Agenda Packets - 1995/12/04 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Virtually twice as many firms placed a high priority on marketing skills. TCPU and FIRE were the most interested sectors. The machinery cluster was the least interested in increased marketing skills, while over half of the financial services clusters listed this as a high priority. Working Group Question and Comments How can we service these relatively high levels of need for additional management and marketing support? * Community Colleges-Ask to focus programs in these areas, satellite classes, evening classes. * Mentoring-find firms willing to assist other in one or the other of these two areas. * Networking.-Set up informal efforts through the development of a systematic networking scheme. * Trade show-ID possible resources and bring to a trade show format. * Other-SCORE, DTED, HEMPAC (Higher Education Manufacturing Process Applications Consortium) * Joint programs between area chambers to focus groups of industries around each of these topics as it affects individual industries across chamber borders. • "These are things we should get other people to do, but we need someone to organize, plan and execute or it will only get lip service." • " We need to be realistic as to what can be done." • "Not sure a trade show or other one time event would be effective. Needs to be on- going." Employees' Weakest Skills The survey discovered that many firms had many and diverse training interests, and many firms had employees with weak skills in a wide variety of areas. The most common sets of weak skills could be grouped into five basic categories: * Work Ethic * Management Skills * Customer Relations * Basic Ed Skills * Product Knowledge (Math, writing,reading/english, communications #1 ranking) Similarly, training interest fell into six broad categories, specific requests were very diverse within these categories. * Technical Skills * General Education * Sales * Computer * Management * General Business 7