Students learn good work ethics

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

HAMBY

Despite the increasingly technical skills being taught to some of today’s students, employers often complain that many of them are unsuitable for work because they don’t have good work ethics. Beginning this quarter, the Tennessee Technology Center at McMinnville hopes to change that.

According to Technology Center director Dr. Abraham Pallas, the Center’s students already learn in an environment modeled after the workplace. A new Worker Characteristics program, he said, will reinforce that emphasis and provide prospective employers with an additional measure of a student’s value as an employee.

Using as its model the Work Ethics program developed by the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education, the program focuses on 10 areas: attendance, character, teamwork, appearance, attitude, productivity, organization skills, communication, cooperation and respect.

Every Technology Center student enrolled in a diploma program will take part in the Worker Characteristics program. Center instructors will lead the program as they instruct the students in a different characteristic each week. Students will be evaluated on each of the 10 areas every quarter with a Worker Characteristics grade appearing on each student’s transcript.

At a recent program kick-off session, a number of local employers talked to Technology Center students about the importance of good work ethics.

“We assume you have the technical skills if you have a diploma,” Joe Hamby, Ben Lomand Communications supervisor of operations – Internet, told the students. “What we want to know is what kind of person you are. This program will help give us this information.”

Talking to a group of students in the Center’s nursing program, NHC Healthcare manager Terry Leeman said attendance is the number one characteristic his organization looks for in prospective employees.

“If we can’t depend on you at least to be there, you’ve got nothing. People’s lives depend on you. If you’re not there, things go wrong,” he said.

Pallas said the Worker Characteristics program is yet another way the Technology Center is preparing its student for today’s workforce.

“At a time when the local economy is suffering, and we are in competition for industry worldwide, we need every competitive edge, and we want to give our students that edge. We have plaques recognizing outstanding school and community service. We will now also recognize students who exhibit outstanding worker characteristics,” he said.