There are a lot of buzzwards thrown around these days. “Skills Gap,” Education-Based Apprenticeships, Industry-Recognized Certifications, “STEM” – many confusing to those in management whose primary function is to ensure products and services are delivered in the most cost-effective and profitable way. It can be especially confusing to those who are specialists in business operations but unfamiliar with effective worker development strategies.
For anyone unfamiliar with Proactive Technologies’s PROTECH™ system of managed human resource development for the accelerated transfer of expertise™, it might help to clarify what makes this approach to worker development and continuous improvement so effective. This unique approach, in practice since 1986 and always improving, was designed by someone who endured the pressures of maintaining the highest quality staff in a world of constant change and pressures to do more with less.
We start by collecting a lot of data for the client about each of their job classifications that is all around anyway (e.g. people’s heads, operator’s notes, engineering processes, quality standards, EHS specifications). Usually we find that when this information isn’t readily available of discoverable, it makes learning and mastering the tasks – for new hires and incumbents – unpredictable, ineffective, open to interpretation and conflicts (including legal), costly and not conducive of standardization of high performance. And the continual revision of all of these bits of information adds to the challenge and makes process improvement and implementation efforts difficult, at best.
Many times we find that tasks are not proceduralized for best practice performance; either not defined at all or defined vaguely as “Perform _____,” leaving it up to each new trainee to guess what was intended. We job/task analyze the missing bits and work with engineering, quality and management to make sure we have the best, best practice before we develop any training or certification tools from it.
Our proprietary software allows us to quickly gather and consolidate the many sources of data for use when and where needed. Our technical support, 12 months (renewable) included in every project, allows the client’s organization to focus on business while we set the programs up and manage them for them. Our software automatically generates all of the tools of the human resource development process to allow for big-scale projects at a small-scale investment; from today’s job description and entry level tests, to structured on-the-job training materials and checklists, to technical procedures and performance appraisals. One revision updates all of the tools! The system keeps track of each trainee’s training progress and provides detailed reports.
We build structured on-the-job training programs to ensure each new-hire and incumbent worker has an accelerated path to job mastery through mastery of each best-practice task – with content-valid assessments for more accurate and compliant selection and legally-defensible assessments to measure progress toward, and achievement of, job mastery. Each structured on-the-job training program we set-up can, and has been, easily registered as an apprenticeship (an option for your firm) that adds little-to-no cost.
We have projects, some lasting as long as 20 years, in nearly all industries, any type job classification. For example, an automotive and industrial engine component manufacturer with 40 unique job classifications, 300 employees at 2 plants that spanned 10 years. An aerospace manufacturer with 19 job classifications, averaging 100 employees, over 20 years. Microchip manufacturers, financial services, hospitality, healthcare employers – from entry level jobs to management. In each case the infrastructure was set-up, training implemented, records maintained, progress reported and changes incorporated – all without the need, as with all of our projects, to expand the client’s HR staff or add a training department. Whenever the client organization feels it is ready to bring management of this project inside, we would be happy to license their firm with our latest version PROTECH© system of managed human resource development™ software, install it with their firm’s data, teach their designated staff to administrate it and Proactive Technologies will still be available for technical support.
This approach is proven to lower the internal costs of training (e.g. the cost declines per each added trainee) while increasing worker capacity, work quantity and quality, compliance (ISO/AS/IATF, EEOC and safety) and worker return on investment. This approach supports “legacy knowledge capture” required by ISO 9001:2015 and companion standards, and ISO 30414:2018 – Human Capital Reporting.
Many state worker training grant funds can be used to offset most, if not all, of your investment to set-up the structured on-the-job training programs and technical support, which documents and reports each task mastered for reimbursement. Proactive Technologies will help you with the application and to present the project for approval, as well as keep records and provide reports for state reimbursement.
We understand that you may have been driven to cynicism by the buzzwords and ineffective attempts at worker development you might have already tried, and Proactive Technologies is confident that once you realize the power of this workforce development approach you will be a believer. That is why we offer a “pilot project approach” so you can try the approach out on one of your job classifications first before scaling it up. Minimize the risk so the case can be made internally to scale-up based on successful results. And you will be surprised how little an investment is needed to get started and how big the returns will be!
It would be worth your time to consider this approach. Please feel free to contact us for more information or attend one of our free, live online presentations. Proactive Technologies would enjoy an opportunity to work with you and your firm and would do everything we can to help you make your project a success.
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