Concrete inFocus - Spring 2015 - (Page 14)

producer profile NRMCA Producer Member Uses Innovative Training Techniques to Improve Employee Retention Rates and Reduce Accidents Frank Cavaliere 14 ı SpriNg 2015 A sk Joseph McGuire Ph.D. about the well-known phrase "Death by PowerPoint" and he smiles knowingly. The environmental manager for Oldcastle Material Group's vast Midwest Division has helped train hundreds of employees across many job descriptions, and if there's one thing he's learned over the years it's this: show slide after slide in a meeting room for hour upon hour and the end result often is a drowsy group of industry employees who may - or very likely may not - have retained much of what was attempted to place inside their collective memory banks. "Based on research, it appears a great deal of information presented in a typical eight-hour training event is neither heard nor retained by the participants," McGuire says. "On the other hand, these same studies show retained learning increases when participants are engaged and active. When an educational process is selected which allows individuals freedom to participate or interact, they retain 70 percent of what they say and 90 percent of what they say and do." The challenge for a large, diversified company like Oldcastle, one of NRMCA's largest producer members, is to somehow avoid the pitfalls of traditional classroom learning while at the same time trying to improve retention rates. That's no easy task, notes McGuire. Oldcastle Materials Group, Midwest Division (OMG) is in the ready mix concrete limestone, sand and gravel mining industry. As a result, the company is regulated by many agencies, including the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For many years, OMG has complied with OSHA, MSHA and environmental training requirements by providing eight hours of mandatory annul safety training for mine employees, several more hours for those working in its OSHA-regulated facilities and one to two hours of environmental education to all employees. For the most part, all training was delivered by way of lectures supplemented with overhead projection, 35 mm slides and videotapes. In recent years these "tools" have given way to computers, PowerPoint slides and YouTube videos, but the lecture component remained the same.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Concrete inFocus - Spring 2015

Ready Mixed Plant Innovations
Data Security of Credit Card Processing in the Concrete Industry
Oldcastle Material Group
How the Concrete Paving Industry is Incorporating Sustainability into Our Practices
Index of Advertisers
The Trail to Your Future Business Should be Paved with Concrete
Your Biggest Environmental Threat in 2015 is NOT Who You Think!
Why is the Air There? Thinking about Freeze-Thaw in Terms of Saturation

Concrete inFocus - Spring 2015