The Chairman of the private/public Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP), Scott Kisting, today urged telecommunications employers to fully embrace an industry-wide effort to train new workers and instill higher standards in the workplace.
Scott Kisting
In a presentation before the Environmental, Health & Safety International Communications Conference, Kisting said, “If the telecom industry is going to meet soaring consumer demand, we’ll have to train thousands of capable new workers and strengthen safety, efficiency, and quality in the telecom workplace,”
“The Department of Labor and the Federal Communications Commission have entrusted the telecom industry with a federally supported apprenticeship program. Now it’s incumbent for industry employers to demonstrate that their faith in us was justified. Federal policymakers know that the future of U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace depends – in no small measure – on the telecom industry’s capacity to train new workers and create a safer and more productive workplace,” said Kisting, who serves as Senior Vice President for Risk & Compliance for Midwest Underground Technology, Inc.
“Efforts to improve industry standards through member engagement and job training must be accelerated to meet our collective goal of delivering better communications services to the American people. There is an economic benefit in ensuring that the telecommunications industry adheres to safety compliance measures and enhances its already-positive reputation in the marketplace,” Kisting said.
Kisting specifically called on industry employers to:
- Ensure that human resources executives are thoroughly familiar with career training opportunities through TIRAP;
- Adhere to the goals of quality, efficiency, and safety as requirements for training;
- View a new TIRAP-commissioned video that educates employers about the steps they can take to buttress training;
- Properly communicate the current effective industry standards; and
- Maintain a process to ensure that employers submit their training data to the Department of Labor and provide feedback to the TIRAP board.