Editor's Note: This post was sponsored by TPC Training.
In 2019, when Plant Services asked its readers what their organizations could be doing differently to recruit new talent, the top response was “better promotion of training and career development opportunities” – a response that even ranked higher than “higher starting wages.”
TPC Training is a privately held company with headquarters in Buffalo Grove, IL. TPC offers a complete portfolio of training methods, including online, classroom, and on-the-job, and has helped more than 40,000 client sites globally to train over 3.5 million skilled workers.
We recently caught up with Tim Jacobs, VP/General Manager – Enterprise at TPC, to ask him how the company is helping industrial maintenance workers to both improve their skill sets, from precision maintenance to leadership, and overcome the numerous job challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Q: How do TPC’s mission and values inform your approach to serving your industry?
A: TPC began as a pioneer in the training industry more than 50 years ago. Over the years, we have positively impacted thousands of lives by keeping our people and the organizations we serve safe. As we’ve evolved, we’ve incorporated cutting-edge training programs and expanded our offerings to include performance and compliance solutions.
Driven by our mission to keep our stakeholders safe through practical business consulting services and advanced technology platforms, we value collaboration and integrity. We have a thirst and hunger for our next business opportunity, we do it all – and more – with a positive, can-do attitude. Now that we’ve brought our entire suite under one unit, TPC is proud to continue serving our industry with customized solutions to our expansive customer base.
Q: The new TPC logo communicates how your company has evolved to become more than a training provider. Can you provide more insight to this?
A: With TPC’s recent acquisition activity and investments in JADE Learning, National Environmental Trainers, Intelivert, eFood Handlers, StateFoodSafety, and Simutech Multimedia, the corporate mark needed a redesign to better reflect our evolution. We embarked on a corporate rebranding project in 2020, so we could accurately depict our extensive offerings that go beyond training and into performance and compliance while maintaining alignment to our mission of safety, knowledge, efficiency through education and technology. Our new products meet those standards and more.
Our refreshed, modern, tri-color brand mark reflects the integration of the entire TPC family of products under one umbrella. It visually captures the sweeping growth we have experienced and the new initiatives on the horizon.
Q: Can you talk about how TPC’s Fusion platform helps teams achieve their management goals?
A: TPC launched FUSION, a comprehensive, user-friendly software application that integrates our entire suite of innovative and streamlined workforce management solutions for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, assessment, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, and compliance and skills verifications.
TPC knows companies need their employees on-boarded, trained, and prepared to advance quickly – ready to perform their jobs safely, efficiently, and competently. We also know that the importance of a user-friendly, intuitive software application designed for both administrators and employees to manage, deliver, track, and report workforce training and compliance needs across your facilities and your entire organization to save time and resources.
FUSION delivers a simpler, streamlined, and automated single sign-in cloud-based solution with each of our digital offerings in one comprehensive application. FUSION is branded with your company’s logo. It features more than 1,000 detailed technical training lessons from our proprietary library, integration capabilities to build your courses and content, cutting edge technology simulations with a gamified learning experience, as well as our customized test-building using Testmaster™, to create and deliver your assessments, and so much more. FUSION is entirely customizable and scalable.
FUSION’s centralized platform seamlessly integrates with your HRIS system and can schedule training reports, identify workers who are missing coursework or who need additional support, automatically assign recurring or refresher training, deliver timely news and administrator-driven messages directly to your workforce, and provide location-specific training off property to sub-clients.
With all of TPC’s training libraries maintained in a central hub, you can design custom training programs for users based on department, role, or even by individual. Your company’s training administrator can select any piece of content on the platform, from instructor-led courses, skills verifications, to online coursework, or simulations, and let FUSION administer, document, report, track, and test from one system.
TPC partners with you to protect the safety, well-being, and livelihood for your employees while advancing their careers. Our goals are your goals – to increase retention, expedite knowledge transfer, and enhance performance and engagement – ultimately, leading to the overall success of your company. TPC FUSION offers seamless access to our most comprehensive online maintenance training solutions, featuring the deepest industrial skills training catalog in the industry.
Q: What advice do you have for organizations trying to thrive and survive in a post-COVID world?
A: At TPC, we pivoted our offerings during the pandemic to ensure our partner companies could continue their operations safely, efficiently, and virtually. Our focus on training, performance, and compliance in an online and virtual environment, combined with our history of embracing new technology, means we are prepared to partner with organizations on their workforce management needs during challenging times.
We encourage companies to continue to keep employees safe in a way that works best for their operational model – whether that be in a virtual, online, or in-person environment, or some combination thereof. One thing that we have learned through the pandemic is that the organizations who were most innovative and flexible were able to adjust most efficiently and effectively, and TPC is there to assist in any way we can.