Why invest in the development of your staff?

Mattieu Berlinguette
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1. Are you looking to increase production, reduce costs and increase retention of your skilled workforce?

We are currently living a skilled labor shortage in North America. We are seeing retirements that lead to vacancies, as well as a large wave of new employees. It is not only a challenge to attract workers, but retention also remain important issue. It is proven that an engaged and motivated workforce is more productive. In addition, employees trained with state-of-the-art tools and modern procedures will bring greater value to their business. Also, the industry request more and more that tradespeople combine their expertise. For example, the electrical and instrumentalists professions are often paired (electro-instrumentalists). We have observed students who have brought a return on investment of 3 to 10 times the cost of the training, within the first 30 days, applying the principles learned in training at Laurentide.

1.1 Empty benches in technical schools

We observed a decrease in the number of students available for the job market. According to the Ministry of Education '' The student of all college institutions effective (public network, private network and subsidized government schools) has decreased over the past five years, from 181,097 in fall 2014 to 173,878 in fall 2018, representing about 4.0%. (Education, 2019)'' It then becomes critical to recruit and train our future employees. In addition, with technological advances and process improvement, continuing education is essential to remain competitive.

1.2 Content tailored to the industry

We have learned from students of vocational schools that their training, for example in industrial electronics, covers a range of important topics, but is not complete enough for the industry needs. For this reason, Laurentide Controls has developed a theorical training to address this need, supported by coaching with the technicians, at their plant. This monitoring is essential to validate understanding and establish best practices. It is important to note that this training is also essential for experienced technicians to update their knowledge.

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1.3 How does Laurentide help the Eastern Canada industry to prosper?

With the assistance of its experts and partners, Laurentide Controls has established a personalized path to achieve excellence in industrial reliability solution. The Instrumentation and Control technician profile was recently created to address the glaring demand in the industrial market.

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1.4 Master the basic knowledge of instrumentation

The new 4-day in class training focuses on basic concepts (control loop, drawing, signals, Hart communication, calibration, etc.), temperature measurement, level measurement, flow measurement, measurement pH/ conductivity, as well as a portion dedicated to valves. Our senior trainers, experts in the domain, provide these trainings by using simulators. We reach the students brains by their hands! It is important to adapt teaching techniques to put theory into practice and to ensure an educational method that has a high retention rate by the students. The laboratories and simulators help tremendously to reach this goal.

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1.5 The importance of the training plan

A development program takes all employees to a higher level so that they all have similar skills and knowledge. This helps to reduce the weak links of the business that are highly dependent on others to perform basic tasks. Moreover, training can help companies that have paired trades as mentioned above, to ensure that multi trade people are well trained and equipped to meet the challenges of the industry. What can be better for the employee than having another arrow at his bow!


References

education, M. d. (2019). Forecast from student to college enrollment, 2019-2028. Retrieved on Education and Higher Education of Quebec: http://www.education.gouv.qc.ca/references/indicateurs-et-statistiques/previsions/effectif-etudiant-au-collegial/


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Mattieu Berlinguette has more than 14 years of maintenance and reliability expertise with Laurentide Controls as a senior consultant and director of business development. He works in the fields of pulp and paper, mining and metals and in the energy sector. He holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Quebec and is also a professional technologist in mechanical engineering. Mattieu specializes in integrating predictive technologies to help his customers optimize their maintenance practices, maximize asset availability and optimize production processes.


About Laurentide Controls

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Operating since 1968, Laurentide Controls has been helping industry thrive for over 50 years. We are the largest supplier of automation, and reliability solutions to industries in Eastern Canada.

As an entirely employee owned company, every member of our team is driven by the shared goal of empowering people and advancing industry.

As an Emerson Impact Partner, Laurentide Controls connects customers with world-class solutions, superior local and global technical expertise, and life-cycle services for all of our clients’ automation assets and needs. These capabilities enable us to partner with customers in their journey to be Top Quartile in their industry. www.laurentide.com