By Jeanna Baxter White

For the Enterprise

Training is a valuable way to improve business performance, increase profits, and boost staff morale.

Training helps a company stay ahead of competitors and keep up with the latest industry and technology changes. Ensuring that employee skills and knowledge are up-to-date can grow business and boost its competitiveness.

Training has many benefits for staff: acquiring new skills, increasing individual contributions to the business, and building self-esteem. Employees who receive necessary training perform their jobs more effectively. Training also helps prepare employees to grow within their companies as they aspire for positions with increased prospects and pay.

When companies plan employee training schedule, Davidson County Community College (DCCC) makes options available, such as on-site or off-site, training professionals or internal resources, formal classroom instruction or on-the-job training.

DCCC’s Workforce Development and Customized Training programs can provide classes that meet most of a company’s training needs, anything from OHSA safety, CNC machining, welding, and LEAN Manufacturing to notary certification, computer skills, and leadership training.

Elizabeth Kilby, program director, Customized Training and Workforce Development at the Davie Campus, and Carolyn Davis, director of Customized Training and Workforce Development at DCCC’s Davidson Campus, meet with representatives of local companies to determine specific needs.

DCCC offers classes in business/computers, construction, manufacturing/transportation, inspection/licensure, leadership, safety, continuous improvement, hospitality, health/wellness, advanced law enforcement training, fire and rescue, and EMS, EMT, paramedic programming. The college offers 230 online classes that run for eight weeks and can be offered for as few as one student making the classes accessible to even the smallest companies. A complete list of options can be found at  https://davidsonccc.edu/academics/continuing-education/.

Kilby and Davis will also assemble a custom program if a company has multiple or special needs that can’t be met through continuing education classes.

“Classes can be customized to the specific company,” Kilby said. “And because it isn’t a curriculum course, we can cater uniquely to the company, be it a variable class schedule, location, or additional soft skills training added to the class.”

Through either method, classes that don’t require special equipment can be offered at the college or at the industry and do not have to fit into a traditional semester model. Classes can be offered during the day, at night, or weekends based upon an instructor’s availability. The college even has an advanced manufacturing mobile lab that can be brought onsite for training when needed.

Classes can be started quickly if there are enough students and an instructor and class space are available. Kilby and Davis handle all of the registration and paperwork.

For more information about how DCCC’s Continuing Education and Workforce Development program can benefit your company, contact:

• Elizabeth Kilby, elizabeth_kilby@davidsonccc.edu, 336-751-2885 ext: 4852, www.davidsonccc.edu; or

• Carolyn D. Davis, Carolyn_davis@davidsonccc.edu, 336-751-2885  ext 6331.