The military sends new recruits to basic training. The NFL puts its players through training camp. What do you do?

I remember my first day working as a mason tender. I’d taken a semester off from college. When my summer job ended, I went to work for a local masonry company. We mostly built basements and poured concrete. My job wasn’t complicated — mix mud, stack blocks, and puddle concrete. But I’d never done any of it before, and while it was relatively simple, the difference between a good tender and a bad one was significant.

The masons mostly just expected me to know everything and to do it right — and fast — as soon as I got out of the truck that first day. It’s not the most complicated job, but there are nuances. If you’ve never mixed mud, you’re not going to know the right consistency. If you’ve never steered a wheelbarrow of concrete down a 2-by-8-inch plank into a sandy pit to pour footings, you might struggle the first time or two. I dumped one wheelbarrow, once. The hell I caught for it ensured it would never happen again, no matter how deep the pit, narrow the plank, or heavy the load.

I was thrown straight into the mix and was expected to keep up. But I was surrounded by experienced masons who could keep me from doing too much wrong, and as I said, it wasn’t a very complicated job. Your business is a little different.

Sure, there are entry-level jobs, and new hires can ride along with experienced technicians until they get a handle on things, but shouldn’t your people have a strong knowledge base and skill set before you send them out to represent your company?

Training in the sewer and drain industry is far from standardized. There aren’t apprenticeships. There aren’t technical degrees for drain cleaning. So what do you do? How do you ensure the people you’re sending out to handle calls have the knowledge and skills to properly serve customers and represent your business? There’s no standard answer, but there are some options.

We launched the Training for Success feature in January to help put some of those options in front of you. The first two installments covered NASSCO and Nezat Training and Consulting. In this issue, you’ll read about the National Utility Contractors Association’s NUCA University.

The association has offered training opportunities for a long time, primarily focused on safety issues. The new university initiative will combine those safety components with other topics in a comprehensive digital education platform covering anything and everything related to utility work.

Regardless of how you train new employees or help your experienced technicians stay up to date with new technology, there’s always room for improvement. The more opportunities they’re given to learn and grow, the more valuable they’ll be. That’s good for them and your business. And if your own in-house training system isn’t so robust, the ability to offer quality outside training opportunities will open your hiring process to a wider pool of candidates.

I hope you find the feature helpful.

Enjoy this month’s issue.