Nearly a decade ago CRRC made a commitment to Chicago with the construction of a new state of the art manufacturing facility on Chicago’s southside, hiring from the surrounding community and creating head of household jobs. Today, CRRC continues to focus on workforce development, inspiring and training a new generation of manufacturing professionals in Chicago.
CRRC currently employs more than 200 people at the Chicago facility, with the majority of employees residing in the city. Bringing manufacturing jobs back to Chicago continues to be one of CRRC’s top priorities, which is why the company has spent nearly $4.5 million on employee training since opening in 2017.
“Workforce development is important to CRRC because we need talented individuals who can build passenger railcars here in Chicago. We want to enlarge the workforce in the community by teaching specialized manufacturing techniques that will make its employees not only valuable to CRRC, but to the industry as a whole,” said Marina Popovic, Chief Legal Counsel and Human Resources Director at CRRC Sifang America.
CRRC makes sure to train all employees regarding safety protocols; it also provides specialized training, based on job duties, to its manufacturing personnel. CRRC’s training program is diverse and includes, among many other things, detailed instruction on driving a forklift, doing electrical work, operating heavy motorized equipment, and reading technical documents and building schematics.
Both the electricians and assemblers often get cross-trained within their respective discipline on tasks that are not their primary responsibility to help support the larger team if needed.
And as employees grow within CRRC and gain more experience, the more experienced team members are able to share their expertise and train new employees on the intricacies of building the 7000 Series railcars.
“With the training and experience employees receive, previously unmarketable individuals have become qualified for a number of jobs. CRRC wants its employees to be an asset to CRRC, to the community, to the railcar manufacturing industry and, most importantly, to themselves,” said Popovic.