Area businesses get training boost from community colleges
By: DAVID GARRICK - Staff Writer
NORTH COUNTY ---- Doctors don't make house calls anymore, but you could say that some community college instructors do.
While MiraCosta and Palomar colleges are best known for helping students transfer to four-year universities and educating many of North County's health care workers, the schools also send instructors out to local businesses to help employees become bilingual, boost their computer skills or improve their approach to customer service.
As part of their mission to serve the community, the two schools have established work-force-development programs in recent years that provide crucial training for employees at dozens of local businesses.
Teachers from Palomar run classes in English, customer service and leadership at businesses such as Watkins Manufacturing in Vista, Harrah's Rincon Casino and the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.
"Both colleges are providing vital resources to the community with this kind of training," said Gary Knight, CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council. "One of our biggest challenges in North County is making sure employees have the appropriate job skills."
Steady growth
In the past eight years, work-force training at MiraCosta has grown from almost nothing to a program that regularly provides training to more than 100 local companies and organizations, according to director Leon Levy.
The program at Palomar has grown steadily since it was established nearly 20 years ago, and school officials expect even bigger things now that the program has been given six new training rooms at Palomar's Escondido satellite campus, said Director Teri Safranek.
Instructors from the two community colleges typically travel to local businesses when they provide this kind of work-force training, but sometimes employees come to campus for the classes if they work for a small company or if the training is in a specialized area such as supervisory management.
"Some businesses don't have 15 employees who need supervisory training, they only have two," said Levy. "Our on-campus training is not quite as customized because employees from multiple businesses participate."
Customized classes
On-site training is more popular mostly because a customized approach is so valuable to the business, said Levy.
Mechanics and car repair workers at Toyota Carlsbad spend their lunch hour on Mondays and Tuesdays learning English phrases such as "I will get my boss" and "I will have someone help you" from a MiraCosta instructor.
"These workers are walking around our lots all the time, so they need to respond if a customer asks them a question," said Sue Peirce, human resources manager for Toyota Carlsbad and Lexus Carlsbad. "These classes have boosted their confidence and made them more willing to speak English and participate at work."
City of Escondido employees recently learned key Spanish phrases from a Palomar instructor so they can respond to customer service inquiries from residents who struggle to speak English.
In September, Escondido firefighters and paramedics will begin learning the Spanish translations of "where does it hurt," "how long has it hurt" and other medical questions.
"These instructors are very attuned to what we want our employees to learn," said Jerry Van Leeuwen, director of housing and neighborhood services for the city. "They give us exactly what we need."
Kathy Box, a human resources official from Harrah's Rincon, said the English classes Palomar has provided not only boost employee confidence but also help with employee retention.
"The biggest benefit is that they feel valued as employees of this company because we have invested this time into improving their skills," said Box, who estimated that Palomar has trained 60 Harrah's employees in the past three years.
Convenience, quality and cost
There are private firms that offer similar training workshops, but the business officials interviewed this week said that training provided by community colleges is higher quality, less expensive and more convenient.
"Many competitors are unwilling to come out to your site, they are more expensive and they are less willing to customize the program," said Kathleen Demarest, human resources manager for Synteract, a Carlsbad company that runs clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry.
Demarest said she plans to have MiraCosta provide supervisory training to virtually all of the managers at the 180-employee company, and she also wants to add a class on interviewing techniques and performance evaluations.
"They are so willing to tailor the program to our needs," said Demarest. "It's like they are an extension of our company."
Barbara Bing, human resources chief at Circuits Processing Technologies in Oceanside, said MiraCosta charges far less than competitors. The school charges a company $200 an hour for a training class no matter how many students attend. Levy said private consultants charge as much as $2,500 per day.
"We shopped around when we started, and it's definitely a bargain," said Bing. "They are also very flexible on scheduling, which matters a lot to us because we have two separate shifts."
Peirce, the official from Toyota Carlsbad, said it was important to her company to have college instructors instead of private consultants.
"We really wanted the caliber you get with a college-level program," said Peirce.
Balancing budgets
State law prevents the colleges from subsidizing the work-force training programs with general fund money, so the program needs to break even every year. The programs are combined at both schools with community education classes, which include everything from macrame to seminars on dealing with divorce.
Safranek said Palomar's community education classes have grown faster in recent years than work-force training, partly because there is no Palomar employee focused on soliciting companies for work-force training.
"I don't have anybody to go out and sell, or to manage accounts," said Safranek, who took over the program in 1997.
She said the annual budget for her entire department had risen from $125,000 to more than $1 million in the last decade, but that it dropped to about $800,000 last school year. She could not provide separate figures for work-force training.
The new training rooms at the Escondido campus, which is on East Valley Parkway, might help turn the tide, she said, because they will provide space for the on-campus training that small companies desire.
"Some mom-and-pop shops can't afford to shut down for a day of training," said Safranek.
Levy said revenue from work-force training has risen nearly 20 percent a year since he established the MiraCosta program eight years ago. Revenue passed $100,000 two years ago, and it nearly reached $150,000 in 2005-06.
MiraCosta hired a commissioned salesperson to handle the program two years ago, which Levy said made a big difference.
Changing with the times
Because more North County workers have gotten up to speed on computer programs such as Microsoft Excel, there has been a dip in the number of companies seeking work-force training in computers, said Levy.
But that dip has been offset at MiraCosta by a sharp increase in sexual harassment seminars, he said.
A state law enacted in January 2005 requires companies with at least 15 workers to provide sexual harassment training and education every two years, and Levy said that MiraCosta has helped dozens of companies comply with the new law.
Knight said the sexual harassment law has been a challenge for many companies, especially small ones.
"This is another way that these community college training programs are playing a key role in supporting North County businesses," said Knight.