Northern Industrial Training

7 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 PREFERRED VENDOR/PARTNER n Carlile Transportation www.carlile.biz n Parker, Smith & Feek Insurance, LLC www.psfinc.com it matters more than anything else. I believe that in order to actually have a company employee retention plan, you have to know what your culture is, and what you want it to be. And then you have to double down and reinforce it.” One strategy NIT uses to help with employee retention is to educate the employer on the workforce they are getting. He says, “We’re in 2023 now, we have 2023 problems, and approaching it with 1995 solutions isn’t going to work.” Hands-on learning is a significant part of skilled workforce development, and it is important to offer training that will be attractive to potential employees. Crum details that having a program that genuinely fits the corporate culture and structure of a company is one step in the right direction. “It can’t be outside of who you are or it’s fake,” he remarks. “It also needs to be what employees want. So, you have to know your populations.” 2023 is going to see a focus on what NIT calls “client-specific needs and training.” This can be defined as working with companies directly, to develop workforce plans, or training existing employees to do jobs that are needed. “We are leaning into the online format, utilizing Blackboard for theory delivery at more of a lively pace. It’s about offering more options because the workforce that we have is the workforce that we have. Offering more changes to course offerings that allow them to continue to work and support their families while developing additional skills, that’s really where we need to focus,” says Crum. NIT will also concentrate on targeting younger workers, and those who are underrepresented while promoting skilled trades as a viable career opportunity. As for what drives him personally, Crum shares, “It is the success stories. Not necessarily the fights or the barriers that we have to get there, but the success stories. It’s seeing a person at the grocery store, or the gas station, who will bring their family to you to say, ‘Hey, I went to school there and it changed my life’. It’s talking with companies that have struggled for years because they were the training grounds for every other company and finding out that their retention rate has tripled.” “It’s the successe; it’s being able to connect people to vocations,” Crum concludes.