Mayberry 2005: Question 5 Qualifications

David Jones: I think we had another question.

Question: I'm just kind of curious about what you said about core competencies. Say we're working on this side with different areas; I think you said design and marketing. I'm just curious is there much of a fit in those realms or other realms for people that aren't college educated? You know, just standard workers like you'd find in a factory or manufacturing position?

David Jones: In terms of corporate structures, you're referring to salaried vs. hourly workers?

Student: It is more the qualifications. You know people that aren't going to have the capabilities of adjusting to the new society like you folks are: more of a standard worker like what a lot of these jobs that are being outsourced are being removed.

David Jones. There are lots training efforts going on within companies to help and retraining and whatnot. But I think basically what you were talking about is college degree jobs, people who need a college degree.

Student: It sounds like that's what a lot of those jobs would be made up of and some of these jobs that are being outsourced aren't those kinds of jobs. Is that correct?

Joe Dehler: Actually, in our case it's more professionals.

David Jones: It depends on the area. In manufacturing it's more of the hourly labor but in the services it would be something that was non core to them. I mean you can't outsource the making of a bed. Somebody has to be there to make it. Somebody in India can't do it for you. So, it depends on the business.

Joe Dehler: I think you said something very important. We can't control what the market does to us. What we can control is what opportunities we offer our employees. So for us, the most rewarding things that could happen is when someone comes into one of our restaurants and starts as what we call dub dubs; waitresses and waiters. When they take advantage of an educational opportunity and they really become part of our corporate staff and we've had many that have. So what we can do is provide them the opportunity to better themselves. You know we can rest more comfortably when we balance our stewardship around an offering for the employee as well as what's good for the whole.

Dr. Reimann: Any other comments on that? From sort of adding my own perspective not attempt an answer but sort of read between the lines that I am sure as students they hear a great deal about continuing education and distance MBA you know consider life long learning now, one of the requirements and so on. But how do you in your own careers and your observations how did you seen that practically play out in the best ways people learning by formal methods and informal methods within the company and what's types of informal methods have you found to be very effective that might help to give students some sense of seeing education in the broader sense than lets see sequence of courses. What have you seen in this regard? Jean, do you have any thought about that?

Jean: Why there is formal and informal ways. You know in most companies invest a huge amount in training. In addition to supporting people who want get advanced degrees but also formal training programs. But I think in the informal ways become a member of associations, volunteer opportunities just within your company taking the opportunities to get a number of different kinds of experience. I've done number of things in my career and it builds on each other. So on the job training, learning from others, try different kinds of things. I think always to make sure you keep your skills current. If somebody would have told me twenty-seven years ago I would be doing what I am doing today, I would never ever dreamt it. It wasn't what I was even educated to do. But I acquired the skill over the course of career by trying different things, learning from co-workers and so on.

Steve, do you have any thought on that observations or personal or otherwise.

Steve: Just kind build in terms of what Jean said. Your skills do have to evolve over time. To me, the best sources of this evolution in terms of what I need to do is through my involvement in trade association, so American society for Quality, Institute of Industrial Engineers , you know when everyone started jumping on the bandwagon about 6 Sigma as an example. You know when I educated myself in terms of what a 6 Sigma mean and eventually took courses on 6 Sigma an wanting to become a black belt which makes me pretty marketable commodity right now if ever decide that's exactly what I want to do. I would like to say that's exactly what I want to do. But you don't see that, your boss will be going to come up to you necessarily and say you need to 6 Sigma training, you read trade magazines or you attended conferences about stuff , you have to figure out how you supply it, how you can get yourself experience and skills required to stay ahead. First off, you want to stay ahead of those may be competing for for another job inside or outside your organization. But it is not so much classroom training any more. It is reading and learning, studying on your own. And you know providing valuable feeding back into the organization. You know, the analogy I draw is kind going back to the question asked earlier in terms of, you know, I called white collar vs. blue collar. Collar, you know type jobs, and is all that stuff disappearing. And the analogy I think about is you know we are going to be a society that wants to continue driving cars or own cars, you know somebody will have to maintain your cars. We are not going to be an expert. So if you are a mechanic, then we're always going to have need for a mechanic because you can't offshore, I wouldn't think. Ship the car to India and ship it back when you get it repaired. But if you are a mechanic that grew up with carburetors, unless you get a job, you know, with NASCAR or something like which still uses carburetors, but you didn't switch to fuel injection, you know your skills aren't going to be very well desired, so you have to think about where's the technology changing and take motivation on your own part to keep up with these changes in your chosen career path.

David: I see from a company's perspective, part of that learning starts at hiring. And we've seen a lot of the Baldridge winning companies hire for attitude and train for skill. If somebody's got the right attitude, you can spot it in an interview. For anybody that's going to be interviewing, find something you're passionate about, find a company does that, demonstrate that attitude. If you don't have the exactly right skills, or if you have to study somewhere different than what you want to, that's OK. Bad news for you, you are going to work for 40 or 50 years, The good news is that it gives you plenty of opportunity, I have been here for 23 years, we are only about half way through, all right, we are just getting warmed up. So you are going to have plenty of chance to train and learn. I don't know, just a piece of advice, let your attitude show through, positive attitude show through a interview process with wherever you want to head off.

Any other comments on that? I think it's in some ways one of the most important themes of a discussion like this with student because they hear so much and there is a gut level truth associated with it, but actually hearing about how to plays out in individual careers, the blend of formal and informal, but the attitude has to be there because by and large, because rarely will a firm spoon feed, which implies that a person needs the motivation, needs the attitude, and, on top of that needs the skills. The market place is changing much too rapidly in many punishing ways, so firms…