Customized Training in the Workplace

Rapid changes in manufacturing technology and procedures have created a need for additional training for workers. Traditional postsecondary school vocational training is generally perceived as not adequately meeting this need because vocational training programs quickly become obsolete. Customized labor training, typically implemented at the workplace, is a possible alternative to vocational training. Such training programs are frequently oriented toward specific organizational needs rather than general skill development. In-depth interviews with personnel directors, trainers, and worker-students in 20 organizations using customized labor training programs specified three different settings that entail different background conditions and outcomes for customized training: large, unionized monopoly sector firms that have developed intensive training programs; smaller, periphery sector firms that use state support for training largely as a subsidy to underwrite initial orientation costs for workers; and new starts, many of them Japanese owned, that substitute training in communication skills and group processes for training in specific job skills. The implications of these different settings for the future of customized labor training are discussed.