Military Training and life vs Corporate and Industrial Training

It's interesting the differences I see in Military training and life vs corporate and industrial training.

We run a safety council that trains over 2000 employees in industrial safety, leadership, and skills training every day. For the most part our training is "compliance" driven, meaning that before they can go to work, the employees need to have this training. Although we provide the training, and the trainee needs it to continue work, the employee's organization pays for the training and pays for the trainee's time to take it. They usually bill back this training cost to the contracting/owner organization.

For example, a refinery owner like Shell might need 200 contractors for an upcoming project. All 200 workers have to take Shell specific training that we offer on behalf of Shell. The contracting companies all bill Shell for that time and expense of their employees taking the training. To a new observer, it might look like a huge shell game.

When I was in the military I remember that PLDC, Scuba School, Ranger School, Airborne School and more were all a part of my career development and were funded by my company and battalion. I took these courses because I could see how the patches on my uniform, the increase in rank, and the schools in my file directly affected my military career.

In the corporate world there is less of a direct relationship between the courses and classes that an employee might take to their career. Instead the classes and courses are related to specific projects and work events only. The employees jump from contractor to contractor quickly and any career development they might have had is wasted because there are so few classes that are meaningful outside of their organizations.

Until just recently I was a Director of Career Development for a contracting company with over 7000 employees. I was tasked with helping to create a series of career development road maps for our technicians that might appear to them to be more worthwhile for their career potential, and be something similar to the career path that I followed to go from a PFC to a SGT. Sadly, I never found that it positively affected our retention rate the way that we had hoped.

We work with primarily "white truck" supervisors and blue-collar field workers.  They are continually looking for ways to move up the career ladder but are constantly stymied by the paradigm I outlined above. Part of what I would like to create are industry-wide training standards that an employee can take that would directly benefit him and his employer as well as be something he can take with him if he has to leave, much like my Ranger Tab would have been meaningful if I had left the 2/75 RGR and gone to work at the 10th MTN.