Blackhawk Technical College’s Workforce and Community Development team is known for hosting professional development, technical skills training, and other fully customizable learning experiences for residents of Rock and Green counties. But a new partnership with Tigre USA, based in Janesville, took Blackhawk’s training on the road to Southern California.
Kara Blue, Blackhawk’s Operations Manager for Workforce and Community Development, explained that Tigre was seeking a comprehensive leadership training package for both new and experienced leaders.
Blackhawk’s Workforce and Community Development team customized a noncredit training package to cover these specific skills on a weekly training schedule that worked for Tigre, Blue said. The first set of six sessions was held in Janesville from May to June and covered leadership training. A second set of four sessions covering Microsoft Excel ran from August into September. Intermediate and Advanced Excel training helped Tigre’s employees build specific skills in data collection and analysis. This 16-hour course allowed team members to really dig into the finer points of Excel, and Blackhawk customized it to Tigre’s specific needs.
“I met with Janesville Tigre employees for six weeks for this leadership series,” Blackhawk’s Office Technology Instructor, Tina Aldrich, said. “The six topics covered were: Leadership Skills for Supervisors, Communication & Active Listening, Conflict Resolution & Problem Solving, Performance Management, Time Management & Delegation, and Change Management & Adaptability.”
Positive feedback from training participants prompted Tigre’s human resources department to request similar training for a group of leaders based at the company’s Beaumont, California, facility.
“We wanted training that actually fit a manufacturing environment and wasn’t generic. Blackhawk was open to customizing the training to what we really needed on the floor,” explained Karen Avelar, who works in Tigre’s human resources department. “Our employees like that it’s hands-on and relevant. A lot of them say it helps them. They get skills they can use right away. It helps them understand their jobs better and feel more confident doing them.”
Aldrich traveled to Beaumont for in-person delivery of two faster-paced leadership training sessions on a schedule that worked for the California facility.
“The changes were to make a six-week, 24-hour training on the six topics into a two-day, 16-hour training on the same six topics. I was able to focus on the needs and feedback from the Tigre Janesville location to compress the topics into meaningful active sessions,” Aldrich said.
“At the end of the second day of training, each team member left with summary goals, new internal meetings, and contacts set to help achieve these goals and be accountable for the outcome of these goals,” she said. “I believe this was an extremely positive and forward-moving training for the Beaumont location.”
Aldrich has been teaching continuing education and corporate training courses for Blackhawk for 29 years. Today, she is focused on leadership training and Microsoft Office product training. Aldrich facilitates training sessions at companies in Rock and Green counties. And while she has led online training sessions and training classes for local employers who had employees from other locations fly in, this is the first time she has traveled out of state to train workers.
“With the success of this out-of-state training, I think this is something Blackhawk’s Workforce and Community Development team can now offer as an option to local companies with other locations,” Aldrich said.
Find out more about workforce training available from Blackhawk.