UA Provides Training For Arkansas Workers

For the past 12 years, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has been leading the effort to help companies in the state educate and train their workers.

Through the Division of Continuing Education, the university not only provides classes in Fayetteville but also travels to companies around the state. Services offered include strategic planning, marketing, customer service, safety, leadership, communications, professional development and computer literacy.

“Everything is customized,” says Nancy Hairston, director of non-credit services for the university. “We look in a comprehensive way at all the needs of the company and tailor a program to those needs.”

Hairston helped develop and implement the program in 1986 and worked as its first instructor. Currently, the program has 15 certified instructors.

Workforce development wasn’t a common concept at the time and the university’s early attempts at it were frustrating. The program depended on the cooperation of the university’s instructors who weren’t always available to teach non-credit courses. Then, the university bought a program that included videos and instructional tapes that could be presented by other employees.

Beginning with First Brands Corp. in Rogers, the university began offering the training to the state’s businesses. Today, there are more than 20 companies using the program and the interest increases every year.

When a company contacts the university for help, an assessment team is sent to the business to determine its needs. Then, a program is developed specifically for that company and classes are provided for the workers on the company’s premises.

Sometimes, new courses are written.

Last year, a company in Bentonville that is a vendor to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. contacted the university about training in category management.

“I didn’t know what it was,” says Nancy Buschert, coordinator of the Office of Services to Business and Industry at the university. “We didn’t have anyone here who did that.”

Instructors began looking for material on category management, a system for the vendors to monitor current sales and determine future supply needs. In May, about 50 people, mostly Wal-Mart vendors including some from outside the state, registered for a course in category management.

One of the more popular training programs offered through the university is mobile computer training services. The university has three computer labs that can be taken across the state to teach workers computer literacy.

“They are keeping busy,” says Rick Stroud, coordinator of the program. “The sky is the limit.”

The computer labs use laptop computers that can be connected and operational at a company in about 30 minutes. All the training is done on the computers and the classes often are offered at night and on weekends.

“The workers can immediately apply those skills,” Stroud says.

Although most of the companies that ask for the program are manufacturing facilities, the program also is popular with banks and hospitals, Stroud says. The Arkansas Bankers Association and the university have formed a partnership to offer computer training to banks throughout the state.

The computer training program is expanding beyond the state’s borders. That work includes training for the military in Florida, Stroud says.

Getting the training with the convenience of workers not having to leave the company’s premises isn’t cheap. Although the total cost varies widely with the amount of training provided and the number of people participating, Stroud estimates the average cost at about $15 per person for each hour.

Financial aid is available for some companies through the Arkansas Economic Development Council that offers a grant program called the Existing Workforce Training Program. It is jointly administered by the AEDC, the state Department of Higher Education and the state Department of Workforce Education. The program can reimburse a company between 20 percent and 60 percent of the cost of the training.

“Companies find that it is cost effective,” Stroud says.

Some companies may owe their very existence to the program. About three years ago, a manufacturing facility in Marianna was losing money and threatening to close. The university intervened at the request of then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. The plant provided about 400 jobs in the financially strained Arkansas Delta.

A four-person assessment team from the university evaluated the company and made recommendations. The company, with the help of training from the university, made the changes within six months. Today, it is a profitable manufacturing facility still operating in Marianna.