Alrol: Skilled Workers a rare species?

Billy - an Alrol Team Member photo by Daily Citizen, edited by andreas

The Apprenticeship System - The Necessity for Thoroughness of Training

Of course, there are many who say that a long term of apprenticeship is needless,
and that the European system wastes the best years of a young man's life.

We altogether dissent from the doctrine.

We do not believe that skill of a high order in any trade can be attained to without it.

And, certainly, the habit of industry, self-control,
all the qualities which go to make a steady, respectable man are,
with most natures, the growth neither of one year nor two.

New York Times, extract from an article published on November 5, 1865

Dear Reader,

Did You happen to notice the date when this article was in the paper?

The writer's language certainly may sound old-fashion for today's text message senders and email writers, but is the content?

We are, 150 years later, in 2015 and I have an open position in my small business.
The main task in this job is to run, maintain, and understand a manual lathe, combined with blueprint reading skills, to produce rollers.
Where do I find candidates, the ones cited in the article as 'steady, respectable man' (or women) who did attain the skills in their trade in an apprenticeship? In a two or more years long structured learning and training process?

In other words:

Where do I find candidates that can start being productive after two days of introduction into our company?

I can't because there are just too few:

There were 375,000 registered apprentices in the U.S. in 2013.
Including 164,000 who started programs that year.

England, with a population one-sixth the size of the United States,
had more than five times as many new apprentices as the United States in 2012.

Center for American Progress, September 2014

Alrol's Way

As a small business owner I have only found one option so far:

First recruit 'the right personality' and then develop the needed skills

During the recruiting process I put all emphasis on the candidate's

· personal skills (personality)

· personal values (fitting Alrol's core values)

· education (job-important school knowledge)

During the first six to twelve month on the job

· we add any job specific skills in one-to-one training (on site)
unspecified investment in time and resources

· with the local technical college we design additional training classes (on campus and online)
Alrol's investment per Team Member is about $4,000.00

Alrol's Benefits

With this on first sight rather expensive way, our benefits are:

Win win

We teach and train our Team Members not just the 'What' but the 'How'

which results in:

· highly skilled Team Members trained to Alrol's specifications and values

· long-term employments and an extremely low turn-over

Our Customer's satisfaction

Our Team Members do each task in a highly professional way and
in a quality and customer focused attitude

· personalized communication

· customer-oriented services and solutions

· consistency in quality