Employee Growth: How We Prioritize It with Training

At MES, there’s no such thing as a typical day. Our associates can find themselves in a team brainstorming session, making peanut butter sandwiches to support a local charity, or reverse-engineering a manufactured part for an automotive, lighting, or other customers.

No matter what we’re doing, there’s one common thread that runs through it: we strive to deliver excellence at every turn. Our commitment to quality benefits our worldwide customers, but it’s also good for each of us as employees, too.

Not every company proactively encourages its people to seek out educational and training opportunities, the individual as well … but MES does.

Workplace Culture: Promoting Personal Growth

Which is why when two of our estimating and process engineers, Akshay Pol and Colin Maki, proposed the idea to become certified to develop 3D models, our award-winning Chief People Officer, Heena Shah, got busy making it happen.

Heena applied for Ohio’s TechCred program, which enabled Akshay and Colin to enroll in Solid Works training, complete rigorous coursework, and achieve 3D modeling certification.

“Not only do we encourage self-improvement, we promote it,” says Heena. “Akshay and Colin sought out the training they needed to improve their skills and MES was more than happy to fund the coursework through the TechCredit program. We worked around their online classes, too, so they could complete them during the workday.”

In the end, Akshay and Colin spent company time—with no cost to them—to become experts in this gold-standard design and design validation software. This opportunity helped them grow as professionals while they contribute to MES’s role as an innovative global manufacturing and supply chain solutions provider.

Closing the Skills Gap

At MES, we take seriously our role in prioritizing employee training. Our work in best-in-class manufacturing and engineered supply chains is fast moving and ever evolving. So, for us, keeping up isn’t enough. We must stay ahead.

That means ensuring our associates continually improve their skills and advance themselves professionally. It also means equipping our suppliers, too.

“From sales to marketing to engineering, we want our associates to be as good as they can be,” says Founder and President Hiten Shah. “We ascribe to Sir Richard Branson’s philosophy: ‘Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.’”

3D for the Win

We are a supply chain management firm and manufacturing company, so there’s rarely, if ever, a point in which there isn’t a 3D component. Having our team members certified in 3D modeling means we can do much more than view models by zooming in and out.

In fact, having highly qualified, certified Solid Works 3D modelers on our team enables us to build models from 2D drawings, make tools, manipulate models, and even create virtual 3D models that allow us to virtually break down and pull apart an assembly, piece by piece.

“This training is a real win-win in my opinion,” says MES VP of Sourcing, Transportation, Quality Engineering & Ohio Operations, Randy Rhodes. “It’s a perfect example of why MES is consistently named a best place to work. I’m proud to say that MES lives up to its culture of self-improvement. HR and our leadership team inspire all of us to find improvement opportunities, then do what it takes to support us.”