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Scott Webb: If you're an employer looking for assistance with training your employees, or maybe solutions to other problems, then I've got the perfect guest today. I'm joined by Amy Lasec, Senior Director of Corporate Training at Kirkwood Community College. This podcast is brought to you by Kirkwood Community College. I'm Scott Webb. So Amy, thanks so much for joining me. I know Kirkwood Corporate Training provides services for hundreds of area employers every year, but what exactly does Kirkwood Corporate Training do?

Amy Lasack: Well, our main job is to work with employers in our area and make sure that they have what they need to be successful. So sometimes that means connecting them to the right resources at the college. But most of the time for us, that means helping them through some sort of pinch point they might have. So the success of our region, it really relies on the success of the employers in our area. So if they're feeling a pinch in finding available qualified workforce, for example, we can assist them in getting programs set up where they can find the trained candidates that they need. A lot of times what we do centers around up-skilling the skills of their existing workers, so that they can be most effective in what they do on the job. So that might mean anything from setting up a leadership training and communication training, welding, hazmat. Those are just a couple examples of trainings that we might be able to put together for employers. Sometimes it means facilitating a strategic planning session with the leadership of a company or providing coaching for their employees or executives. So everything from training to facilitation, to coaching, Kirkwood Corporate Training, we do all of those things to assist the companies to get to that next level that they're hoping to get to.

Host: Yeah, that's really comprehensive. That's awesome. So what are some examples of trainings or consulting that you have completed for companies?

Amy Lasack: Yeah. I can give you a couple of examples. We have one company that we're working with right now that did a company wide leadership skill assessment. So all the folks in their company did the assessment. It was a great self awareness tool for the folks that work at that company to learn a little bit more about their own skill sets. And then what the company did next was great. They set up individual coaching sessions with each of one of our leadership coaches for each of the individual employees that took that assessment so that those individuals can use their current strengths and identify different goals, talk through their barriers that might have. It was just a nice way for the company to provide that extra resource for professional development for each of their employees to get to that next level. Because if everybody in the company could get to the next level, then the company can get to the next level. So that was one thing that we had put together recently that was really successful for the company.

Another example is a company, highly technical need. They hired one of our technical experts from our department to come in, evaluate their system, build an internal training program for them. So our instructor did the needs assessment with a company, identified exactly what they needed, built the entire curriculum, and then that curriculum became the property of the company. So that company continuously use that training internally with their internal training department, we'll likely teach it them for the first time to help them get through any bugs that might be in the way, but what it's, once it's built the company can use it any way that they see fit. So we helped in that instance, get the company a huge head start in their internal onboarding and upscaling needs.

Host: Well, and great to know that you're there at least in the initial stages to help them really get it off the ground and keep things moving in the right direction. So that that's really awesome. So what are some of the advantages for an employer to choose Kirkwood corporate training over? Let's say another training provider.

Amy Lasack: Sure. Well, I'd like to thank you. One of the advantages is that we, we try to do everything we can and extremely responsive need to our clients. So it's our goal to respond quickly to any requests that come our way. And if we can't deliver it, we will work with the client to find a way that they can connect with the right place or person to deliver what we couldn't do. But a lot of times what that means is they'll call us and we'll try to figure out how to make that happen and make it customized to meet their needs, exactly what they're wanting. So I would say very, very infrequently do we just have a pull off the shelf training. It's customized to what they're needing. We're also very lucky to have so many subject matter experts at the tip of our fingertips at the college. So we can be that person, that the company calls for those requests. And sometimes it's just one phone call and they tell us they need a safety training, a leadership training and a computer training. And the company calls us once and we can align all three of those up.

So it saves them time in the long run to have that one point of contact for all these different areas. I think the other nice benefit of working with Kirkwood Corporate Training is that knowing that the money that the company invests in the training will be filtered right back into the community. So the training that we profit off of at Kirkwood Corporate Training gets reinvested right back into the college. So essentially many companies that use Kirkwood Corporate Training for their training needs are getting double benefit. They're getting the benefit of training their employees, but then also the money they invest is being reinvested into the workforce of tomorrow that there'll be hiring from. So it's a nice benefit and a win, win for the community,

Host: Definitely, and them saving time and money. That's really great. So we know that flexibility is a key advantage in all of this. So please talk a little bit about how that played a role in how you were able to respond to employer needs during the COVID pandemic, which apparently we're still in the midst of, and how Kirkwood Corporate Training can respond to employer needs in the near future?

Amy Lasack: Yeah, well, we're lucky in that flexibility has been a key mode of operation for us all along, but when the pandemic hit its peak in March and April, when we had to switch things very quickly, many of our clients had to push the brakes on their schedule training. So we were able to do that without any ramifications for our clients, which was nice. We worked hand in hand with our clients to make sure that things got rescheduled as needed, but also if our clients wanted to move things forward, we were able to work with them to try to accommodate that in any way we could. So sometimes that meant developing a face to face class into an online class for them. Sometimes it meant creating new exercises that we would normally be able to do in a group environment and create it in a different way for folks to learn. So that the outcome was still the same.

We developed lots of new webinars to help our employers continue learning opportunities for their employees because many of them had employees working at home as well. So they wanted to continue the learning of their employees. But sometimes their budgets were frozen for the time that they were working from home. So we were able to provide some free learning opportunities through webinars for them. So ultimately what it comes down to listening to what our companies are telling us they need, and we will flex on our end to make sure we deliver that. So we anticipate as we're going through the next few months as well, that we'll have to continue to do that. And we're already having some of those conversations as we start up some new projects for this fall.

Host: Yeah. It sounds like you guys are being incredibly flexible and I love the word free. Everybody loves free. Right. Yeah. As your team talks to employers about how COVID has impacted their employee learning, what are you hearing regarding remote working and the impact that that's had on training their workforce?

Amy Lasack: Yeah, well, it's certainly created some new dynamics that's for sure. And our employers are still trying to figure out how to work through that. So as an example, of many companies were forced to make some work from home changes on the fly, literally within a day or within a week. It was changed from working in the office to working at home which meant not a lot of planning in the office for office set ups for their employees. So something as simple as ergonomic concerns for their employees that are now working from their couches or their bedrooms or their kitchen tables that was all of a sudden a new need that they didn't even consider a week ago. We were fortunate enough to have some subject matter experts within our purview to do a free webinar for our employers. And it resonated with a lot of them. So a lot of folks saw that webinar and decided, you know what, this is something we need to have our employees go through.

So we created some lunch and learn webinars for some of our clients as a way to assist those folks that had to quickly work from home to figure out the best way without having the capabilities or the resources to buy an entire new office set up for at home to make it work so that you're not having that aching back. That's one example. Another important thing that we saw this last time around was the emotional wellbeing of employees and working with the stressors of managing work from home, the kids at home, trying to balance it all while it's all mushing together, the stressors, if you had somebody within your family that was sick. And that was something that we were hearing a lot from our employers. So that resiliency piece or the mental wellbeing of employees, that was a lot of things that we were hearing from our employers. So as an employee, how do I manage that? But also as a manager, how do I recognize that?

And how do I respond to that and be a supportive manager for my team? And then you have the whole issue of managing employees from a distance. You know, how do you replace the value that managers have relied on with the in-person body language and the ability to stop by someone's desk and see if they're doing okay. It's much more challenging to do remotely. And it's something that a lot of managers haven't been trained on before. So those are some topics that we're hearing and some things that we're hearing from some of the folks that we work with. That's made a huge impact into training their workforce and needs that they're going to need to continue to work on because some of this isn't going to go away.

Host: Yeah. And good to know that employers are listening to their employees and you all are listening to the employers. It's really great how that all comes together. I imagine that many of our local employers might be stretched really thin with different priorities right now. So how important is it for employers to still make training that like we're discussing a priority for their employees?

Amy Lasack: Yeah, it's definitely a tough environment right now. And I know it's tempting for employers to put off or cut training needs as they try to keep afloat with all the new responsibilities and all the changes that are happening. But I do think it's important to understand the value of training and coaching and what that can mean for employees. So there's definitely a value to make employees feel valued by investing in their learning, not to mention the return it has for a company when you're having employees that are equipped to handle the job in a much better fashion, much more efficient. So in the long run employees that are happy and have the resources that they need will be much more valuable for the company. So I would encourage employers that might be stretched thin to figure out how can we balance part of that so that our employees have what they need so that in the long run, it makes sense.

Host: Definitely. And I think you've touched on this next one, but let's go over this again. You know, we know that budgets are a concern for employers. So does Kirkwood Corporate Training offer any sort of funding assistance for employers that are still wanting to provide that quality training for their employees?

Amy Lasack: We do. Definitely. We do have some funding available for the companies in our area that are interested in training. So depending on the industry of the company and the type of training that they're requesting, there are some training funds, usually they're first come first serve, that can pay anywhere from 50% of the training to a hundred percent of the training that a company needs. So we would encourage any company that has a need for training or thinks they might have a need. And just wants to talk through that is to give us a call or let us know what the process is really painless. We just learned a little bit more about what the company does, what sort of needs they have. And then we will sit down and fill out any application with the company together. So depending on the funding stream, that where we're able to access, it might have to go through some additional approval processes, but again, we would work with that company to try to make that as easy as possible.

Host: Yeah, it sounds like it. So I think the obvious last question here today, as we wrap up, Amy is how does an employer get started?

Amy Lasack: Yeah, it's pretty simple. All they have to do is give us a call. Our phone number is (319) 398-5623. Or they can send us an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or they could also visit our website, which is www.KirkwoodEDU/corporatetraining. And we have a form out there. They can just fill it out on what they're looking for and we'll get back to them.

Host: Great to know, and as always kirkwood.edu is a great place to get started and a great place to have your questions answered. So Amy, a great work today. Great to have you on, you answered so many questions and you did it in such a timely way. I love it. So thanks for being on and stay well. You can reach Amy at corporatetrainingatkirkwood.edu or call (319) 398-5623. Or visit kirkwood.edu/corporatetraining for more information on how Kirkwood can help your company. Thanks for listening to this podcast, brought to you by Kirkwood Community College. I'm Scott Webb. We'll talk again. Next time.