Training New Designers

Last month’s article, “The Designer Shortage—Where Can We Find Them?”, offered some suggestions for finding new component designers. This month, I have some suggestions for training those new hires effectively. And bear in mind, as I mentioned last month, I think it is extremely important that the industry continue to actively develop new designers to replace those of us who are aging out of the industry.

There are a few different approaches that CMs commonly use when they bring on a new designer:

1. Have the new hire attend in-person training with the connector plate supplier.
2. Have them complete online training available through the plate supplier.
3. Use component association online training.
4. Pair the new designer with an experienced designer to get them started and answer questions as they come up.
5. Have the new designer complete training provided by dedicated trainers, either in-house or online.

So, what are the disadvantages of each of these?

1. Obviously, there are travel and accommodation costs associated with sending staff away for training. Aside from this though, it has been my experience that training provided by plate supplier technical support people often ends up being more of a software demonstration than training. I’ve attended many of these sessions over the years, and even with decades of experience it’s easy to get left behind. I always feel bad for the newer designers in attendance who are obviously quickly left behind. This training also focuses almost exclusively on software operation, without any real blueprint interpretation, building code discussion, or engineering.
2. Plate supplier-provided online training has gotten better over time, but still suffers from many of the same drawbacks as noted above. On top of that, unless your new designer manages to get an experienced designer to help with the inevitable questions, they are going to be left with many unanswered questions since the online training generally consists of prerecorded videos.
3. Training provided by industry associations tends to have a wider scope than that provided by plate suppliers, including such things as code interpretation, blueprint reading, some truss geometry, and so on. The main drawback is that, once again, it is a pre-canned presentation without anyone available to answer questions or provide greater explanations.
4. From a training perspective, pairing a new designer with an experienced designer can be great. Assuming of course that the experienced designer has the time and patience to address countless questions, the biggest drawback is that you now have two salaries tied up in training.
5. Some larger component manufacturers have invested the time and considerable cost in developing in-house training programs. I am aware of in-house programs in use that are up to 8 weeks in length before the trainee begins working on “real” work. They cover all the important items listed above, with the added benefit that everything is tailored to preferred in-house framing and processes. Of course, unless your company is large enough to justify the considerable time and effort to create the curriculum and supporting materials – which could easily run into multiple months of development time and tens of thousands of dollars – this really isn’t an option.

Component Design Center/Component Systems Institute provided training much like the fifth option above in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We successfully trained designers from across North America. Perhaps it’s time to think about bringing that training back in online form, but with a dedicated trainer available to help trainees with questions?

Let me know if your company has a different approach to training that you find works for your company. And let me know if third party online training would be of interest to your company. If so, please reach out, I’d love to hear from you.