Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on Riverland Community College.

With the need for employees in manufacturing companies expected to increase as more baby boomers retire, many turn to minorities, nontraditional gender students and nontraditional age students to fill the demand.

Schools like Riverland Community College are not producing enough graduates for manufacturing companies such as Viracon Inc. that need new employees each year to meet turnover and expand the company, according to Jim Wendorff, vice-president of human resources at Viracon.

With the baby boomers beginning to near retirement, this need is growing even larger.

To fill this need, companies and schools are turning to ethnic minorities, particularly those already working within companies, to meet this growing need.

“Eventually the goal is to help these immigrants reach a point where they can move up in the organization to positions of more responsibility and ultimately more pay,” Wendorff said.

According to Wendorff, Viracon went to the state of Minnesota for $285,000 of grant money to help train the minority workgroup. About 150 people have been engaged in a variety of activities to help their basic language skills, math skills and problem solving skills.

Viracon started training minority employees through the Employer of Opportunity program, for which the company received the Minnesota Human Rights Award on Sept. 29, 2007.

“Certainly within our immigrant group you have people who are very, very bright and capable, but they don’t have the formal education or they lack the language skills to help leverage their knowledge,” Wendorff said. “As we do this, we’re going find out we have a lot of people who are very highly skilled. All they need is some confidence with their language and a little bit of formal training.”

The need for skilled employees, especially maintenance mechanics, is not an issue limited to a single corporation or even the state of Minnesota. Wendorff said he thinks companies are beginning to see that immigrants in lower level jobs have the potential to advance and meet these needs.

Wendorff said if companies aim to be successful, they’ll need to fill this need for labor.

“We really need this immigrant population,” Wendorff said. “We are going to be facing a critical shortage of workers as the baby boomers retire. I think whatever part of the country is successful in attracting and helping make successful immigrants, that part of the country will be well served.”

According to Wendorff, a company that trains it’s employees can customize the education to fit the skills required for the company.

Customizing programs has been a part of Viracon and Riverland’s relationship for around 12 years. Since then, the two have been working together to further educate Viracon’s employees, with some attaining two year degrees. A program Wendorff called Viracon University.

Wendorff said about 10 years ago, a change became visible in the workforce at Viracon. Many minority workers, primarily Hispanic and African immigrants worked in the same entry level positions.

About four years ago, Viracon approached Riverland Community College to explore ways to give their immigrant workers the skills needed to advance within the company.

“As we continue to grow as a company, we recognized this is a potential pool of talent that we needed to tap into,” Wendorff said. “There certainly were some challenges when you’re dealing with an immigrant workforce: The primary one is language. So what we did is we ended up hiring quite a few immigrants, many who have basic skills gaps. We partnered with Riverland to take a look at this workforce and say how can we help them be successful. What are the skills that we need to try and improve. Language being the most critical one.”

Since one challenge is to get these employees to a training facility, classes are being brought to the workers and are typically taking place after or before shifts. According to Wendorff, this has been difficult because of differences in schedules.

In two hours of classes, Wendorff said Viracon would pay for the first hour and the worker would pay for the second. English skills have been the focus of the first classes.

“It’s not easy to always work with people who don’t speak the same language. It’s become just part of doing business,” Wendorff said. “Companies are going to have to figure that out if they’re going to continue to thrive and grow.”

Challenges and successes

These challenges do not overshadow the successes of the program. A program that Wendorff said instills confidence in an employee’s abilities.

“Ultimately we’re planting seeds, we’re planting seeds that when we need future leaders,” Wendorff said. “When we need people who have the technical skills to move into positions that are more critical to our operations, we’re going to have a bench to go to. We’re going to have a number of people who we’ve trained. We’ve helped them gain skills. They’re very loyal to the companies. We can move them up in responsibility. And as the labor force tightens on us, I think that’s going to serve us well in the future.”

Wendorff said the program has been a win for Viracon, the employees and the community. Viracon was motivated to move forward with this because it supplies them with a critical source of labor to expand their business. These employees receive money so support their family and be active members in the community.

“I think the program will ultimately be very successful,” Wendorff said. “I think if you came and visited Viracon in 10 years, you’d see a number of our immigrant workers in higher level positions and more technical positions and more leadership-type positions. That’s going to be the success of the program.”

Riverland is also working to educate minorities before they enter the workforce. According to Steve Bowron, dean of career and technical education at Riverland, the school is trying to attract more ethnic minorities to college education.

Riverland is attempting to attract high school students to the programs. The Be Your Best Summer Academy is geared toward getting ethnic minorities interested in the kind of education they would receive at Riverland. They have done this twice and plan to continue it into the future.

Minorities are not the only pool of potential students and employees Riverland and employers are looking to tap into. One option is for older students to further their education.

Another big opportunity is for students to explore occupations historically filled by one gender, like females filling nursing positions and males filling auto-mechanics positions. While these divides have narrowed in the field of nursing, other programs have not seen this divide shrink.

“Employers embrace that. If it’s traditionally a male program, (employers) really like to see the females coming,” said Tricia Whalen, director of placement and graduate services.

“It’s the same with our older students. They really like their work ethic. They’ve been in the workforce. They’re comfortable there. They’re comfortable interacting with other coworkers and clients. When it comes to bottom line, they’re looking at the individual students”

“If you talk to any of our minority students or to some of our students that are in opposite gender programming, I think they’d tell you it’s a very supportive college and we’re really trying to help them go where they want to go with their education and with good paying careers in southern Minnesota,” Bowron said.