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Rosendin is an employee-owned company offering a range of electrical construction services. It is a union contractor, and union electricians are trained through the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee. When they come to Rosendin, they are trained electrical journeymen or apprentices. In order to achieve its goal of promoting from within, Rosendin must teach journeymen to be businessmen so they can fill leadership roles (foreman/general foreman) within the company.
To do this, Rosendin developed a series of 12 classes that starts with the “Role of the Foreman.” Class topics include “Managing Production,” “Material Management,” “Project Start-Up,” and “Communication.” Each class is delivered in two-hour segments. Because trainers are based mostly out on the West Coast, Rosendin developed the Foreman’s Bootcamp to reach more field electricians across the United States. The 12-course series was truncated into a three-day bootcamp designed to provide field personnel with the information they need to conduct their job safely and efficiently.
Program Details
Additional segments were created for safety, field application systems, pre-fabrication opportunities, Lean construction, and “Extreme Ownership,” a class based on the development of professional skills and how to be a team player. All participants are invited to join senior executives in after-hour teambuilding activities to interact on a personal level.
Because many of the electricians who go through the apprenticeship program view the Interrnational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) as their employer and not the company they are working for (they take a call for a job and when that job is over, they go back to the hall), it is only through demonstrating an interest in their ongoing development and career advancement that Rosendin can begin to shift that mindset.
The Foreman’s Bootcamp is attended by senior field and office leadership in order to help reinforce the content and share real-world scenarios with the class. To help bridge the gap between office and field personnel, 30 percent of the content taught in the bootcamp is facilitated by experienced office staff, and the remaining 70 percent is taught by experienced field electricians who currently work within the Training Department. This helps to create an understanding of the roles and responsibilities that occur on both sides of a project.
The vice president of Quality and Training attends and assists in organization and recruitment of attendees and presenters. She also closely reviews class content. Superintendents (senior field leadership) attend the bootcamp, recruit class attendees, and participate in instruction.
Superintendents reinforce concepts learned in the bootcamp and promote foreman attendance in subsequent training sessions. This program is designed to introduce new and seasoned foremen across the country to their leadership roles. Because it is impossible to cover every concept involved in their role, Rosendin provides two-hour monthly trainings for each segment in the Foreman’s Bootcamp outline throughout the year.
Results
Surveys conducted with senior field leadership shows compliance was at 82 percent in 2018, a 27 percent increase from 2017. Level 3 results for this program are collected through the Project Health Review process, where Training works with the Quality team to validate that processes and procedures are being followed, and determine if additional training needs to be brought to the project team.
Rosendin internally filled 99.8 percent of all field leadership openings in 2018.