by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
For most companies, an in-house training center doesn’t have to be brick and mortar, and doesn’t necessarily require additional equipment and personnel to support it. It is about focusing the resources already available to develop workers faster and to a much higher level of capacity. This does not happen by throwing dollars or classes at the problem; if that were the case many employers who did so would have solved the “skills gap” problem. It takes a more deliberate approach than that to achieve the outcome that has been out of reach, for many, for decades.
In previous articles, such as in the May, 2016 issue of the Proactive Technologies Report, “A Simple Solution to Skill Gaps – New-Hires and Incumbents” I described a simple, easy to implement strategy for developing new-hires and incumbent workers to full capacity. I emphasized that by focusing on the outcome, the proper inputs become clearer. But by focusing on the inputs, the connection to the outcome may not necessarily be clear. Any use of irrelevant, improper or ineffective worker development inputs means unnecessary costs with low or no return, wasted time and additional opportunity costs.
Over the years, I have noticed that many employers’ idea of a worker training strategy is a hodge-podge of classroom and online training. This seems to be based on the assumption that all of the right people have been hired, they all have mastered the tasks of the job and that a few classes will drive each worker’s performance to higher levels.
Where does this assumption come from? Why do employers collectively settle for this type of model even though decades of experience and day to day worker performance offer many clues that this model of worker training is not as effective as hoped? Too often the feedback from workers attending classes is, “I don’t know why the company had me attend that class.” “That was a waste of time.” In an informal way, this is a form of “content validation,” or in this case “invalidation.”
“Conceptually, a better overall approach is simple, accurate, efficient and effective. If an employer isn’t including these simple steps in their worker selection, development and performance evaluation strategy the might be wasting company time, money and resources.”
This legacy approach is a comfortable model to explain. Everyone has attended school; some higher education as well. It is what we grew up with and the sentiment has become acceptance from familiarity. Some accept this approach because they are unaware of better alternatives. Some find comfort in being among the “herd.” Most of the employers seemed locked into this model, so it must be the right way to train workers. If this were true and reinforced with evidence, why after 30 years of concentrated application (as technology entered nearly every aspect of worker performance) the “skills gap” we all talk about has not only survived, but has actually grown?
For simple and moderate core skills, such as math, reading, advanced math and technical document interpretation skills, this forum for learning is fine. These types of courses build the foundation upon which to learn and master higher-order task-based core-skills. This level of core skill changes slower than the advancing skills, so the content remains mostly relevant. To master the tasks the individual was hired by the employer to perform and expected to perform correctly (i.e. to specification, in compliance with engineering and safety specifications, within time constraints, etc.) each time, these foundation skills are necessary. Accurate task performance is where the employer derives the benefits of employment.
Pre-hire assessments and interview techniques are intended to screen out the candidates who do not have the right core skill mix necessary to learn the tasks of the job classification. These work well if the assessment and interview criteria were based on a proper job/task analysis. Too often these instruments were selected based on a superficial analysis that points, miraculously, every time to predetermined criteria already printed in “canned” instruments provided by the developers of the analysis methodology. Often claims are made of “industry acceptance” or “industry validity,” but unless another job-specific job/task analysis is performed to “content validate” the canned testing criteria the employer may be put at risk of challenges for violations of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rules and decades of case law.
Without an accurate hiring and selection screening process, the mismatch at this stage determines how much work must be done post-hire to develop the level of task-based performance that ensures mutually agreeable employee retention. In fact, if the selection process is not accurate, it might be wiser to skip the process because the process may waste time, money and credibility of this step and the steps to come. The next step is where this unstructured approach breaks down and the faulty logic that brought a worker to this point begins to show its weaknesses.
Expensive classes, perhaps selected to “make up for the weaknesses in hiring,” rarely result in significant worker performance improvement yet many are comfortable leap-frogging the important process of training a worker for the actual work. Looking downstream, how can performance evaluations be performed when all of the inputs that lead to that point are misaligned, inappropriate and/or irrelevant?
Conceptually, a better overall approach is simple, accurate, efficient and effective. If an employer isn’t including these simple steps in their worker selection, development and performance evaluation strategy they might be wasting company time, money and resources.
1. Analyze each job to establish the target – To paraphrase an old saying, “If you don’t where you are going, any road will take you there.” Defining each targeted job classification with a thorough job/task analysis is critical to establishing the outcome for which all of the inputs should be selected and to which designed or selected.
2. Content validate any pre-hire assessments and interview/selection criteria in use – Use the job/task analysis data to validate the test questions and assessment criteria in use, making adjustments if necessary to validate the instrument. If no testing or assessing are already being done, and the employer wishes to do so, use the job data to select and “content validate” test and assessment criteria for accuracy and legal defensibility.
3. Build and implement structured on-the-job training for new-hires and incumbents – Use the job/task analysis data to develop task-by-task training plans based on best practices, validated by current subject matter experts. Assess incumbent workers for tasks that they have not yet mastered and customize their structured on-the-job training strategy. For new-hires, find out which tasks of the job hierarchy they may have mastered elsewhere, verify competency, and focus training on mastery of remaining tasks of the job. Drive both incumbents and new-hires to full job mastery.
4. Determine if any incumbent workers missed critical core or advanced skills not caught during screening, remediate – It is quite possible that incumbent workers (who have been with the organization for years) lack critical core skills necessary to master the remaining tasks in the entire job classification. This represents unused worker capacity, which is costing the company every day in opportunity and labor costs that do not reflect the true value that the employer can realize. Use the job/task analysis data to determine:
- which tasks have not been mastered;
- for those tasks, which core skills and advanced skills have not been demonstrated performing other tasks represented in the job/task analysis data.
Select content-valid related technical instruction to develop high-order core skills necessary for incumbents to learn, master and perform the remaining required tasks of the job classification.
5. Manage worker performance – Track and report each worker’s progress monthly to the area supervisor as each worker moves toward full worker capacity. Intervene when training is not progressing as expected and seek to maintain high levels of departmental capacity as workers move in and out of the department and when the nature of the tasks change due to technology advancement, changes brought about through LEAN or process improvement and design changes. Once new-hires and incumbents are driven to higher levels of worker capacity, it is far less costly to maintain those levels than to allow worker capacity to erode and to start the process over again.
6. Now select advanced related technical instruction to drive worker performance higher and/or prepare workers for emerging core skills that will be necessary to learn new tasks – It is nearly impossible to drive workers to higher performance if the underlying task performance has not been adequately developed. If the previous steps have been implemented, now is the time to use the job/task analysis data to determine which courses and which medium is best suited to deliver instruction that might drive task performance higher.
By revalidating the job/task analysis data at least every 2 years, all human resource development inputs can be reconsidered for job relevance, validity and effectiveness. Tasks can be updated for changes that might have occurred due to changes in specifications, technology, design and compliance requirements.
This process works. Proactive Technologies has helped employers implement this approach for over 30 years, improving the process through its many years of experience. Several clients started with a pilot project of 2-3 job classifications to test the concept at their setting first, then expanded the project to include all hourly job classifications and, in some cases that are farther evolved, are broadening their project to include the salaried supervisor, manager and technical positions.
Too often employers double-down on “cart before the horse” strategies that constantly need explaining and for which there are seldom sufficient justification. Assessing a worker for employment based on job-invalid and/or job-irrelevant criteria is a waste of time and money, and may put the employer at legal risk. Providing advanced core-skill related technical instruction before ensuring a worker has mastered the tasks of the job classification is a waste of time and money. Usually the employees and accounting hint at this on a regular basis. Listen to them.
Don’t be afraid to think outside of the comfortable box. There is plenty of evidence that this herd approach to worker development has not worked in the past and you may be struggling with it today. Enough employers are talking about this to make it “OK” to seek other solutions. You will not be disappointed if you keep the principles listed above in mind.
There are few examples in life where doing something “quick and dirty” isn’t more costly and ineffective than doing it right the first time. Developing workers is one of them.
Visit Proactive Technologies’ website for more information on our hybrid model for the “accelerated transfer of expertise™.“ Attend one of the live online presentations, or contact us to schedule your own.
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