Every 10 seconds someone in the United States turns 65. As the baby boomer generation continues to retire and leave the workforce, talent acquisition will continue to be a major concern for companies big and small. In 2012, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and AARP conducted a joint survey focusing on organizations’ strategic workforce planning. The survey found that an increasing percentage of organizations are aware of “a potential shortage of younger workers with the requisite skills needed to replace older workers who are retiring.” What does this mean for your organization? One very real possibility is a knowledge loss or “brain drain” as these older workers retire, taking their experience and skills with them. Without careful planning of how to retain this knowledge, the task of equipping new employees can be overwhelming. The above-mentioned survey found that although 72% of HR professionals described loss of talent due to older workers retiring/leaving the organization as a “problem” or “potential problem”, only 5% had implemented specific policies to deal with it. So what can you do about this? Develop and implement plans to ensure your organization is acquiring and retaining your top talent. This may sound simple enough, but how does an organization go about doing this successfully? intRAtrain™ by Russell Associates has developed an informative whitepaper titled “Acquiring Talent in the 21st Century”. It delves deeper into many of the issues that are affecting employee acquisition today. Sign up for the whitepaper by visiting: http://www.intratrain.com/LandingPages/Talent.html

Recently we found a current employee skills gap survey conducted be LMA Consulting Group and the Inland Empire Chapter of APICS.  The  published Skills Gap Survey is both insightful and enlightening. It validates what most owners and managers know to be true about the skill gaps of employees when hired, and the absence of qualified skilled employees to fill open positions. You will notice the second and third highest rated skill gap needs are communication and presentation and management and leadership in that order. The report also states:  Although traditionally, manufacturers and distributors have been focused on professional and technical skills, soft skills have gained in criticality. Having employees with the technical skills is no longer enough; to compete in today’s new normal business environment, collaboration is a must.  An emerging trend towards professional training and development programs (typically including certification) occurs as executives are faced with bridging skills gap with limited time and internal resources. Read more of the skills gap study by clicking here. Our intRAtrainTM Blended Learning Solutions is an highly effective and efficient approach to filling the skill gaps of new and existing employees.   In a recent interview with Gary Gardner, former Vice-President of Human Resources at a global coating company, intRAtrain™ learned how leaders impact business performance. Gardner commented that when leaders are properly trained you see an improvement in team performance, greater productivity, good communication, and all employees being treated with dignity and respect. When supervisors are not trained properly as leaders there is often team conflict, poor results,…

When founded in 1980, Russell Associates solely developed custom training for business and industry. Over the next 33 years, the company expanded its expertise of training systems to include elearning, blended learning and learning management systems which allow companies to assign, deliver, document and record training. In 2011 the company developed inspectiTRAC™, a data collection and management system that mobilizes the collection, management and storage of regulatory data which provides clients nation-wide with an 80% reduction in employee labor to complete inspections, audits and observations. With the success of inspectiTRAC™ and presence in a new industry segment, Russell Associates found itself with a unique challenge. “It came down to product identity and the ease of understanding all of the products we offer our target market,” said Jerry Van Oort, President and CEO of Russell Associates. “Training systems and training development is the cornerstone of our company. After inspectiTRAC™ ‘s success and recognition as its own brand it only made sense to develop a separate yet complementary brand for our training systems; that is where the intRAtrain™ brand came from The intRAtrain™ name was developed to stand for interactive Russell Associates training.” The intRAtrain™ brand will include the following products and services:     intRAtrain™ Learning Management System     intRAtrain™ Custom     intRAtrain™ Blended Learning     intRAtrain™ Safety     intRAtrain™ Food Safety     intRAtrain™ Library Accompanying the new intRAtrain™ brand is a new logo. The new logo features a partial circle which depicts several concepts, including tree rings to represent growth and digital “bits” to represent technology. The broken circle is completed with…

inspectiTRAC™, Russell Associates’ advanced mobile inspection, audit, and observation system, has expanded the features and functionality of the inspectiTRAC™ Manager portion of the system. inspectiTRAC™ provides companies with the tools needed to reduce costs associated with inspections, audits, and observations. This software, designed for client customization in a wide range of businesses and industries, reduces employee inspection data collection and transfer time while increasing data accuracy. The tablet-based software is designed to make the inspection and auditing process trouble-free by integrating the inspection/audit criteria and location visuals directly into the program design, thus reducing the time needed to complete inspections while also reducing errors in data entry. inspectiTRAC™ Manager is a management system for reporting, scheduling, alerting and notifying of data and resolutions using data collected from inspectiTRAC™. Data collected with the inspectiTRAC™ Data Collector and uploaded to inspectiTRAC™ Manager is available in real-time, providing decision makers with the information they need to address incidents quickly and effectively, ensuring continued productivity. One new enhancement of the system is the report writer tool. The report writer allows users to create a customized report by filtering and sorting data from completed inspections. This report can then be exported, saved for future use, or shared with other users. “Our users asked for the ability to be able to customize and save reports, so we responded. The new report writer is great for those users who need to monitor data routinely. With this feature they only have to create the report once, and from then on it will be…

We are excited to announce that our library of food safety courses is expanding. Russell Associates’ intRAtrain™ Food Safety , a library of training modules designed to effectively and efficiently deliver essential training to employees in the food industry, has released three new modules that provide essential information for all employees in food production. These highly visual, interactive training modules, designed by training experts with years of experience in the food industry, were developed to the standards of industry leaders and can be customized to address facility-specific practices. Jerry Van Oort, CEO of Russell Associates comments, “Food safety is becoming an ever more critical component of food manufacturing. I am excited to expand our selection of food safety courses to include these 3 new courses. They are a great compliment to the other training courses we currently provide.” intRAtrain Food Safety’s newest modules include: Cleaning and Sanitation – This module will give you a general overview of the cleaning and sanitizing process. It presents the difference between cleaning and sanitation, factors effecting cleaning and sanitizing, the basic steps to cleaning and sanitizing, inspections, cleaning records, and food allergens. GMPs – This module discusses standard Good Manufacturing Practices regarding product quality and sanitary manufacturing methods. Topics include personal hygiene, clothing and jewelry in the work place, and personal work habits. Food Safety & Security – This module presents food safety and security issues in a food production facility. Topics include the difference between food safety and food bio-security, the importance of bio-security, physical security, requirements for…