In hot jobs market, bosses have to train low-paid staff

Bloomberg

You’d need a cast of thousands to re-enact Black Friday at a Walmart store, so virtual reality comes in handy at the company’s training centres. Employees get to experience a shopper stampede on their headsets, part of a widening national effort that encompasses some 7,000 workers a week.
The retail giant isn’t alone. From hotels to fast food chains, employers in service industries are setting up training programs or revamping the ones they have.
That’s what is supposed to happen in a tight labour market, a description that fits the US where unemployment is at a 49-year low.
Since there’s competition over a diminishing pool of workers, companies have to lower requirements at the entry level — then spend more time and money training the people they hire.
“If you’re in a relatively low-wage labour market in the service sector — say Starbucks, Walmart, McDonald’s — notice that they all have training programs now,’’ says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. It’s “one of the things that a healthy economy encourages.’’
There’s a shortage of data on workplace education, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn’t surveyed the topic for more than 10 years. Still, something seems to be stirring. One reason may be that technology is lowering the cost of training, always a deterrent for employers.
“They’re far more willing to spend money on technology and software to train people than they are to hire trainers,’’ says Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at University of Pennsylvania’s business school.
That’s an opportunity for startups like four-year-old Strivr, which designs VR programmes to simulate Black Friday at Walmart, or an attempted robbery at a Verizon store.
Strivr Chief Executive Derek Belch describes how one of his modules is used at low-cost airline JetBlue, to teach staff how to do a quick “walkaround” cabin inspection in between flights. It’s hard to do that on an actual plane, he says, “because it has to go fly in 20 minutes.’’ Without virtual reality, the carrier would have to rent a plane for training, or pay overtime to do it late at night.
On top of in-house education, companies like JetBlue, Walmart and Chipotle offer programmes that link up to college credits, and they’ve stepped up tuition reimbursement plans. Walmart employees can pursue a bachelor’s degree at three nonprofit schools for a $1 a day.