MCC’s Corporate Ed. Trains Employees to Develop Leadership Skills

Middlesex Community College’s Corporate Education and Training program partners with local businesses and organizations to help companies identify their workforce training needs. These partnerships use a collaborative process to develop programs that offer the most relevant and effective professional development opportunities for companies.

MCC’s Corporate Ed. collaborated with Jeffrey Davis, MCC adjunct faculty member; Joanna Dowling from the Center for Manufacturing Technology (CMT); and Natasha Simmers, Human Resources Manager for Accumet Engineering, to build a 50-hour training program focused on leadership for Accumet employees.

“Joanna Dowling hired us to teach the leadership portion of a training for Accumet at CMT,” said Lisa Tuzzolo, MCC’s Director of Corporate Education and Training. “Although this is the first of its kind, Middlesex has been partnering with community businesses and organizations for over 30 years to deliver tailored and comprehensive training opportunities for employees. Not only do our trainings strengthen companies, but they also hone the talents and skills of people within the Commonwealth, leading to a more advanced, capable and well-rounded workforce.”

Middlesex has partnered with CMT for several years. With a strong foundation of knowledge in advanced manufacturing, Dowling understands what makes a company successful in the industry. According to Dowling, CMT works with MCC because of Corporate Ed.’s “flexibility and dedication,” and believes the pandemic presents an opportune time for companies to offer training to their employees.

“We were extremely happy with the professionalism and content delivery with Jeff Davis and the support team/staff at Middlesex,” Dowling said. “If employers are faced with downtime for their employees, it is a perfect time to invest in training to give their employees an opportunity to improve on critical skills that they might be lacking or in need of for that next promotion.”

Before developing his program, Davis engaged in conversations with Simmers to find out why Accumet was looking for trainings. Through these conversations, he understood there was a desire to provide employees with ways to build their leadership skills, “preparing them for roles with expanded responsibility, visibility and influence.” These types of conversations between the group were continuous throughout the duration of the trainings to ensure Accumet and their employees were learning the information they needed to be more effective leaders.

“We all agreed to re-visit the training program every few weeks and make adjustments in the content and the training activities, based on observations and feedback from the participants,” Davis said. “These regular meetings were very helpful in the tailoring of the training, especially when a second cohort of participants was identified.”

Topics included defining effective leadership, building leadership credibility, communicating in the workplace, having productive difficult conversations, and increasing accountability, among others. Davis describes his method of teaching the program as an “inside-out model.”

“Leaders cannot credibly influence others to grow and change unless they are on their own professional development journey that is resulting in genuine change, from the 'inside-out,” he said. “As leaders, we are less capable to offer others what they need – encouragement, acknowledgement, improvement feedback, confidence, courage, humility, curiosity – unless we first give those important qualities and characteristics to ourselves.”

Simmers appreciates MCC’s ability to tailor the program to meet Accumet’s needs, as well as the leadership Davis has shown throughout the trainings. She also believes the program has improved employees’ communication and self-awareness skills.

“The employees keep raving about the instructor Jeff and the class content, and say that their co-workers absolutely must take the class,” Simmers said. “Jeff was great about establishing communication with me to create content catered specifically to employees in each cohort.”

Nine employees participated in the program, four in one cohort and five in another. Despite needing to follow strict health and safety protocols ­­– including social distancing – due to the pandemic, Davis was able to build a community-feel within the program.

The training participants enjoyed working together to motivate each other throughout their learning, as well as engaging in deep conversations. Based on feedback from the participants, Davis believes the biggest takeaway was gaining more confidence in themselves.

“This has become the platform for taking more courageous leadership actions at work – talking to their coworker about a sensitive subject, after putting off that conversation for a long time,” he said. “Advocating for their team with their manager. Asking questions with a curiosity and 'what can we learn' mindset, instead of troubleshooting an issue to find out who did something wrong.”

Solinka Potter, a Sales Representative at Accumet, emphasizes how much confidence she gained from participating. When she was offered a place in the training, her first instinct was to say “why not?” After getting to the first session, she realized how much she going to benefit from it.

“It will help me through my whole life,” she said. “Before, I would keep my questions to myself and was quieter, hiding behind my computer. I’d be embarrassed thinking, ‘am I going to say something stupid?’ Now I feel that I have the confidence to speak up and help and encourage others too.”

As a leader of professional development and workforce training for over 30 years, MCC’s Corporate Education and Training program provides employees with the knowledge and skills they need to start or advance in their careers. Visit https://www.middlesex.mass.edu/bus_ind/ or contact Teresa Medina at medinat@middlesex.mass.edu for more information.

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