By: Barbara Holtzapple, ABC Keystone Director of Education
The construction industry is constantly evolving. To stay relevant, companies must continually grow their talent. Making employee development a priority within your company culture ensures your team stays well-informed on industry trends, recent developments, and best practices.
Offering professional development boosts employee engagement, lowers turnover and attracts the top talent you want as part of your growing team. ABC Keystone offers continuing learning opportunities to help nurture your staff and provides a path for their development as industry leaders.
Some of ABC’s many offerings include the Leadership Development Series, Franklin Covey offerings such as 7 Habits of Highly Successful People©, Superintendent Training Program, Dynamic Crew Leadership, Microsoft© skills like Excel©, PowerPoint© and Project©, our industry-specific HR Management Academy, Blueprint Reading, SalesWorks, Productive Conflict and the highly successful Professional Development Series which uses role playing activities to hone new interpersonal skills on the spot. New courses in development for the fall include Estimating, Leadership 2.0, Covey’s Speed of Trust©, and Comprehensive Leadership Through DiSC. We also offer Peer Groups for Human Resources and Executive Leaders in our contracting firms. (View all upcoming education & training here.)
Because people learn differently, and our members are spread out, we have begun hybrid classes that offer in-person as well as virtual attendance. Leadership Development and the HR Management Academy already offer this option. The Executive Leader Peer Group is starting two groups in April: In-Person meets the 3rd Thursday quarterly and Virtual meets the 3rd Wednesday. Customized options are also available for most of our training content. Get your team on the same page by training them together at your office, on your schedule.
The Education Committee is dedicated to providing new options and developing relevant, vibrant programming for all of our members. In doing so, this team, led by Kevin VanPelt of Walz Group, has added promoting strong mental health to its docket. They have scheduled an industry-wide free webinar “Preventing Suicide in Construction” for May 26, with ABC National VP of Safety & Workforce Development and leading advocate, Greg Sizemore. Enhanced resources for front-line supervisors, sensitivity/diversity training and dealing with the possibility of legalized recreational marijuana are among other goals for this year.
If you have suggestions for the Education Department or would like to join the committee, reach out to Barbara Holtzapple at barbara@abckeystone.org. ABC Keystone’s Education Committee meets the first Tuesday of the month from 7:30-8:30 am. New members and fresh ideas are welcome!
Posted April 20, 2021
