Industrial Maintenance Operator/Mechanic Training Program
For more information call Nick Harville at 503-837-1803 or [email].
Winner of the 2009 Outstanding Collaborative Partnership from the
Oregon Economic Development Association
IMOM was created in partnership with Chemeketa Community College. SEDCOR and Chemeketa Community College collaborated to develop IMOM to provide the Salem region with an industry-driven workforce training program designed to advance the talent capabilities of existing employees and effectively transfer the knowledge and expertise of a seasoned workforce to the next generation of workers. The goal of the IMOM program is to become a model to not only prepare the next generation of replacement workforce, but also to stabilize the regional workforce needs resulting in accelerating the Salem region’s strategic global competitiveness.
Over 30 companies within the region have been interviewed to identify top employee competencies. The IMOM program will raise the universal skill set of the workforce, as companies train for the optimum competencies in their own environment, an overall, better-trained workforce is created. In fact, the second largest school district in Oregon is now asking to participate in the partnership to help ready students for the workforce. The SEDCOR Construction Alliance, has adopted the IMOM as their training program to bring the fundamental and universal skills of construction employees to a higher level.
Nick Harville, SEDCOR’s Retention/Expansion Manager and Bob Topping, Ed.D. from Chemeketa Community College Center for Business & Industry – Strategic Partnerships Division have been very involved with developing this program and bringing it to local companies.
The IMOM Process
Bob Topping, Ed.D.
Chemeketa Community College Center for Business & Industry
The IMOM program provides the Mid-Willamette Valley with an industry-driven workforce training program designed to advance the talent capabilities of employees. During this time the project team has designed an interrelated seven phase process to capture and transfer mission critical competencies throughout an organization.
Phase 1: Discovery
Talent Survey | Develop Role Competency Pyramids | Create Role Specific
Phase 2: Determine – Mission Critical Competencies
Phase 3: Define Core Competencies and Certify Master Trainers
Phase 4: Design – Training Modules
Competency Training & Training Academies
Phase 5: Deliver Training
Phase 6: Evaluate – Training Process
Instructional Delivery | Training Outcomes
Phase 7: Endorse – Training Program
Outcome & Work Standards | Recognize Master Trainers
The impact of this designed process has provided SEDCOR members with unique perspectives to what they do that distinguishes or differentiates them from their competition. This process allows them to understand what their unique competitive advantage is in the marketplace. In addition, the IMOM project is able to discover and document the essential mission critical skills that workers utilize which are core to the foundation of an enterprise’s competitive advantage. Detailing mission critical competencies to a company allows them to discover the depth of impact of that competency throughout the organization and measure the proficiency levels of those charged with duties associated with that task.
After analysis and acknowledgement by the company of a performance gap amongst a group of workers the IMOM process is able to document the Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA) that are Critical To Quality (CTQ) of the competency, CTQ’s are what provides the enterprise with competitive advantage. When a performance gap has been identified, practitioners are sought by the project team as demonstrating best practice associated with the mission critical competency. Once identified, the practitioner is recruited to be a “Master Trainer of a “ Unique Competency”. So far over 300 mission critical competencies have been documented, and also being used by Chemeketa Center for Business & Industry for development of their program curriculum.
Currently 44 workers have been certified as Level 1 “Master Trainers”. Master Trainers are a function of Phase 3 in the IMOM process. Master Trainers attend three levels of training to become proficient in transferring their knowledge to others in a workplace setting. Master Trainer Level 1 is focused on documenting how a competency is demonstrated; Level 2 is about designing methods to train others how to advance their proficiency levels in a workplace setting; and Level 3 provides techniques to assess proficiency of workers in their unique settings.
The great value of the process is that participating companies are given tools that provide data for decision making in hiring, advancement and market impact of core competencies. From the project we have identified unique core competencies that are needed to advance the competitive advantage of SEDCOR Members. This is being realized in industry-driven training academies. The first Academy focused on Core Safety Competencies. The annual Safety Fest was developed to meet the needs around core safety competencies and reflects the data generated from the IMOM Talent Surveys gathered during Phase 1 of the IMOM process.
Identifying these core competencies among area companies has provided the data to strategically deploy talent activities that will garner competitive advantage for member companies. In addition it creates an economy of scale to leverage resources that add-value to participating companies. Look for more great things to come out of this unique workforce development program.
