Online Training Courses  –  Employer Information

If you’re an employer interested in using the WCA Online Training courses to train new employees, all the information you need to get started, including cost, is listed in the table below. If you have any additional questions, please contact us and we’ll be glad to help.

Click on any heading below for more details…

In order to credential your employees and/or access the online training courses to train your employees, you must first join the WCA as a MANufacturing member for $250/year, which allows you to credential any number of employees. Access to the training materials is free for your employees as long as you have a current membership and the employee has an Individual Membership. Click here for more details on the MANufacturing Membership.

You will need to designate at least one of your senior employees as an in-house Accredited Skill Evaluator (ASE).  This person will be responsible for performing tool evaluations for employees that wish to get credentialed, but will also typically be the point person to provide support for any employees participating in the online training program. As such, they must also fully understand the online training process.

Potential in-house evaluators must first become a WCA Individual Member for a one time $55 fee, then complete the ASE Online Training course. Click here for more details on the ASE training process. This training is free for up to two employees as part of your MANufacturing membership.

Any employee registered for the online training courses will need access to a small list of training support materials, including two textbooks.  The list is shown below, including links to purchase if applicable:

  1. Modern Cabinetmaking Textbook (~$154) – Purchase from Amazon
  2. Understanding Wood Textbook (~$28) – Purchase from Amazon
  3. Measuring Widget (If taking the Math/Measuring Course). This can be purchased from the WCA for $45/each, or you can download the DXF file for free and CNC your own widgets. Click the link for more details.
  4. Layout Widget (If taking the Math/Measuring Course). This is simply a small piece of MDF for the student to use for the layout exercise. Click the link for more details.

Except for the last item, it is not necessary for each employee/student to have their own textbook or widget, you will just need to have enough on hand for them to use as needed to complete the course.

Any employee who wishes to participate in any WCA program, either credentialing and/or online training must purchase an Individual Membership in their name. The cost is $55 for a lifetime membership and it comes with 10 free assessment credits which is enough to earn the Sawblade certification. Additional credits may be purchased at $5/each if the employee wishes to pursue higher level credentials as detailed here.

Note that credentialing is separate from online training; an employee may participate in the online training, but not choose to pursue certification or credentialing. Conversely, they may choose to pursue a credential even if they do not participate in the online training. There is (currently) no extra cost to the employer to credential their employees as long as they are a paid MANufacturing member unless they choose to subsidize their employees assessment credits. In the future, there may be a small auditing surcharge for each employee receiving a credential, but this is still being discussed.

There are two ways to enroll employees as an Individual Member; the employee can purchase the membership directly here and pay by credit card, or choose check payment and the employer can send in a check later. Or, the employer can do it for them, but it is very important that the purchase be in the name of the employee with their email address on the order so that they are in the system with their information.  Alternatively, if there are a number of employees to be enrolled, we provide a bulk membership purchase option where a spreadsheet is submitted with all of the employee information and we’ll enter all of them in the system.

Enrollment is simple; the instructions can be found here.

Either the employee or employer may register for the course(s), but the order must be in the name of the person taking the training. They will need to login as themselves in order to take the training, which means the training registration must be tied to their username in the WCA system. Students will have lifetime access to the training materials.

All of the training modules are self-paced, online training modules. Once registered, the student will login and study the material at their own pace. There is a forum associated with each training module that student can use to ask questions of the instructor or provide feedback/comments on the training materials. At the end of each module there is a quiz with an 80% passing threshold. Lessons consist of outside reading from Modern Cabinetmaking and/or Understanding Wood, narrated presentations, and videos.

As students complete certain milestones in the training process, they will have learned about a number of tools in the shop and will be ready to practice on those under the supervision of their in-house mentor, typically the in-house Accredited Skill Evaluator (WCA), and when both Evaluator and student feel they are ready, the student can test for WCA Certifications and Credentials. The first one is the Sawblade Certificate after completing the Machining and Milling course. From there, they can progress through the Core Credential then onwards to the upper level credentials as they gain proficiency on more tools. The assessment credits necessary to test for the Sawblade Certificate are included with the Individual Membership; additional assessment credits are $5/each which are needed to test for any credential above Sawblade.

Please note that while it is not required to certify/credential the students as they move through the course, it’s highly recommended as a reward for their achievements…

All Evaluations must be videotaped and uploaded to the WCA servers for auditing purposes.

Want to view a demo containing a lesson from each of the courses, then click the button below.

Why Online Training?

When hiring new employees with little to no woodworking experience, training can be challenging. Usually, unless there is a training facility nearby, the training needs to occur in house which means someone on staff needs to have the ability and desire to facilitate high quality on-the-job training. This can be expensive because you’re paying both the trainer and employee for work that may not contribute to your bottom line.

Therefore, it becomes very important that the training be as efficient and as effective as possible. However, one of the primary reasons that new employee training doesn’t always work well is that the new employee can get frustrated because they don’t understand the fundamentals and vocabulary of woodworking; what we call the background knowledge. Since most people selected to train new employees don’t have a teaching background, it can be difficult to impart this background knowledge in a structured and comprehensive manner. Without this knowledge, trainees may not be able to absorb what they’re being taught on the shop floor because they don’t understand how it fits in the big picture.

The goal of the WCA Online Training Modules is to provide you, the employer, with a comprehensive set of training courses that your new employees can use to learn this valuable background knowledge. The information in these courses can easily be taught in an online format that employees can study at home or on company time. The advantage of an online format is that students can review the information as many times as they want and look at it at any time that is convenient to them, plus they can ask questions of the instructors in the online course forums as well as the in-house trainer.

We believe these courses will allow your employees to become productive much faster and with a more in-depth understanding of fundamental woodworking principles than they would otherwise. If you have any additional questions about how you can implement this program in your company, please contact us.