RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Training: The Key to Effective Operations

Uptime Institute’s October 8th Inside Track roundtable took a relatively practical turn, as participants shared tips for creating and improving training programs. These tips included ideas for developing in house programs as well as recommendations for organizations that offered training programs and modules. The list included Uptime Institute’s Accredited Tier Specialist training. In addition, Uptime Institute’s Senior Vice President - Management Services Europe Fred Dickerman shared his perspectives, which included experiences in numerous facilities worldwide and observations from his 5 years as an Uptime Institute consultant.
The relationship of training to staffing was a recurring theme of the roundtable. One participant said that he thought training individuals so that they could all become chief engineers was good for those individuals – and good for the organization – even though he currently had 20 open positions that he was finding difficult to fill. These individuals, he said, often took their experiences to other parts of the company.
Others noted that training enabled them to improve the ability of qualified, but experienced, technicians and mechanics, to work on IT systems, and with time cross-train them so that business units and others would have a smooth experience when they contacted the data center with a mechanical, electrical, networking, or software problem. One noted in particular that he saw a trend to IT training among his ME staff.
A participant from South America suggested that not everyone could benefit in the same way for training. Less motivated individuals, he thought, might not take the same advantage as other individuals. While others agreed, they also thought that the existence of a strong training program could itself be a motivating factor, as staff could easily envision a clear line of advancement.
In a final segment, most participants shared elements of how their training programs are structured. One program, led by an “ex-Navy nuke,” was extremely structured; others less so. One program had incorporated the concept of an on-site SME, in which individuals would take responsibility for developing deep knowledge of a given system and then transferring that knowledge to colleagues as a way to raise skills and awareness facility wide. During this discussion, it was clarified that training in the data center context included training and drills on procedures and not just education on equipment operation.