Thirteen Good Reasons Why Structured On-The-Job Training Should be Part of Your Business Strategy

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Many articles have appeared in the Proactive Technologies Report covering how Proactive Technologies’ PROTECH© System of managed human resource development can address many of the workforce development scenarios; from individualized, customized structured on-the-job training for a specific employer for specific job classification(s), to regional partnerships servicing multiple employers while partnering with regional educational institutions, private training providers, workforce development and economic development agencies to provide the related technical instruction. There are many winners with this approach, but none so important as the employer and the employee.

Several articles have appeared in the newsletter explaining how Proactive Technologies sets up for each client a unique, structured on-the-job training program, provides implementation support to ensure it is running effectively and provides documentation and monthly reporting to drive each employee’s progress toward full job mastery. The most recent article appearing in the February, 2017 issue entitled “Tips for Establishing Your Company’s Training Strategy – Practical, Measurable, Extremely Economical and Scalable”. While the article hints on some of the benefits to the employer-employee stakeholders, it might be more advantageous to focus on the benefits themselves rather than leave them nuanced. More can be found in other articles at the News and Publications page of the Proactive Technologies, Inc. website.

There are many significant reasons that structured on-the-job training will help any employer really maximize the value of each worker employed with the company, improve operational efficiency and lower the risk of non-compliance (ISO/IATF/AS, Safety Mandates, EEOC Mandates). These are not just buzzwords. Here are thirteen reasons (not in any order of importance, since some may be more important to different stakeholders) to consider.

1. ISO 9001-2015 and IATF16949 compliance with regard to worker competence to perform task processes, the provision of support documentation and records, and the facilitation of retraining when processes change.
• The data infrastructure will help facilitate quality improvements and incorporates the results of LEAN, continuous improvement, etc.;
• Existing company process documents are incorporated into the job/task analysis data collection so all worker development materials generated from the data are in sync with engineering and quality standards;

2. Risk mitigation with regard to potential legal challenges to methods and assessments used by the company for determining pay increases and promotion.
• The infrastructure and documentation will support the company’s side in the event of a safety incident investigation;

3. The initial job/task analysis will capture the technical expertise and wisdom in the heads of Company’s skilled workers before they get a chance to leave through retirement, attrition, promotion, etc.;

4. By having a structured on-the-job training infrastructure in place to accelerate the transfer of worker expertise, this will cut the time and cost to train new-workers, cross-train workers, etc.;

5. Infrastructure supports both hybrid and competency apprenticeship models accepted by US DOL and state, whether registered or not;

6. Once the system is set up, the cost per training each new-hire or cross-trainee for the job declines (unlike classroom and online attendance which repeats);

7. Incumbent workers are assessed to the determine which tasks of their job that they and their supervisor feel they have mastered, to identify the gap in training that might have developed over the years.
• Customized On-the-Job Training Checklist binders are developed, unique to each trainee, to close the task mastery gap;

8. Company will experience an increase in worker capacity since new hires and incumbents are both driven to “full job mastery;”

9. This approach will improve work quality, quantity, and compliance with quality standards and safety requirements;

10. This approach can standardize worker task-based training, documentation and records, and assessments between shifts, departments and plants.

11. This strategy leverages the on-the-job training programs and assessments developed at one plant to be content-validated at the other plants, dramatically reducing the needed investment for setting up and implementing programs at the other facilities;
• For example, 3 complete programs at one facility becomes (once content-validated at each plant) 9 complete programs (3 at each plant)
• Technical support is provided to all three plants including technical implementation and revision support for each;

12. Worker development programs and assessments are designed to create replicas of the best performers, so bar is set high; structure and support in place to drive it.

13. The cost of turnover can be reduced substantially, since workers are engaged sooner, trained faster and if a worker is having difficulty mastering the tasks of the job, tools are available to remediate deficient skills before the decision is made to let them go.

As if these reasons were not reason enough, there are still many more benefits to stakeholders that can be discussed for those who participate in this approach.

Learn more about the Proactive Technologies’ PROTECH© system of managed human resource development  for the accelerated transfer of expertise™. Find out which reasons for this approach can offer your firm the most benefit.