TRAINING. More important than you think. - by GARY DONNISON

THE AUSTRALIAN PRINT, PACKAGING AND VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY, LIKE MOST BUSINESS SECTORS, WAS SWEPT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY ON A WAVE OF TECHNOLOGICAL, POLITICAL AND ECONO MIC CHANGE. TIMES ARE MOVING FAST. COMPETITION IS INCREASING.

The Printing Industries Association of Australia (Printing Industries) is an independent, member-based organisation, representing large, medium and small businesses that provide opportunities, skills and employment for Australians in the new economy. The industry is large, the 4th largest manufacturing sector of the economy. It has an annual turnover of $22b and employs 120,000 Australians.

THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY
Our future will see a new industry develop from the dynamic integration of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Printing, not only impacting on how products are developed and delivered but on how business itself is conducted.

The mission of Printing Industries is “to be the catalyst for the development and prosperity of the print, graphic communication and related industries in Australia.” To pursue our mission, in September last year, we initiated a project to fi nd out what the industry needed from the education and training system. Our key incentive for investigating this was the importance of training for business success shown in the results of our on-line Benchmarking System.

Benchmarking Online showed clearly that 25% of the participating companies have a Return on Assets Employed greater than the prevailing Government Bond Rate (currently about 5%). But the correlation between those successful fi rms and a commitment to training was startling. These fi rms had demonstrated an investment in training their workforce which was THREE times greater than the industry average.

Because the Benchmarking data are confi dential, we don’t know which fi rms were doing the training and what sort of training their employees undertook. Was it through apprenticeships, other forms of traineeships, supplier/ equipment specifi c, management courses or a combination of these? More importantly, is the training available the sort of thing that the industry needs to grow and prosper?

TRAINING IS FUNDAMENTAL
The Print 21 Action Agenda – the industry development plan endorsed by the Commonwealth Government - pointed out that “investing in people” is one of the keys to our future. The Benchmarking Project has confi rmed this. What we lacked was a comprehensive and objective data on the needs of industry now and into the future, and a set of policy guidelines and practical outcomes that can be embraced by the industry, education providers, the union movement, Commonwealth and State Governments.

Printing Industries negotiated with Commonwealth Government to fund research which will provide some answers to the questions raised by the Benchmarking project and act as a platform for a co-ordinated approach on education and training.

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