[TIPS] Continuing Education: Investing in Yourself and Your Trade Team

Machine Operated Script:

Renee Chuichiarelli  00:00

Welcome back to simply trade tips with hammer and heels. Julie Parks, Renee cucarelli, hey, Jules, how you doing? We’re on episode five of our career. We’re cruising along. I think this is the last one for this series.

Julie Parks  00:13

Yeah, I think so. I think so. So I like the idea of moving into kind of this continuing education thing, maybe discussing a little bit about how we should be thinking about training, maybe how we even advocate with our companies. What do you think?

Renee Chuichiarelli  00:27

I love that continuing education is so important, especially in our field, you know, and we have some really good discussion on why we think it’s important. Why is it Joel

Julie Parks  00:40

and I think, I think, you know, you can go to college and you can go into international business, you can do pre law, you can actually become a lawyer. But it seems like nothing, absolutely, from an educational perspective, prepares you for a real world as a trade leader or a trade operator, as much as like external, targeted training does. What’s your thought? Renee,

Renee Chuichiarelli  01:03

yeah, I agree. I mean, Julie, you know, I’m old, so when I started out, there was a minor in International Business, which, like we talked about, could give you some marketing, some maybe you would understand what protectionism is. But would you actually be able to go into a company and do country of origin analysis, apply the principles, apply, apply the law. Well, you don’t, in our field, we do that when we get to the job on the job training, right?

Julie Parks  01:30

And I think, and I applaud Customs and Border Protection and the coac, I know, had a lot to do with it, of trying to make that licensed Customs broker continuing education piece a reality, which is finally here, right? It’s been quite a few years in the making. So we have the new requirement of the 30 hours, which is prorated to 20 that are due by January, 31 2027, so I think that goes a long way Renee to getting the getting our foothold in like the realism of real training that we need. We’re like,

Renee Chuichiarelli  02:03

the CP, oh, sorry, sorry. We’re like, go ahead. We’re like, the CPA industry now, you know we actually like, are legit. We’ve got continuing ed. And one thing I would like to mention a plug for the company, global Training Center, is that’s kind of why we exist. We want to make sure we know there’s not a lot of degree formal, degreed programs about applying the law, learning the law. You know, of customs and trade, import and export. Frankly, we have a certification at global Training Center, both import and export, where you’re taking more than one class, and you become certified. And you know that, like I said, that’s why we exist. We know that the community, the trade community, and the professionals in this community, need specific training, not just for them and their departments, but maybe cross training, especially in this tariff chaos series like we talked about, you know, we need to train our executives, our purchasing, our, you know, all the different departments that are involved in the supply chain with trade, so yeah, and with the continuing ed and licensed Customs broker, continuing ed, we’re global Training Center, awful offers classes that are all getting your credits for that as well.

Julie Parks  03:16

So companies are faced with, like, creating it themselves, because, right, you have free labor on staff, and you can potentially create it as someone who has both created it and purchased it. I personally enjoy buying kind of the base layer, and then only customizing what you need for your industry inside your own company. So for example, talk about your procedures in your training, but perhaps think about buying origin training right kind of off the shelf or on, getting it on demand. And companies like global Training Center

03:50

can help with that.

Julie Parks  03:52

We need to talk about how we’re keeping ourselves engaged and trained and educated. My gosh, we have requirements for your licensed Customs broker. So I think two tips in an FIO. You want to start with

Renee Chuichiarelli  04:02

Tip one, yeah, so tip one, we think, is set an education standard. You know, I know, when Julie and I were at the company, we worked together, we did A skills matrix. It was very detailed, but helpful to understand what skills do I need in my organization, on my team, even for myself, you know, and in today’s environment, maybe those skills matrix are increasing.

Julie Parks  04:25

I think, I think in that point, the aspect of not just the straight like skills, I think we need to talk about soft skills, like the behaviors that we want to see, because you might find a behavior of you want your trade professionals to be curious, right? Don’t just let a comment go. And I mean, what did you mean by that? Are you really going to export that it’s not approved yet? Is kind of a good feature. So so we did both, Renee, like we mapped both the skills and the behaviors to kind of identify what we needed.

Renee Chuichiarelli  04:56

And Julie, I love your example, but another good one is decision making. Making, I always found that I wanted people to be able to make decisions, have the confidence and grit to make those decisions and problem solve for the long term, not just for that specific maybe import or export. And then the other thing is having the desire to keep learning right? Like you said, it’s more of a curiosity thing. What? What else can I challenge myself with? So, you know, to your point, these are awesome behaviors and compliance, you know, can you say no? Like, you know what? At the company we worked at, I kind of enjoyed the culture, the the Raytheon Company culture, where they the CEO said, you know, we want you to pause. We want you to say, No, you know. And those are the kind of behaviors that I enjoy on a compliance team.

Julie Parks  05:47

And I think, I think so that’s a tip one, that’s kind of documenting what you need to see you really should be thinking about not just that skills matrix, but also that behavior matrix of what you think is good in your company. And then Tip two is, you kind of work through, well, how do you solve for that? So you’re working through a business case that kind of creates what you think you need to do, either it’s building it or buying it in both regards and Renee, what kind of success have you had with a business case and what, how should we be thinking about that?

Renee Chuichiarelli  06:22

Yeah, and you know, there, there’s white papers and different information out there, but you know, the cost of training employees is less than hiring, and I don’t know if companies realize that, so maybe that’s something that as a trade professional, when you’re creating your business case, you include that you know into your you know, analysis. Hey, I want to invest in my people that I currently have on my team. They understand the culture, they know, the business, they know, our industry, you know, I don’t want to keep rehiring, right? So I think that’s an important

Julie Parks  06:56

sharing too, doesn’t it like this aspect of caring? If somebody says you must do these things for yourself, like that’s kind of like a whole nother level of care that you feel for the company, so that I agree with you that it keeps folks engaged, not the only thing that keeps them engaged, but it really does keep them and it helps the leader when they’re setting the tone, to carve out time for folks. But in an event that business case, I think balancing that business case with kind of the cost of non compliance is a really good way to think about that business case. How many more CF, 28 could you answer potentially incorrectly without that, that learning?

Renee Chuichiarelli  07:36

Oh, my God, that’s awesome. Okay, what’s our FiO today? So

Julie Parks  07:42

I think, I think after talking through all this, the folks should really think about setting an educational goal for yourself and your department, if you’re a leader, if you have not already, and I know we have that licensed Customs broker thread looming, but let’s make it a little more official and think about what you can do and challenge yourself. If there’s an area that you haven’t learned, perhaps there’s some there’s also some international training that you can take advantage of that are on the same topics, but taught from Ireland, taught from Australia. Those are other things that you can take the same thing that you think you might know, but take it from the vantage point of a different country. Is also another tip,

Renee Chuichiarelli  08:23

awesome. So set your goals in education. Go to our trade geeks community. Tell us what you’ve done. Have you set a Have you created a business case? Do you need a justification? In fact, global Training Center is willing to do that as well. We have all the courses. We have our podcast, so check us out and go to our community and let us know how you’re doing. All right, thanks, Jewel,

08:45

thank you. You.