In our recent webinar, titled “A Roundtable with Electricom & Sellenriek: Using Simulators to Close the Skills Gap,” we asked participants about the top challenges they face in training a skilled workforce.
Many singled out limited resources for training—such as experienced instructors and equipment—as well as challenges with effectively evaluating student performance.
Fortunately, there’s a way to address these challenges. Heavy equipment simulators provide many benefits when used as a training resource. But as industry experts Shane Matthews and Jeremy Davenport have observed, they also provide an excellent tool for recruitment, talent evaluation, and employee orientation.
Shane Matthews
Senior Manager, Training & Development, ElectriCom
Shane Matthews is the Director of Training and Development for ElectriCom, a utility infrastructure contractor operating in the telecommunication and power industries. With a career that has spanned both the construction and manufacturing industries, Shane Matthews has focused his skills on leadership, process improvement (LEAN), and employee development. Currently, Shane oversees ElectriCom’s LMS platform, new employee orientation, Leadership Development programs, and DOL Apprenticeship programs. Shane is currently the Chair of the PCCA (Power and Communication Contractors Association) Education Committee, as well as the Chair of WIA’s (Wireless Infrastructure Association) TIRAP Advisory Committee.
Jeremy Davenport
Director of Safety, Sellenriek Construction
Jeremy Davenport is the Vice President of Safety, Training, and Compliance at Sellenriek Holdings. He oversees Safety and Loss Prevention programs, fleet safety, commercial liability insurance, and employee training. His responsibilities include policy development, claims management, and promoting a strong safety culture. Jeremy also serves on the Missouri 811 Board of Directors, is an active member of the Missouri AGC Utility Infrastructure Division, and participates in the Common Ground Alliance.
Continue reading for a curated selection of highlights from the webinar. Hear Matthews’ and Davenport’s thoughts on how they’ve used simulation to gain a competitive edge in today’s tight labor market, and discover their answer to the following questions:
- How Do You Approach Utilities and Construction Recruitment?
- When Hiring Heavy Equipment Operators, How Do You Ensure They Have the Necessary Skills?
- How Does Your Orientation Process Support Operator Recruitment Efforts?
- Is Your Heavy Equipment Operator Training Faster With Simulation?
- Has Simulation Affected Training Costs, Such as Fuel, Equipment, Maintenance, and Downtime?
Shane Matthews: I’ve talked to a lot of people, and I think that everybody shares the opinion that recruiting events nowadays, career fairs, etc. are just not working for this industry… so we are trying to look at a more focused recruiting atmosphere. We want to build as many funnels as we can of skilled individuals coming in. I’d rather meet with 15 kids at a high school tech program than 300 seniors who are walking through a career fair. And this simulator, it’s opened the door. We probably wouldn’t have gotten the invitations we have now—because we were there with 30 other construction companies, and they didn’t have this to offer… Now we can come in with our logos and our simulators, and we can do competent person excavator training or 811-dig training. We have the sim there and allow the kids to get some time on it. And when they come out of school, now we’re a familiar name. And we didn’t get that before.
Jeremy Davenport: We identified some time ago that we had a shortage in the workforce. We were going to have to appeal to a younger group of people, and so we saw a couple of facets there where we could use simulators. We actually visited Shane at ElectriCom and saw what the capabilities of the simulator were, to kind of finalize our decision. We brought those [simulators] on earlier this year, and we used them for recruiting purposes and also some [operator skill] affirmation things.
Shane Matthews: If we bring in a competent operator, we’re spending several hours going through an assessment to ensure that they are truly competent. You get a lot of guys in the door who say, “I’ve been an operator for 10 years.” And when you put them on a piece of equipment—they may have sat on equipment for 10 years—but I wouldn’t call them an operator, and definitely not a safe operator. If we’ve got a confident operator, that is just a confirmation of skill set, and it only takes a few hours.
If we’re taking somebody that’s pretty green to the equipment, say for us, a groundsman that wants to move in an operator position, they’re going to spend the better part of probably half a day over the course of a week or two. We use that training to start to hone those skills on the simulator so that it becomes muscle memory when we send them out to the actual production site and on the real piece of equipment.
Shane Matthews: We utilize simulation in our orientation. We currently run a 40-hour orientation here in our Midwest division. And every employee in the door—whether it’s a groundsman, a lineman, an operator, or even management—spends about 30 minutes minimum on the simulator to do a basic skills assessment. We found some individuals who are hired in as a lineman, an overhead job, or as a groundsman—maybe they’re fresh out of college or high school—and we put them on the simulator. Sometimes we realize there’s some inherent skill set there. So it’s something that we know we can spend a little time on and start to build. And that’s probably going to be our next layer of operators for the company. And then when we hire in an operator, that’s where they’re getting that three, four hours in orientation to go through that competent operator exercise.
Shane Matthews: Absolutely. And I think there’s several different reasons for that. To start with, we’re able to get the simulator out to them [using our Mobile Training Center]. Then when it comes to actual seat time, on a simulator, I’m able to stand next to the person. I mean, I’m carrying on a conversation like I am right now. And, in some instances, when I have a very green operator—we utilize primarily excavator, digger derrick, and we do some backhoe and some other stuff—but on the excavator, a green operator wants to take that stick and jerk it to the left, jerk it to the right, and bang that piece of equipment around. I’m able to have them put their hands on the controls, put my hand above it, and move that control so they can feel what it feels like to ease into the control and understand the difference. If I were doing this training on a real piece of equipment, the operator would be 15, 20 feet away from me. I’m outside of that circle of safety. And the machines, the RPMs are up, the exhaust is up. They can’t hear. I’m trying to yell and explain to them what to do. They have to shut it down. I walk in to them, explain it. I walk back out. They start it back up. Just the time itself of me walking in and out trying to explain what to do, [the simulator] shaves a lot of that time off. And a lot of what we’re trying to do in those basic skills training sessions is build that muscle memory, get them used to digging a trench for an hour. When you go out into the real-world environment [to train]—for us, you may be digging a hole three-foot deep and four foot by four foot—you’re not going to get a dig for an hour. So that same hour of training may take a week to get [on real equipment], whereas on a simulator, I can knock that out in a day.
Jeremy Davenport: Yeah. I’ve actually had feedback from a foreman who had somebody come through our program. The foreman said, “Hey, what we’ve noticed is these folks that we put up [on the simulator], when we’re ready to put them on [real equipment], they’re ready to go.” We don’t have to spend the time to get that confirmation that we did before. Within that entry-level skill set, they’re competent and can safely operate. And I’ll reiterate what Shane said about the safety of the training, just the interaction there. That speaks volumes too. You can actually stand right next to someone in a controlled environment and explain everything versus being out there trying to dodge a backhoe bucket and get people’s attention and stuff like that. So yeah, I feel like it’s expedited that process.
Shane Matthews: Yes. Absolutely. And I’ll let Jeremy chime in quite a bit on this one—I think he’s got some feedback here—but obviously, you’re not seeing the fuel cost. You’re not seeing the damage. New operators aren’t always the easiest on a piece of equipment. And we’re not losing production equipment. I’m not losing that income because the equipment that’s making me money is still in the field.
Jeremy Davenport: Yeah. I can say that’s our view, too. We’ve still got production to do, and then there’s always that tug that everybody knows between operations and training and those things. I don’t have any hard data, but I can tell you that where we have utilized it, we’re obviously not pulling those pieces off the line, and they’re out there working.
This was just a small sampling of what was covered in the full roundtable discussion. Want to hear more about Shane Matthews’ and Jeremy Davenport’s insights on recruiting and training the next generation? Watch the full on-demand webinar: A Roundtable with Electricom & Sellenriek – Using Simulators to Close the Skills Gap.
