Ted Pease, General Manager, ManageAssistTed Pease, General Manager
Like a machine with well-oiled cogs and gears that turn in harmony, businesses that equip every employee with the skillsets to perform their jobs collaboratively and easily are poised for exceptional performance.

At the vanguard of heralding this transformation is ManageAssist, a leading professional development services company dedicated to providing effective and practical employee training solutions.

Initially specializing in lean manufacturing, ManageAssist gradually expanded to include Six Sigma methodologies and developed programs for leadership, customer service, sales, and other training. Currently, it offers a comprehensive selection of 120-plus training programs across 17 categories. Through these offerings, ManageAssist focuses on developing generic skills—transferable and applicable across various industries—that help employees work efficiently, save money, and solve problems.

"We are committed to developing and delivering customized training programs that meet the unique needs of each client and provide real value. Our goal is to become a preferred training provider for businesses of all sizes," says Ted Pease, General Manager of ManageAssist.

Providing on-site training services to manufacturers and distributors, the firm focuses on developing incumbent worker skill sets across all levels. This enhances their current growth potential through improved cost-effectiveness and operational efficiencies.

During its 32-year trajectory, ManageAssist has identified two key obstacles that impede the success of training initiatives. Labor shortages present difficulties in allocating personnel for training purposes, especially at remote locations. In addition, although online programs offer convenience and ease of access, the limited hands-on training they provide undermines their overall effectiveness. Bypassing these challenges, ManageAssist prioritizes providing on-site, hands-on training to ensure the most effective and practical instruction for incumbent workers.

Beyond traditional training regimes, ManageAssist supports clients in obtaining state funding through grants to aid their training efforts.

Considering the practical nature of its training programs paramount, ManageAssist consistently provides instruction that is directly applicable to daily operations. To ensure the relevance of its course materials, the firm continually updates its offerings to address emerging trends and issues like managing remote workers and growing safety concerns.

An excellent example is its response to the trend of onshoring industrial operations, which is driving ManageAssist to help clients create good jobs and retain their existing workforces.

Another key facet of ManageAssist's success is its team of instructors, who have comprehensive practical knowledge in manufacturing with firsthand experience of the production floor environment and managing teams, making them highly capable of teaching management courses and soft skills. They are also known to draw from their experiences to provide relevant examples and insights, offer practical solutions, and empathize with clients.

We are committed to developing and delivering customized training programs that meet the unique needs of each client and provide real value. Our goal is to become a preferred training provider for businesses of all sizes

ManageAssist works with clients to identify their prevalent pain points and challenges; then it develops a customized training program from its library of standardized courses and other resource material. The tailored material is then delivered by instructors capable of adapting to client needs as they arise during training. Once a training program is approved and scheduled for execution, training delivery, and the trainee interactions strongly emphasize finding and addressing the root cause of an issue, providing real value to the client.

A perfect example of this value was exemplified during a recent ManageAssist training session for a food manufacturing client, where workers were encouraged to identify and eliminate waste on the production floor. One of the trainees, having learned in class about the waste represented by excessive or unnecessary transportation, also learned from a co-worker that the company was arranging paid back-hauls to ensure that no trucks were moving empty. During a training class activity, she observed that the same could not be said about the forklifts used for internal goods movement. She questioned why the practice followed by the over-the-road trucks wasn’t followed internally – why were back-and-forth routes used instead of loops that assured that the forklifts were always loaded? This question led to the identification of significant inefficiency in the company's process, resulting in cost savings of $130,00 per year. This ability to build awareness among workers, engage them in identifying waste, and encourage a culture of continuous improvement is what separates ManageAssist from other training providers.

Providing training programs tailored to diverse client needs, ManageAssist remains a preferred training provider for businesses seeking to enhance their workforce and stay competitive in today's dynamic business environment.