Finding the Zen in Workforce Development Strategies – Structured On-The-Job Training and Job-Relevant Related Technical Instruction

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Many employers still feel locked into the old model of worker training. Waiting for the local educational institutions to crank out the qualified labor supply they need. If that is not sufficient, they search for available workers with relevant transferable skills from previous employment. If that doesn’t work, they settle for workers they find, hire them into the organization and hope for the best – maybe throwing in some classes and/or online training as if that alone will make up the difference.

Looking back, can one honestly say this is an approach that inspires confidence? Or has worked well? Is it a matter of doing what we have been doing all along, not satisfied with the results and cost but thinking that it is what every employer does? This is an area that cannot improve on its own. It needs to be brought into balance like all of the other organizations in the company.

“Employers do not need to keep themselves locked in the antiquated model of worker development. They can break free and make the worker development system operate like all of the other manageable and measurable subsystems in the organization.”

Comparing this approach to all of the other, more systematic, approaches one sees in manufacturing it seems underwhelming, uninspiring and, in many ways, inexplicable. What is the point of LEAN manufacturing efforts to streamline processes for efficiency if the participating employees are not properly trained to absorb the improvements? What is the point of analyzing processes for best practices if the employees are not properly trained for them now or when they are further improved later? Training in a manufacturing setting must be interactive and evolving, not stagnant and irrelevant, if it is to be viewed as anything more than a cost the accounting department would like to minimize.

Many past Proactive Technologies Report articles have addressed the need for highly job-relevant task-based training that can only come about from a comprehensive job/task analysis that leads to structured on-the-job training. If the reason an employer hires workers is to perform specific tasks that the business model requires to be profitable, then the proper attention and effort must be given to ensure each worker performs their tasks in the most efficient and effective manner. This moves the expenses associated with the development of labor from the “cost” column to the “investment” column. Each employee’s task performance could, and should be, then managed just like all of the technology investments in the plant for maximum return.

Related technical instruction  – onsite and offsite classroom as well as online and instructor-lead online – plays a role as well. However, job relevancy should be determined AFTER the job/task analysis to ensure there is evidence of a connection between efforts to develop those core skills in workers and the need for those skills in learning and mastering job-specific tasks. Otherwise, one might as well hang up a list of courses and throw darts to choose the ones to purchase.

Thinking of developing workers as a linear flow, it makes sense that a strong core skill foundation (which should be developed in local community colleges and technical schools) is prerequisite for the training of job-based tasks. A good foundation should make task training faster and more effective.

But worker development isn’t linear in reality. Local community and technical college programs vary in their availability and relevance to the jobs in their community. Workers with various levels of education, levels of prior learning and prior work experience apply for jobs that are continually evolving. If the employer starts “with the end in mind” – in this case a worker mastering all the required tasks of a job through structured on-the-job training  in order that they provide the maximum value to a business operation, then the employer must make sure the related technical instruction is selected so that it can develop, shore up and/or remediate any core skills that are necessary for the worker to reach the end. It is then the employer can say they are making a deliberate effort to develop workers.

One of my graduate school reading requirements for a Managerial Economics course was “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Persig. At first I was put-off by the zany title and the fact that the book was almost 500 pages…with no pictures. But I soon learned, in reading it, that the entire book was a philosophical journey through the concept of quality. What is quality? Is it measured from the standpoint of the user or the supplier, or both? The author metaphorically used his relationship with his son and the engine of the motorcycle he was riding to meet his son to describe a well-tuned “system.” When all components were operating in harmony, the rider could feel and hear quality in the ride and the experience. When any one of the systems that the engine needed to operate was performing poorly, or even a little off, the entire experience reflected that.

“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

A manufacturing operation is like that. A manufacturing facility is a system of subsystems. Many of the more technically defined systems, such as accounting, engineering, payroll, benefits and quality control operate deliberately and are measured constantly. Introducing workers into the system has always seemed to be an afterthought; based on hope and faith and less on deliberate measures and measurement. I believe everyone has some sort of misgivings about their organization’s methods of hiring, training and assessing performance of the workers. But without the worker subsystem operating at maximum effectiveness and efficiency, improvements to the other subsystems to improve the overall performance of the system may not be fully realized.

Employers do not need to keep themselves locked in the antiquated model of worker development. They can break free and make the worker development system operate like all of the other manageable and measurable subsystems in the organization. Then the organization’s overall performance can measured as the collective outcome of a fine-tuned system “with all pistons firing.” Contact Us more information on Proactive Technologies’ approach.