Tools for our future

Working with industry to make training an ongoing experience

by Cheryl Thompson-Draper -- Industrial Distribution, 2/1/2001

My commitment at Warren Electric Group is to offer our customers an exceptionally trained employee force. I want loyal and happy customers, and loyal, happy and effective employees. To accomplish this, in 1999 we established Warren University and have continued to grow this in-house "corporate university" that makes training an ongoing experience for our employees.

To assure our success we have created and refined a process to assess the training needs of our employees and effectively provide educational programs that are valuable, cost efficient, and minimally disruptive to the employees' work or family schedule. This effort is headed by John Watson, director of Warren University and Phil Thompson, Jr., vice president of Education and Marketing.

First, employees and their supervisors carefully complete a training assessment form on our intranet as a part of the employee's annual review process. They develop a training plan that specifies the type and level of education needed, the importance of the training on current and future job performance, and the priority and schedule for taking the courses during the year. Course costs and tuition reimbursement become a part of that individual's branch budget.

For each course we assess which vehicle to use, such as the Internet, video, local providers, suppliers/manufacturers, industry organizations, schools and universities or our training staff. Training is focused on three areas: product training; professional and personal skills; and company procedures.

Manufacturers and suppliers of the wide variety of electrical, automation, and telecommunications products we distribute provide excellent training classes. We have developed the "Raise the Bar" program with manufactures to develop certain standards of product knowledge for counter sales, customer service reps and account managers. We measure achievement through testing.

We also utilize the numerous quality programs offered by industry associations such as the National Assn. of Electrical Distributors, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, and Building Industry Consulting Services International. These programs can be a cost effective way to help employees stay ahead of the curve.

We enthusiastically utilize NAED's University of Electrical Distribution for industry-specific training. UED sites offer 40 hours of training covering the latest developments in sales and marketing, management, human resources, finance and technology.

We also offer courses to develop professional and personal skills, including time management, team building, mentor development, activity based costing, leadership, customer service, presentation skills, writing skills, computer skills and many more. We focus on the whole person, not just their selling side and product knowledge and make sure they can use all the tools that they have.

I also believe it its critical to teach our Standard Operating Procedures. In order to maintain ISO certification, we cannot become lax in our commitment to maintain a high quality operation. SOP's give us a reliability factor on which we can depend.

We frequently work with the directors of the Industrial Distribution program at Texas A & M and the Distribution and Logistic Engineering director at the University of Houston to review our programs, make suggestions, and help us evaluate our training procedures to continue to make quality improvements in our employee team. Not only should training be an ongoing experience for the employee, but refining the program should be an ongoing activity for the company.

Cheryl Thompson-Draper is chairman, CEO and president of Warren Electric Group, Houston, Texas.