertise and make you more adaptable as an employee.

As for where to find worthwhile programs and classes, experts advise, look at what’s available at your current place of work, even if the offerings don’t sound very enticing at first. At the least, you might make some valuable contacts that lead to new opportunities.

Still, training offered at work is sometimes narrowly focused to a specific job at a specific company and thus doesn’t equip workers with skills they could use in a new role, said Carol G. Brown, director of professional development projects for the Washington-based American Society for Training and Development.

Training, she said, “is really a very personal thing. People have to take the responsibility of developing their own strategies.”