How to Set Up an Internal Training Program

Above: Mike Kaichen (farthest left) and Myra Hopkins (farthest right) with the Portland Glass team, who utilize MyGlassClass.com for their training. 

As companies continue to navigate the labor shortage, an effective internal training program can help onboard new personnel and keep existing employees’ skills up-to-date. The National Glass Association offers MyGlassClass.com, which provides more than 100 online courses for glaziers and glass fabrication personnel to complement hands-on training. 

STEP 1 | Determine the scope

As you investigate how to set up an internal training program, think about what you want it to look like. Ask the following questions: Who needs training? Is it new hires? Is it employees who are adding new skills? Who will lead this training effort? How do you want to organize training? Do you want to have one group that includes all employees? A group for new hires? A group for a specific location? These are all important questions to ask.

At Garrety Glass in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, for example, the company uses the Intro to Glass & Glazing and Safety course bundles on MyGlassClass.com to onboard all new hires in its commercial department. 

“We were looking for a structured and accessible training program to introduce new employees to the fundamentals of the glass and glazing industry, along with essential safety practices,” says HR Manager Aimee Dietz. “MyGlassClass.com’ Intro and Safety bundles provided the perfect solution—offering a clear, well-organized way to begin training on Day One following new hire orientation.”

STEP 2 | Assign a training lead/administrator

When assigning a staff member to lead your training program, make sure that person has the time and resources to be successful. If that employee already has several other responsibilities, you may be setting them up for failure. Create space for the training lead to develop, oversee and maintain the training program.  

STEP 3 | Select the right courses

Go through the MyGlassClass.com or MyGlassFAB course catalogs to select the training that is right for your employees. Make sure to choose a well-rounded course offering. On the installer side, for example, you might have glaziers who do residential work day in and day out, but who also could use education on storefront work. Use courses to expand existing employees’ skillsets, in addition to training new hires.  

When NGA made MyGlassClass.com courses free to all members this year, Enclosures Unlimited of Sterling, Virginia, took advantage of that to assign training to staff that they could do in their downtime, to keep continuing education and safety a part of the company culture.

“Make the training be required for some items, like safety and PPE, but others [can be assigned] as continuing education,” advises General Manager Lori Ann Benish. “Trying to sit our crews down and just train all day would have been difficult for all of us. Letting them do it at their own pace was something that made the training accessible and the employees were happier taking it because of this.”

STEP 4 | Choose a training format

All MyGlassClass.com and MyGlassFAB courses are assigned to individual employees so that training supervisors can monitor employee participation, see what courses they have completed, and view test scores. However, how employees participate in these courses is customizable.

For some companies, the self-paced option is best, in which employees are assigned specific courses to complete and given a timeline to do so. This allows employees to take courses on their phones, on their own. Supervisors can monitor their progress using the Team Manager function on MyGlassClass.com. 

Group training is another option, where a supervisor walks through a course with employees—adding their own experience and comments on the course material—and staff follows along on their phones or laptops. If you go this route, employees will still need to enroll individually in courses and quizzes, but it allows for group discussion.

For example, Portland Glass, a New England-based glass fabricator and installer, gets employees together in a classroom-like setting and goes through the courses together, and then employees individually complete the quizzes at the end. Employees also have the option to complete the training during their own downtime.

Portland Glass Flat Glass Training Manager Mike Kaichen says that a typical 15-minute course ends up taking an hour on average with the amount of discussion that the class has, which he says is a positive thing because it’s how he knows that employees are really absorbing the material.

Although Portland Glass team members do the courses together, employees also have the option to refer back to their library of classes whenever they want. If they are struggling with something at work on Monday, they can take some time to review a course on that issue, then come back in on Tuesday ready to hit the ground running.

STEP 5 | Train your administrators and trainers

The NGA MyGlassClass.com Customer Care Team will train supervisors and administrators how to use MyGlassClass.com to track employee course progress and test scores, and how to run reports.
While MyGlassClass.com and MyGlassFAB can get new employees up to speed faster and teach people best practices for new skills, they do not replace hands-on training, so companies should not forget about their in-person trainers, says Jenni Chase, vice president of workforce development at the NGA. Chase adds that the best company training programs are those that combine

MyGlassClass.com or MyGlassFAB with hands-on training. Invest in your hands-on trainers as well by providing them the resources they need, and reward them for their efforts.   

Portland Glass Director of Organizational Development Myra Hopkins says that “hands-on experience helps to connect the dots,” and that scheduling the learning to happen in tandem with the work itself will help support effective training.

STEP 6 | Request access to MyGlassClass.com

After completing all these steps, request access to MyGlassClass.com by emailing myglassclass@glass.org to set up group and team manager access, and to schedule a walkthrough of the new system for training administrators. Once the company is set up, ask employees to create their MyGlassClass.com accounts and enroll in the courses you have chosen for them.  

STEP 7 | Recognize and reward employees

Recognize and reward employees who participate and excel in training programs. Consider incentivizing employees to participate in online and hands-on training and reward those who do with lunches, leaving early on a Friday, opportunities to advance on the payscale, or whatever makes sense for your company. It shows that you not only value their education, but that you recognize their efforts, which can help in employee retention.  

“MyGlassClass.com offers a tremendous amount of vital information, but it also becomes a significant platform to open up interactivity with our associates that we’re training,” Kaichen says. “[The employees] start inquiring about things. They start relating something we’re learning in class to something they’ve seen out in the field or dealt with in their day-to-day.” Kaichen adds that it has helped fill a void for training within the glazing industry that has been missing. 

The New MyGlassClass.com—Free to NGA Members! 

NGA recently upgraded the MyGlassClass.com online learning platform to provide new training for glaziers and glass fabrication personnel, as well as a new Learning Management System that allows training supervisors to better monitor employee training compliance.  

MyGlassClass.com glazier training is for installers at full-service or contract glazing companies. Courses cover everything from the basics of the glass industry to safety, glass and metal fabrication, system fabrication and installation, and codes and estimating. 

MyGlassFAB training is designed for entry-level production personnel: employees who are responsible for tasks like inspecting and measuring glass; loading and unloading glass; rotating glass through the various phases of the tempering, laminating, cutting, or shipping processes; etc. New courses for tempering furnace operators and quality technicians are also in development. 

All MyGlassClass.com and MyGlassFAB courses can be taken on a phone, tablet or laptop and are available in English and Spanish. 

To allow training supervisors to better monitor employee participation, NGA introduced a new Learning Management System with a Team Manager function that allows supervisors to see what training courses employees are enrolled in; what courses they have completed; and their test scores. Companies can customize their Team Manager to monitor training for individuals or employee groups. Users can also run reports from the system to get an overall view of employee training progress. 

Access to NGA courses on MyGlassClass.com is available free to NGA members with active NGA membership. Email myglassclass@glass.org for more information about training, or visit glass.org/membership to join NGA today!