In yesterday’s Advisor, we looked at how several companies emphasize employee development and promotion from within. Today, we look at a partnership program that provides a year of training in skilled trades.
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Northwestern University has hired six young adults as part of a new training program partnership with the city of Evanston, IL, to teach skilled trades to local young people and prepare them for full-time jobs at the university and elsewhere.
According to a press release, the new positions are designed to give the six employees direct work experience in the skilled trades, and they will start out working in the carpenter shop and the paint shop at Northwestern.
Under the Northwestern/Evanston Skilled Trades Training Program, the university has committed to hiring six city residents each year to participate in a 1-year paid training program in the university’s facilities management division. At the end of the year, the trainees would either get hired into full-time jobs at the university or have a year’s worth of experience to help them find jobs elsewhere.
The jobs also come with mentoring, support, and life skills coaching from the university and the city, said University Executive Vice President Nim Chinniah, who said he hopes the trainees will stay on at Northwestern after their on-the-job training.
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“There has been a national trend over the last few decades to move away from the skilled trades as a career,” said John D’Angelo, Northwestern vice president for facilities management. “That has resulted in both a shortage of these critical professionals and a loss of economic diversity in many communities,” D’Angelo added.
Northwestern has developed the program in partnership with city officials, said Steve Kindrick, director of human resources for facilities management, with the city’s youth and young adult program staff helping to recruit the trainees.
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The positions are designed to give the six employees direct work experience in the skilled trades. They will start out working in the carpenter shop and the paint shop at the university. Next year, the program would also include work with the engineering departments, according to Kindrick.