New Generation(s)
Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine
I have two boys (9 and 7) who — as young boys will — don’t go to bed at precisely the time you would really like them to. The other night I put them to bed, came downstairs to get a little work done and was soon back upstairs as the giggling turned into laughter. Expecting another round of late night stuffed animal wars, I found they had smuggled their Game Boys into bed with them and were texting to each other with them.
My anger quickly turned to curiosity as I didn’t know their Game Boys had a texting function. They gleefully explained to me they discovered it poking around one night and had taught themselves how to use it. I feel I fall into that generation that remembers a time before the computer explosion, yet is still able to pick up new technology with relative ease. Yet, I marvel at the fact that my kids can so easily learn via an electronic device while we struggle at night with the old basics, reading, writing and arithmetic.
This got me to thinking. Have you seen the “Shift Happens†video? You can find it here. Sure we come away from that video thinking about our children and how we can better educate them, but it also made me wonder how are we training our current workforce? We’ve had the discussion about continuing education at Mass Transit before. Do you offer that for your workers? And how do you do it?
While I was in San Diego at this year’s Expo, Bombardier hosted a seminar on e-learning, discussing a lot of the same things in the “Shift Happens†video and how it applies to the transit industry. This kind of started me down the path towards wondering about new training techniques for the younger members of our industry. And sitting in some of the committee meetings really hit it home.
We are a graying industry folks. Most of us already know this, but there is a vast change coming and we need to be on top of it in any way we can. We need to not only get young people into the transit industry we need to keep them here, not just through competitive pay (which becomes less and less the carrot it once was), but through improved education and other benefits. With our ridership growing exponentially with no end in sight, it’s time we made a play to not just turn those choice riders into permanent transit riders, but members of the transit industry itself.
Bombardier has a PDF of the whitepaper they handed out at Expo available here, and Mass Transit will be hosting a Web version of the same seminar next week. I’ve seen it, I like it and I encourage you all to take some time out of your schedules to see it for yourselves. You can register for the Webinar here.
We’re on the eve of change and we need to make some hard decisions to keep our workforce up to speed as the world radically changes around them. I know my staff can’t afford to lag behind — can yours?
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
October 20th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I was in a meeting last Friday, when this MT Position was posted, and in that meeting I had to discuss how I managed people in a previous position. I realized the changes that have come about when I mentioned that “in those days” I could see what people were doing because “the drawings were on the desk, not on the screen.” From pencil to phosphors, that is a huge change.
Education was, and is, essential for anyone in business. Keeping up with the changes in every industry is essential, and depending on “picking it up as you go along” isn’t really going to work well. It takes proactive effort to keep yourself educated, not only “the workers,” Fred, but also the management. Remember, to manage effectively, you have to know what you’re managing.
You actually had two topics here, education being first, but also how to attract new talent to the transit industry. It seems to me that what attracts people to any industry is seeing the chance to make a positive impact. “Those young bucks want to change everything” is an actual statement I’ve heard in a meeting. You know what? The changes those “young bucks” were advocating were desperately needed. The man who made that remark is no longer running his business, in fact, he’s out of business and still doesn’t understand why.
We all know that transit needs to make changes. Let’s be listening to the newbies; they may have some Really Good Ideas.