Tim Hebert
Management Services Committee Member
A&W Electric, Inc.

Wow! The Management Services Committee knew training was a hot issue, but the response to the 2023 EASA Handling Training Needs Pulse Survey was incredible! The committee received 115 member responses that included thoughts, challenges and plans on training our employees. Results show that approximately 80% of respondents have a training program with nearly 40% of all respondents using a combination of classroom and on-the-job training. (Figure A)

When EASA members venture outside their own company for training resources, about 88% use the various training offerings from EASA, and 33% use sources such as vendors, universities and local governments or trade schools. (Figure B) Nearly 35% of us plan on utilizing EASA’s soon-to-be-launched Online Learning Center (Figure C), and just over 50% of us provide up to four hours of training per month while on the clock. (Figure D)

Our biggest obstacle to providing more time to train in the service center is a lack of time at 72%, and nearly 40% of us struggle with the base skill set of the trainee we are training. (Figure E) Nearly 37% of us plan to increase our training budget in the next 1 -2 years, while almost 73% planning to utilize new technologies to train. (Figure F) Over one-third of us, or 34%, reported a lack of interested mentors to provide the training for our employees. (Figure G)

This data highlights our industry’s recognized need to train our employees and increase our efforts and budget to train while highlighting the obstacles of time, budget and skill sets of trainers and trainees. Training clearly is a huge challenge for our profession and a competitive advantage for those companies who commit to the process and implement training successfully.