Jim Light hasn’t forgotten something he learned in his 18 years as a small-business owner.
“I think the needs of a company when it comes to employees and retaining those employees is the same,” said Light, now a Client Services Coordinator at Tulsa Tech. “I found as I got to know other business owners, no matter what business they were in, we had the same issues and problems and needs as far as doing
the best we could to maintain a safe work environment and to do everything we could to find and keep the best employees.”
That is why Light’s work with Tulsa Tech’s Workforce and Economic Development team benefits Fortune 500 companies such as American Airlines and small mechanic shops: every company needs help solving similar problems.
Tulsa Tech offers multiple branches of workforce improvement training at an affordable rate. Companies large and small can receive customizable training in areas like safety, leadership and management.
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“The whole purpose of our division is to provide the training for the existing workforce,” Light said. “There are other parts of Tulsa Tech that are training high school students and adults with full-time programs to get them into the workforce. We don’t really work to help companies fill their pipeline with new people. We’re there to help them with their existing people to help upgrade their skills or get new skills.”
Heather Williams is another Client Services Coordinator at Tulsa Tech.
She says one of the advantages of Tulsa Tech’s workforce training courses is flexibility. Williams said not every business can have training during traditional working hours.
“For instance, I have a company going right now and we have to offer their leadership classes in the evening from 4 to 8 so we can catch the first shift and the second shift,” Williams said. “It’s customizable. We have clients that we train on Saturdays. We’ve had our instructors go out at 6 a.m. so I think that’s one of the biggest factors with us is being very customizable.”
A popular course Tulsa Tech offers is the Front Line leadership course.
It covers workplace culture, conflict resolution and includes employee personality testing. The objective of the course is to transform good employees into great ones.
“It’s not uncommon as companies are growing as fast as they have been these past several years in Oklahoma, they promote a good employee into a manager or supervisor role, but that employee has never had training to do that job,” Light said. “And so, I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard of this person was a fantastic employee, we moved them up, and they floundered. They weren’t prepared to do the job because they’ve never had training for it. That’s where we can really help.”
Williams said the course contains 10 modules that each take four hours to complete. She recommends companies take all 10 modules and complete them weekly or monthly. Thanks to how it is funded, Tulsa Tech can make workforce development courses affordable for every kind of business.
Companies can opt to complete the courses physically at Tulsa Tech’s Client Service Center, at the company’s headquarters, online or a hybrid of online or in-person classes. Tulsa Tech aims to meet the needs of a company wherever the company is.
“We all go in and develop a relationship with the client and find out what their needs are,” Light said. “Every client is going to be different and then we try to come up with a solution, a curriculum that would meet their needs.”
