A Project That Sold Me on Proactive Technologies’ Structured On-The-Job Training System

by Frank Gibson, CEO and Interim Chairman of the Board of the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

I have been working in the area of workforce and management development for a good part of my life. I have tried to help organizations navigate many of the upheavals in the economy and challenges to specific employer operations. Sometimes an employer senses something is wrong or could be much better, but lack the sources of information they can trust. One project changed my conviction on a better way to help workers and employers many years ago and continued to prove itself ever since. For me, one project in particular stands out.

Proactive Technologies, Inc. started a project in 2000 with an Ohio aerospace manufacturer that was concerned with their legacy workforce reaching retirement age. Several generations of workers continued to work there because, according to them, “it was a good company to work for.” The company estimated 40% were scheduled to retire in the next 2 years; 80% total were eligible to retire in the next 6 years  Many of the people were the only people who knew how to run certain equipment, certain machines, perform certain processes and were about to retire and take all that expertise with them. After reviewing many options and products (including an expensive but unproductive Lean project), the company HR director commissioned Proactive Technologies to perform a job task analysis on 5 production job classifications (later expanded to 19 job classifications based on a success of the pilot) to capture the expertise, develop training programs to quickly replicate replacements through the accelerated transfer of expertise system™, and provide the documentation and technical implementation support needed to ensure the project was successful. In many cases, the retiree could use the materials they helped develop to train their replacement before leaving.

At that time, I was employed with The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center (after stints in manufacturing and with the State of Ohio Department of Development) and was already aware of PTI‘s approach since 1996. I was also aware many of the educational institutions had little that employers found relevant yet themselves failed to take on-the-job training seriously even though encouraged to do so by Proactive Technologies’ President Dean Prigelmeier. When the first five job/task analyses were completed for this aerospace company and all the support materials developed from it, the HR Director, within minutes of being handed the PTI provided report analyzing each of the 5 job’s job/task analysis data for their pre-hire requirements, called and ordered several courses from the Alber Center to help remediate incoming workers and prepare them for the structured OJT to come next. I had to “shop around” for some of the courses with the most current and relevant content available, and a few we had to design ourselves. This would not have been possible without the data produced during the job/task analysis that identified pre-hire skill, ability and competency requirements in order to be successful in the deliberate, documented task-based training that was to come.

In about 2004,  the company’s management decided to sell off some of its divisions, and this plant was going to be one of them. Fearing the loss of retirement benefits through the acquisition, many production workers who were scheduled to retire in later years, decided to move up their retirement and lock in their benefits. Consequently, 10 people out of a production workforce of around 110 changed job classifications each month for an entire year. The Company’s union bargaining agreement required “bumping“ by less senior workers to fill the job openings internally first. When 1 person retired, 3-4 people at a time would change job assignments.

The acquiring company, like most acquiring companies, looked first to “cut costs.“ and at the top of the list was headcount  The HR Director met with senior leadership of the acquiring company with a PTI provided report that detailed all of the tasks that each worker mastered in each of the jobs that they were trained in while employed to illustrate the investment the company made and value that would be lost in such a random act with unpredictable outcomes. The decision was made to leave the staffing levels alone.

Over the next two years, the company’s operation became more focused and even more profitable with the increased workload. Within those 2 years, the increase in profits was enough to pay back the acquiring investors investment 100% – even during the tumultuous year of employee reassignment that could have sank any operation. The HR Director was convinced, and said so publicly on many occasions, none of that would have been possible without having the structured on-the-job training infrastructure for each production job area such as NC machinist, quality control, maintenance, electrician, press operator, press operator, specialty assembly, testing, bonding and others.

Regarding bonding, the company was experiencing difficulties early on in the cladding processes due to environmental factors difficult to control, leading to returned parts. One of the company’s major clients was threatening to cancel their major contract if a solution could not be found. The company’s engineers improved processes and maintenance worked with engineers on environmental controls, PTI quickly updated the job/task analyses as data became available, and updated training materials and records of those receiving update-training. When the customer audited the plant, their question to the company was how could they be assured that all relevant workers were certified on the new processes. The HR Director took them on a tour of the training room, training materials, posted records and explained the auditability, which satisfied them and the company retained the contract. With every customer, ISO and AS audit since, the worker training and records portion passed, with auditors citing the training program as “world-class.” And when the defense industry instituted the “knowledge capture” and more robust process-training documentation requirements in Nadcap, this company was pleased it had those requirements already met and more.

This company continued to order courses, such as blueprint, reading, machining, fundamentals, maintenance courses, etc. as they “up skilled” their workforce. We helped them find and schedule “specialty courses” not found in area education institutions. The Alber Center even developed specialty training courses that prepared new hires by remediating deficient skills once hired so the company could broaden their reach as to who was acceptable at entry-level..

This success story continued for the next over 24 years, with PTI and the technical support role to keep the job task analyses, up-to-date, and all of the training materials and reports relevant to the current processes and technology. It is not to say the project wasn’t challenged by changes in management, with replacements having no historical frame of reference and perhaps little or no understanding of how and why these programs came to be. There is no doubt the investment in this effort provided return well beyond in many ways, especially given the fact that almost all of it was supported by grants from many of the state of Ohio workforce and economic development agencies, The worker training results speak for themselves:

• documented over 460 career development tracks for a workforce averaging 105 (as individuals were cross-trained with each new bumped assignment)
• Certificates of Job Mastery Program™ portfolios issued: 92 (some employees with more than one),
• Certificates of Task Mastery Program™ portfolios issued: 202 (reached mastery of 50% of the required processed-based tasks of the job)

Sadly, the HR director that brought the system in, leveraged many of the training system’s benefits – its meticulous documentation that found its way into other department’s uses such as quality and engineering, its auditability that pleased customers and auditors, its data that made finding, vetting or creating courses for pre-hire assessment or post-hire remediation and upskilling efforts accurate and relevant, that satisfied collective bargaining requirements regarding training at each negotiation –  retired 20 years after his decision to build-up the company’s training infrastructure in 2000. In my opinion, he did not adequately receive the accolades and appreciation he deserved. No one at the company ever analyzed how much:

• the increase in each worker’s value was worth for mastering the entire job classification;
• the company saved through increased worker output, work quality and compliance;
• was saved avoiding useless litigation over the definition of job requirements (employees were involved in the job/task analysis process);
• the company rescued from potentially losing a major contract was worth;
• was saved during the volatile worker movements when they were acquired;
• and on and on.

Those kind of metrics are usually not measured by accounting departments…but should be. He would have broader management support if they could see worker training as an “investment” instead of “cost.” Most importantly, what was the return on investment for numerous  positive outcomes that, in addition, supported other departments when the training investment was offset almost entirely by nearly $2 million/23 years in various state grants? This man should have been celebrated more for his accomplishments, but he is a humble man not seeking recognition as much as doing his job well. One of departing HR managers  replacing him  moved on after a few years, bringing the approach and PTI to his new manufacturing employer a few states away.

Since beginning my relationship with Proactive Technologies, I have participated in, and witnessed many other of their similar success stories; some larger in scale, some multi-facility and some for small organizations who have the same needs but lack even more the technical expertise and resources to implement a similar approach on their own. Not once did I hear a complaint that, at any stage, PTI or the training program was getting in the way of production, or any part of what PTI developed didn’t match the job – PTI kept true to their claims. Sometimes busy employers don’t recognize how the approach is paying off for them, like passing an ISO, AS, IATF or Nadcap audit for training requirements; immediately current job descriptions for more accurate hiring, contract negotiating and wage setting; faster training of new-hires and cross-trainees; safety compliance requirements incorporated into the OJT where it belongs; reduced employee turnover; increased employee morale; or improvements in quality attributed to workers taught the right way to meet the high standards of performance. But I did.

There have been a lot of other ideas that have come and gone, some none too soon. But when you witness an approach that just makes sense and continues to deliver the goods, it’s hard not to advocate for it to other companies that have the same needs, but lack the staff with the understanding of how fundamental training workers to master their job is – not just for that individual, but for the entire operation and communities surrounding them.

For more information, contact Frank Gibson at the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership, or check out Proactive Technologies’ structured on-the-job training system approach to see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative  today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues.