A Special News Report on People And Their Jobs in Offices, Fields and Factories
WORKER TRAINING gets high priority at companies. Still, some employees gripe.</br></br>"A person entering the work force today can expect to be retrained five times in his work life," declares John Young, president of Hewlett-Packard Co. For its part, the company is spending $250 million, or 5% of revenue, to train its 87,000 workers this year. At Marriott Corp., training is "part of our culture." La-Z-Boy Chair Co. says its 6,000 furniture makers get "constant" retraining on the company's machines.</br></br>Yet a survey by consultant Wyatt Co. finds that only 48% of some 5,000 interviewed workers think their companies have "done a good job of providing the training I have needed to do my job well." Fully 23% rate the training as inadequate. Older workers especially complain that their employers haven't given them "the chance to learn new skills on my job."</br></br>BankAmerica Corp. concedes older workers got short shrift before. But that's all changed, it says.</br></br>EARLY NOTICE of closing spurs, rather than hurts, productivity, a study finds.