All Signed Up

and

Somewhere to Go!

The Workplace Context

In 1998, after two years of thorough research, Cominco Ltd. invested its resources in an employee driven, on-site Learning Centre. The Centre delivers courses, conducts workshops, and designs learning paths unrelated to specific job training for the 1800 employees at Trail Operations.

Starting in 1996, the company began to identify a very interesting trend in the feed-back from several of its core training courses. Participants reported that they did not always feel that they had effective existing skills and sufficient academic preparation to fully appreciate and integrate their training opportunities. Cominco, now Teck Cominco, has been fully committed to providing workplace training through its five training departments dedicated to this endeavor. Further, Cominco had already flagged that employees on shift could not take advantage of many off-site learning opportunities offered by local businesses and educational institutions. The company integrated these two concerns and saw an opportunity at Trail Operations to enhance the learning environment. This resulted in expanding its learning culture by pursuing and completely financing a concept that addressed the general educational interests of its employees.

The Refresh Education and Learning (REAL) Committee which was formed in early 1997, has been responsible for the development and ongoing operation of The Learning Centre (TLC). It is a joint committee with representation from Teck Cominco’s management and the United Steelworkers of America Locals 480 and 9705. The REAL Committee has contracted with the Open Learning Agency of British Columbia for the successful delivery of this workplace learning centre.