Some graduates bring that notion of independence, self-sufficiency and in some cases prideful superiority to the workplace, where they find the tradition has been institutionalized. Quality meetings are held separate from engineering meetings, and accounting and human resources are seldom invited. When a clear mission and strong leadership is lacking to encourage and enforce cooperation and communication, rigid departmental lines can emerge; hampering listening and communication, and leading to entrenched cynicism, misunderstandings of intentions and covert, then overt, conflict.

Some of the best leaders spend time in each discipline to experience what the role is and what cooperation looks like. The informed leader likely walks away with an understanding of potential barriers to communication and the benefits of cooperation.

One of Proactive Technologies’ clients, which started as a family run company and grew into a fortune 500 company, has strict rules for instilling this awareness in its youngest family members who wanted to join the company. First, they must graduate from college. Next, they have to start literally at the bottom of the organization sweeping floors, followed by a stint in each department with successful performance before reaching their final destination; the process taking 2 years minimum. These days, that type of organizational and cultural development is rare.

” The level of accuracy of the worker training/continuous training program at any business operation determines how efficiently the organization can run, how adaptable the organization can be to changes in technology, processes, standards and organizational structure, and how scalable an organization is when new opportunities emerge. Leaders ensure that training isn’t an afterthought, but it is built into every operational objective.”

Without this “cross-department” experience, programmed biases are left unchecked. Each discipline becomes rigid in their view of the world, which can narrow to include only their perspective; concerned only with solutions that affect them directly and originate from them. Legitimizing that single-mindedness by allowing it can fuel misperceptions and misunderstandings that grow to be barriers and meaningless conflict.

When it comes to worker development, this phenomenon manifests itself as “Monday Morning Quarterbacking,” “Back-Seat Driving,” obstruction, blatant neglect and denial. But this assumes an effort is being made at worker development that can be subject to criticism. While worker training is reduced to “step-child” status, it is vulnerable from all directions. If no effort is made, then this takes care of that nuisance…right? Sadly, I have been told on many occasions by managers who should know better, “We do not want to be too structured in our training, because that can attract more opportunities for an auditor to find something wrong.” Wow, really? That is like saying we shouldn’t make an effort to maintain accurate accounting because the auditor might find an error.

“Training sounds so simple. Put two people together and have one train the other to do what they do…as fast and as good as the trainer. But we all know, from our own experiences, this is a crap shoot. The trainer may not want to share what they have learned for any number of reasons. Even if they do, they have repressed the nuances of learning the proper task procedure…The trainee doesn’t know what they are not learning, and are totally dependent on what the trainer demonstrates, what they think they see and what they hear. They wouldn’t know if anything was left out or taught incorrectly, and may be afraid to ask for fear of being judged…Especially for employers who have depressed wages for technical skills, a lower offered wage attracts more workers who need extra help in mastering the tasks, or live with the consequences.” 

Manufacturing is not an operation that runs well in an insular mode. A company is series of connected systems that succeed or fail collectively based on how well they cooperate. Read More

It is interesting to see CEO’s marvel at how difficult it is to learn the job tasks they previously thought were inconsequential and not worthy of attention. Previously known only as a word on a report, the fact that how the tasks are performed by these neglected employees are the reason the corporation exists goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Some look like episodes of the popular television shows of the 50’s and 60’s, “I Love Lucy.”

A typical Undercover Boss episode might display:

• Unstructured, inconsistent and incomplete training;

• Uneven and uncertain motivation;

• Conflicting operating orders;

• Unexpectedly outdated or inoperable equipment;

• Unclear standard practices;

• Unexpected lack of leadership at the local level spawned by unexpected lack of leadership at the upper levels;

• Unvarnished displays of workers rising above these organizational inadequacies and their own personal challenges to ensure product gets out the door and services are performed with pride.

Focusing on one aspect, in each case the resident expert was selected to train the covert executive. These attempts at unstructured, task-based training give a vivid picture of the limitations, risks, and failures of foregoing a deliberate training strategy. CEOs, who previously were told that the corporate training programs proliferated to each facility were “state of the art” and “working quite well” are now exposed to the end-users perspective. In a typical episode, if you look past the entertainment factor, one can easily detect: Read More

At the other end of the spectrum, training is focused on tasks routinely required of the worker – this becomes the focus of mastery of specific tasks of the job area. This is what an employer values and which make workers valuable. Knowledge conveyed at the point of utilizing it in the task, coupled with the convergence of core skills and core abilities, followed by repetitive practice of precise procedural steps develops trade-specific, higher-order skills. These skills yield a meaningful unit of work that is marketable to an employer in the industry. While one can say that occupations at the other end of the spectrum perform units of work as well, the type of work performed is more “situational” and less repetitive the higher up the organizational chart.

Leading up to the 1970’s, this was understood. In fact, many high schools around the country had very effective “vocational” programs, in many cases as good and relevant as the local community colleges. Competitions for students to show off their trade skills were held in each state and nationally by the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, which was replaced in the 1990’s by SkillsUSA. But as the movement that “everyone needs to go to college” grew, schools cut these vocational programs from the budgets and education systems pushed more of the responsibility for these programs on the community college that served high school graduates, the transition lasting from the 1980’s through the early 2000’s. In some states, “Regional Career Centers” were established in an attempt to provide a bridge of access for high schoolers to vocational education for “paying” member school districts.

The 1990’s emphasis on “college education for all,” lead to a K-12 education focus on coursework to prepare students for college entry. The “No Child Left Behind of 2001” and similar measures emphasized standardized testing in K-12 as preparation for college entrance examinations. Community colleges tried to fill the void in vocational instruction with their packaged programs that had not changed all that much since the 1970s. The repeated criticisms during this time of radical technological advancement (e.g. computers and microprocessors changing all aspects of work, trade agreements changing the availability of jobs for which these programs were training workers, Wall Street’s insistence on increasing shareholder value – driving constant cost-cutting leading to perpetual changes to job requirements) was that “continuing education,” “adult education” and “customized training” programs were out-of-date, instructors were ill-prepared, and community colleges were ill-staffed and under-funded to meet the constantly changing needs of employers. Most institutions turned inward and back to what they new; “credit courses” for college preparation and relied more on marketing their vocational programs than the quality and effectiveness of the content.

Trades have long been associated with apprenticeships but need not be, and apprenticeships that train workers generally for the industry but not enough for the employer paying the wages fell out of favor. While institutions were trying to find their role in workforce development, employers – often not clear themselves on what they needed in skilled workers and that have cited the “skills gap” as a major concern since the early warnings in the 1980’s – cut their internal budgets for the task training that only they can provide. The hope is that the educational system will find their way in time to provide them the workers they need, ready on day one to be 100% productive.

So, it makes sense that some semblance of a movement is appearing to take us back to a clear dichotomy between vocational training and traditional education. But it is important to re-institutionalize the difference, allowing for overlaps only to the degree they are relevant. It doesn’t mean institutions, employers and agencies shouldn’t cooperate; they should. But cooperation should never lose sight of each player’s strengths and honestly weed out the weaknesses.

We should Read More

“The profit from, and value of, most worker’s labor comes from task-based work, so all inputs that drive workers to high-performance, high-capacity output are investments.”

As discussed in many articles in past issues of the Proactive Technologies Report, although labor costs are considered direct costs from an accounting standpoint, they should be more importantly considered as an investment in the operation’s overall level of competitiveness. Operations may vary as to the level of return on investment from labor, but each worker’s cumulative expertise gained while employed becomes an asset to the operation akin to intellectual property and, therefore, wages and compensation paid to develop a worker are an investment.

As many operation managers have found out, drastic moves like reducing the wage rates by 20%, 30% or more, while expecting to maintain the same output quantity and quality, chases off the workers with the gained technical expertise…because they can leave. The investment is lost and so are any returns. Furthermore, it is difficult to find new candidates who are willing and able to “hit the ground running” for an unreasonably low wage rate. And if a good candidate for employment is found and selected, bringing their productive capacity up may be delayed or hindered by the fact that the remaining “subject matter experts” are not as capable of transferring expertise as the technical experts that were driven away.

Scores of competitively run global corporations in the past few decades have withered away chasing short-term numbers to appease shareholders and activist investors, which in the longer run undermined their capacity, purpose, level of service and brand. Read More

The short answer is most likely not. Any efficiency and cost savings brought about by the Lean redesign would be offset by the loss of the expertise for which the investment has already been made. Most likely the reason for the Lean was not in reaction to no return on worker investment, but rather a desire to increase the return on worker investment.

Another outcome of a lean effort may not include moving personnel, but either equipment or processes out of the Leaned department into another department up or downstream, often without structured training to absorb the new activities and maintain efficiency. Here the loss of gains made are similar if no training on how to perform the processes or run the equipment is provided. Read More

Employee selection has become so competitive today (from both the job-seeker’s and the employer’s perspective) it would seem desirable that if for a little effort a lot of peace of mind can be gained. Knowing that everything has been done to mitigate risk with a simple confirmation before use of proven and documented “job relevance.” Still employees may be turned away from a dish washing job because they lack proficiency in math, or a NC machine operator is denied employment because they tested low in verbal skills when their job is performed in relative isolation form others. Or someone is denied a promotion to management because they scored low on a commercial test that did not seem to have anything in common with the management job at that company.

In Part 1 of my article of the same name,  I discussed the importance of “content validation” of any instrument that is meant to assess, test, qualify or preclude candidates from hiring, participation in a program, promotion, a raise in pay and/or career expansion has to be based on objective fact, not elaborate branding or herd acceptance. Many employers select or create, and then implement tests for such activities – often without realizing the significance of what they do and the vulnerabilities and risks to business it presents. One embittered victim and/or one opportunistic human resources attorney can clarify the risk in a hurry. And, when one practice is found to violate EEOC requirements, all similar practices become suspect.

I and my company, Lifetime Learning LLC,  have partnered with Proactive Technologies, Inc.  on several projects. The data I receive from the Proactive Technologies Job Profile Summary and Job Profile Analysis Reports, among others, provides a wealth of information from which to legitimize for use (or de-legitimize for removal) criteria in assessments and customized tests I suggest and use for clients. Content validation is established with an undeniable link between the test item and the Duty-Task-Subtask-Procedural step where the item is relevant. It is hard to create a stronger case for content validation. Read More

This highlights several other preexisting issues in addition to the obvious. First, if the company is ISO/AS/TS certified, an auditor would be appalled and likely “gig” the company for the use of uncontrolled “process documents.” Notes in toolboxes and lunchboxes are not revision controlled. If the company has even questionable process documents that they claim drive their “high level of quality performance” the existence of operator notes are a strong contradiction. A client visiting the site may have serious doubts about the practices, as well.

The next issue is, “what role do these notes play in the training of new-hires and cross-training incumbents?” Does the trainee even know these are available? My experience has been that each trainee is on their own to create their own notes…if they even think it is necessary. So now we have multiple sets of notes for each machine, seldom compared and standardized, AND the company’s process documents if they exist. This is a recipe for incidents of scrap, rework and equipment damage at a minimum.

It also appears that each trainee is on their own to learn the safe performance of each task. It is not enough to provide general safety knowledge learning. When a trainee is taught a task for the first time, that is when they should be shown how to apply the general safety knowledge to the safe performance of that task.  Read More

The new generation of high school graduates will encounter the same challenge, but unfortunately have less content to draw upon. But from the moment they enter the workforce they are adding value to their personal portfolio for every seminar they attend and every job for which they obtain and apply new skills and master new tasks. For every type of worker this “accounting” represents their value to their current and future employer and vital to maintaining their place in the economy.

For many, they have yet to take an inventory of their personal worth and “intellectual capital,” and have failed to clearly detail it for anyone else to accurately sense the same value. Many have never even thought about it until pushed to take an inventory or explain their worth through job loss? Read More

What should be an obvious “must,” the notion that increasing worker capacity at all levels through task-based, deliberate, documented, measurable and verifiable structured on-the-job training is often usurped. It is replaced by a policy of hopefulness that workers will learn to perform the tasks of their job on their own or by osmosis or, even less effective and disappointing, attending a class here and there in expectation of closing the “skills gap.” I often discuss this in the context of production or service workers, but this extends to all levels of most organizations. The impact doesn’t go unnoticed by controllers and CEO’s under pressure to increase revenue or lower costs, but measures to correct this imbalance are seldom explored let alone utilized.

Invariably, the most target-rich environment for harvesting huge savings and significantly increasing capacity is bypassed – either from a lack of understanding of what it takes to be a “subject matter expert” or entrenched neglect. Ignoring the need for structured on-the-job training is like investing in a state-of-the-art machine, then waiting for it to set-up and program itself. Even artificial intelligence needs someone to train it the first time to do the things expected in the proper way.

When one considers the serious collateral damage caused by underdeveloped or underutilized worker capacity (e.g. scrap, rework, loss of “tribal knowledge” when someone retires or moves on, loss of customer confidence, loss of employee confidence), red flags and alarms should be going off continuously, since all of these are present on a daily basis. But distractions and diversions seem to get in the way. Several articles have appeared in the Proactive Technologies Report newsletter that discuss these costs in more detail, including: Estimating the Costs Associated With Skipping Employer-Based Structured On-The-Job Training  and The High Cost of Employee Turnover.

I have come across many examples since 1986 while providing technical consultation to business operations (and even before while working in manufacturing), as I am sure have you. One project that sticks in my mind involved job/task analyzing several supervisory positions at a division of a major automobile manufacturer – using the current “star performers”(subject matter experts) to define each task’s best practice and circulating the collected data for validation. We then developed a top-to-bottom structured on-the-job program; updated job descriptions, training manuals, task-based trainee checklists (for incumbents and new-hires), job/employee-specific performance appraisals and more. Read More

When RJPs are less effective, “According to researchers there are four issues that challenge RJP:

1. Recruiters do not share RJPs during interviews. (Rynes, 1991)
2. The nature of “realistic” information shared (in lab research or in the field) is unclear (Breaugh & Billings, 1988)
3. Not asking the right questions.
4. Applicants consistently report desiring more specific, job-relevant information than they commonly receive (Barber & Roehling, 1993; Maurer, Howe, & Lee,1992)

RJPs come in many forms; from the very simple for less-complex job classifications and areas and responsibilities to sophisticated RJPs for the highly technical job classifications with high levels of responsibility. An RJP consists of both positive and negative information regarding the position in order to give individuals a realistic view of employment with the company. Companies that employ realistic job previews provide information so that job candidates can make an informed decision about a position. If it is structured to do so, the RJP can help provide the employer with a wealth of information about whether the candidate is suitable for the work environment, work culture, and has the core skills as well as any transferable task-based skills that would expedite bringing a new-hire “up to speed.” Read More

The approach is unique in that it sets-up for its clients the task-based structured on-the-job training programs. There is no “cut and paste;” each job/task analysis is specific to that job classification, for that company, and incorporates already established process documents and specifications to ensure compliance with quality programs such as ISO/TS/AS and safety requirements.  Proactive Technologies provides the technical implementation support and accurately reports progress for each trainee’s individual pursuit of “job mastery” – allowing the business client to focus on its business while we ensure the employer gets the skilled staff they need, when they need them. As a bonus, incumbent workers are base-lined to the structured on-the-job training program requirements and a customized path is established to drive them, along with the new-hires, to full job mastery.

Like most community college or university executives, I felt compelled to promote products and services we already had on the shelf – even if I new from industry experience that the product only resembled the client’s targeted job by name. I began to worry about the cost to my reputation for recommending a solution that wasted everyone’s time and resources, and left the trainee and employer short.

Some schools think that “industry” has the answers. But some of their own organizational development courses teach that “the farther away from the actual work, the less that person knows about the job.” For the last 30 years we collectively built strategies based on “industry input” and yet the skills gap grew larger.

Although uncomfortable for most educators, we listened to each manufacturer that would open up. Even if they seemed to not know precisely what they needed, we listened for what they expected to accomplish, what resources they had that could be used in training workers for their needs, and if they were committed to a different approach if it brought them what they said they were looking for. For example: Read More

“That is the one point missed in all of the cuts to wages, benefits and staff; the first wave affects those who have no choice, the second wave affects the company as those with choice exercise it.”

its capacity, heads roll, more cuts are made and finally the investors pull out – leaving the previously well-run company impaired or near collapse. No good has come from this, and why it is allowed to continue makes no sense – except that it takes little thought to order, gives Wall Street the appearance of something good happening and something to report. That is why stocks rise when layoffs are announced – even in the face of predictable long-term effects of what the cost cutting means. That and the media’s cheering section that naively extols a short-term bump that may turn into a long-term fumble.

Worker capacity will be needed once the economy resumes, and the prudent businessman would not want to miss the recovery while spending too much time rebuilding the organizational capacity, part of which is finding “talent” to the replace the ones encouraged to leave and part trying to encourage the ones currently employed to stay. Additionally overlooked, employee and management morale suffers during wholesale cuts and irrational cost-cutting acts. The workers needed to sustain a recovery and regain market share are affected by what they see happening around them, and those most talented keep one eye on the door because they have the skills other employers might appreciate and always have the option to leave. That is the one point missed in all of the cuts to wages, benefits and staff; the first wave affects those who have no choice, the second wave affects the company as those with choice exercise it.

An alternative to knee-jerk cuts to workers is to assess each worker’s capacity (i.e. what percentage of the tasks of the job they have had a chance to learn and master), then use business “lulls” to raise it to full job mastery. Read More

“No one would ride in a plane flown by a pilot with only classes and simulator time, have surgery by a surgeon that hasn’t yet operated on a live human, or receive a root canal from a dentist with no “live-patient” time. Certified mastery of the tasks that define each of these jobs is what makes the ‘license to practice’ credible. And there is a difference between ‘a pilot” and ‘the pilot.’ Having a pilot license certifies you to fly planes, not a specific plane; you still have to have training and be certified to apply your craft to flying that plane. With the hybrid approach to apprenticeships, both are accomplished at the same time.”

The term “apprenticeship” has taken on many new meanings in the rush to increase the number of apprentices in the United States. Some 2-year community college programs that have been around a while have been re-branded in an effort to give new life to the same programs of worker development. Some have been thrown together to position an organization for the anticipated flood of grant dollars to find apprentices. Many of these are less “employer-centric” and more “industry-friendly” in spirit. Yet, it is important to remember that the ultimate beneficiaries of an apprenticeship should be the apprentice, the employer, the community, the industry and then the workforce development community, in that order. This should always be the focus and priority.

The process of gaining a “certificate of apprenticeship completion” level status can be an important milestone in an apprentice’s life. Achieving it can be accelerated by the focus and relevancy of related technical instruction and implementing employer-based structured on-the-job training, the latter for which mastery is also the measure of accomplishment for the apprentice and employer. Both components are critical to the quality of the program. Shortening the time without focusing these two components can weaken the program’s credibility and legitimacy. That is why many states require the employer to perform a job/task analysis on the job targeted for registration to ensure the structure, content and process is in place to document and explain what job-tasks have been mastered. That is what is most important to the current employer and any future employers.

These two requisite components were established in the middle-ages, albeit modernized for today’s needs, and have served us well when implemented properly. The United States Department of Labor – Bureau of Apprenticeships describes an apprenticeship as this: “It is a unique, flexible training system that combines job related technical instruction with structured on-the-job learning experiences.” The Bureau of Apprenticeships offers 3 models it accepts; the traditional Time-Based, the Competency and the Hybrid models. Read More

Now, there is another reason for capturing best practice task performance and all of its related knowledge and compliance specifications. The new standard ISO 9001: 2015 took effect September 15th, 2015. A transition period of three years will allow affected departments to make the necessary adjustments, but Quality Management Certificates issued under the old standard, ISO 9001: 2008, will have to include the new date.

Re-certification audit planning for the new standard must be performed at least 90 days prior to expiration, in other words by September 14, 2018, and the last audit day cannot exceed the deadline or a full, initial audit must be performed. The new standard includes a couple of changes that make the new standard easier to implement with other management systems, and focuses more on management commitment and performance and less on prescriptive measures.

The new standard includes a couple of changes that make the new standard easier to implement with other management systems, and focuses more on management commitment and performance and less on prescriptive measures. The standard has a new structure called a “High Level Structure” and introduces the concept of “risk-based thinking.” The emphasis is on organizations identifying risks to standardize quality performance and taking measures to “ensure their management system can achieve its intended outcomes, prevent or reduce undesired effects and achieve continual improvement.” The revised standard also puts increased emphasis on achieving value for the organization and its customers; in other words “output matters.”

The process approach introduced in 2000 as the desired model for quality management systems will become an explicit requirement of ISO 9001: 2015. The standard requires understanding the needs of the clients or customers, end users, suppliers and regulators and the words “document” and “record” were replaced by “documented information,” acknowledging the need to broaden the concept in recognition of the advancement in information handling technology.

The new standard has more emphasis on requirements for competent performance of personnel, competence meaning “being able to apply knowledge and skill to achieve intended results.” The important role that structured on-the-job training has played so far in ISO/AS/TS compliance now becomes even more critical.

Those companies that already have the Proactive Technologies PROTECH© system of managed human resource development  in place already in place already meet the requirements structurally with regard to personnel competency, but management may need to show more commitment and understanding of the important role this plays in quality control. Those who have not addressed the earlier requirements for process-driven training in all the major models of quality management – ISO/TS/AS – should begin now to build the infrastructure if they want to meet that requirement under the new standard. Read More

We start by collecting a lot of data about each job classification that is all around anyway (e.g. people’s heads, operator’s notes, engineering processes, quality standards, EHS specifications). This spread of information, that isn’t readily available, makes learning and mastering the tasks – for new hires and incumbents – unpredictable, ineffective, open to 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 tool from it. 

Our proprietary software allows us to quickly gather and consolidate the many sources of data for use only when and where needed. Our technical support, 12 months (renewable) included in every project, allows your organization to focus on business while we set the programs up and manage them for you. 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.

Evolutionary forces (e.g. the movement from an agrarian society to an industrial society) that tend to materialize to the benefit the many who adapt over the few that did not, or could not, are legitimate. This type of evolution is characterized by its slow, steady manifestation, not by starts, stops and completely opposite turns as seen in the many predictions of today.

Many money-driven trends of today are more meant to benefit the few who can afford to adapt or who invest in the “wave” and make a return, over the many who cannot. These movements come and go, leaving the “overly optimistic but not well connected” devotees discredited and demoralized as these waves disappear or continue to morph into the next (what used to be called) “fad.”

Wealth and credit is so concentrated in the hands of a few today. They, and the few who have the resources to benefit from following their agendas, are always looking for new ways to drive movements toward their goals to amass more wealth. When these interests move on as they reach the rewards they seek, or change direction when it looks like investor or consumer interest is running out, they tend to leave behind a disrupted society and economy.

A true “futurist” has no vested interest in his or her predictions. Their predictions are based not on popular themes, but on converging trends – trends that might cancel other themes and trends, might preempt fads from gaining illegitimate strength and might change conclusions of where this all leads.

Modern media outlets, concentrated in dense urban areas, have cut back on reporters and the more costly investigative journalism. They tend to exercise “group think,” and race to be the first to report on their new discovery that originated as a press release from some paid organization. They often add hype and flamboyance to entice a reader to read or listen to the story. It is easy for a well-networked, well-financed organization to fund their own “trend”…or at least create the illusion of one. A good example of this technique is investors who “short” a commodity and, more insidiously, a start-up venture and then “leak news” to naïve or participating network outlets to move the markets in a direction to their benefit, leaving the company’s share value and shareholder’s wealth destroyed.

There are many examples of how popular media has been wrong in their coverage and wrong in their predictions that find themselves in circulation. Anyone basing a long-term policy or strategy, which will have a lasting legacy and impact the many, on today’s predictions should do so only after deep, sound analysis and re-analysis. Anyone can make a prediction, but it is those who plan for others around a prediction that have to live with the repercussions and hold accountability.

I have listed 23 of these predictions that failed to develop, or failed to develop to the level predicted, that illustrate my point: Read More

This approach makes a worker’s mastery of the job the focus, integrating into the company’s existing systems and standards by building structure around the loosely arranged worker development activities already in place. By structuring the unstructured worker training to make it work effectively and efficiently, this approach maximizes the use of resources already in place.

Proactive Technologies is confident that, once your firm experiences the PROTECH© system of managed human resource development, you will recognize its capabilities to maximize your workforce and cut your training costs. That is why PTI is willing to let your firm find this out at the pace and investment level that you are comfortable first, then work with you to scale up within your budget to reach your goals.

Once a pilot project is underway and if the client is interested, Proactive Technologies will research worker development state grant sources, help prepare an application and submit it. If successful Proactive Technologies  will help you make sure you receive the maximum grant amount. Proactive Technologies has, for decades, successfully helped many clients to defray part or all of their initial investment and/or project expansion.  

Contact Proactive Technologies, Inc. for more information about this program and a representative will be in touch.

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“There is no doubt this approach is effective. After all, what is better: unstructured and haphazard worker training that cannot be explained, measured, improved or understood, or structured on-the-job training for all workers that is easily measured, implemented, improved and explained to auditors?”

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1. Determine the Employer’s Need and Agree on Strategy: How has the client been (or not been) training workers until now; what are the current and projected staffing levels for incumbents and new-hires along with attrition rate and reassignments; is the culture supportive of training workers and see it as vital to competitiveness; are any task-based documents available and are they in use (e.g. work processes, quality standards, safety standards); which jobs are targeted and why; is the company following any quality mandates, such as ISO/TS/AS and do they have any quality programs underway such as LEAN, Six Sigma; what is the budget for setting up the structured on-the-job training program and implementation. A strategy encompassing all of these points is prepared for the employer before an agreement and timetable is confirmed.
2. Job/Task Analyze the Target Job Classifications: The analysis is always performed using the employer’s subject matter experts to develop task lists of each targeted job classification, then each task is analyzed further for the best practice; also identified are relevant components that lead a trainee to reach “task mastery;” a review of data by subject matter experts is held to reach a concurrence on data; materials to structure the on-the-job training are created (the PROTECH© software system accelerates the data collection process and automatically generates all of the tools of the human resource development process from the data – materials are ready in minutes not years…at a fraction of the cost of manual development. One revision updates all reports.). Read More

While all this is going on, political tides that brought in the change may begin to turn back. Often one political party or the other overreaches, or misreads their constituents and acts against their voter’s interests. The make-up of Congress and or the presidency in the next election may push the pendulum back.

A good strategy for employers during days like this is to try to learn as much as possible about the proposed changes. No matter if industry groups are behind the successful push for changes in laws and regulations, this does not mean the changes will survive. So, it is a good idea to remain pragmatic and realistic during these times. Try to project how the change will be received by your customers and by employees in your organization. Then weigh the benefits of making policy revisions to incorporate the regulatory changes versus the costs of the policy changes – including financial costs, costs to morale (if any) and the costs if these government changes are later reversed and the company has to reverse its policies to match.

Some other considerations are: Read More

This accelerated transfer of expertise™ approach is a tremendous offer without the discount, but with it can help any employer quickly and completely train the skilled workers they need AND realize an increase in worker capacity, work quantity/quality and compliance (ISO/TS/AS, engineering specifications and safety) while reducing the internal costs of training. New-hires and incumbent workers are driven to full job mastery and higher levels of return on worker investment (ROWI). The task-based, structured on-the-job training infrastructure is perfect for the apprenticeships; instead of marking the calendar for “time-in-job,” job-relevant tasks are mastered and documented.

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.”

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“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.”

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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? Read More

Last year, Christina Merhar of ZaneBenefits wrote in her blog entitled “Employee Retention – The Real Cost of Losing an Employee,” “Happy employees help businesses thrive. Frequent voluntary turnover has a negative impact on employee morale, productivity, and company revenue. Recruiting and training a new employee requires staff time and money. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, turnover is highest in industries such as trade and utilities, construction, retail, customer service, hospitality, and service.”

“For the costs associated with the loss of 1 or 2 employees, the company can establish a holistic approach to worker selection, development and retention that will significantly lower both turnover rates and turnover costs, AND increase the value of all employees in that job classification.”

We tried a lot of innovative programs for employers in the community within the constraints mentioned, but if I was to be honest we rarely kept up. What we thought we knew of the targeted job classifications and their requirements, and upon which our programs were built and measured, seemed to become increasingly misaligned within just a few years. Not only was advancing technology putting pressure on the content of our learning materials and program design – a constant push toward obsolescence – the employers were continually rethinking the design of their job classifications to meet their business goals and budgets. We were finding less and less similarity in job classifications between employers, by job title and job content.The “Maintenance” job classification was a perfect example and could be incredibly different from company to company. In the early days, Maintenance was thought of as multi-craft; a maintenance person was responsible for maintaining all aspects of the operation. Some companies tried to hold onto that concept of Multi-Craft Maintenance but, as Multi-Craft Maintenance Technicians were becoming harder to find and therefore required higher pay, more and more companies began to deviate from multi-craft to specialty and single-craft positions that cover only limited areas such as facilities, electrical or mechanical. Some Maintenance positions did not include HVAC, some were primarily focused on servicing machines but not repair. Some employers subcontracted out facility maintenance and instead had their Maintenance employees perform preventative maintenance tasks on everything from manual machines to PLC driven multi-axis machines, to robots and robotic manufacturing machines – leaving the servicing to the warranty and/or contracted OEM experts. Trying to find the right balance between an effective Maintenance program that gives every employer what they wanted but does not train for skills that one might never have a chance to use and master and most likely would forget, proved increasingly difficult to say the least.

This dilemma for program and instructional design, I believe, is worse today. Read More

It is important to understand that the types of skills that employers are most concerned with – especially employer-specific task-based skills – most likely have not been in the local workforce, nor have any programs been available in local institutions to develop them, simply because these new jobs, with new skill requirements, have never been in the area. The types of skills needed for most modern manufacturing and advanced manufacturing have never been developed because the need was not present nor the data on these jobs available. Even if the need was present, by the time the skill is recognized, a program developed and a worker completed the learning manufacturers either moved on or moved out.

“Determining that you, indeed, hired the right person for the job will not automatically ensure the person is successful in learning and mastering the job. The most important step in the employment process is seeing to it that the individual’s core knowledge, skills and abilities are applied in learning and mastering the tasks which they were hired to perform. That is where the money is made.” 

Leading up to this, while working in certification program development, training program development and quality engineering for manufacturers, I found that the traditional, academic approaches to job training were beginning to lose their effectiveness in the workplace. Even the techniques for developing training materials was no longer suited for a job classification that may have significant changes to it weekly. Rapid job changes affected job descriptions, hiring assessments, performance appraisals – impairing an employer’s efforts to remain compliant with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulation. Establishing certifications for workers was impossible since the training that led into it, and even the materials used for hiring a candidate, grew quickly obsolete. Evaluating worker performance was being reduced to subjective generalities, often generating resentment from workers and those that evaluated them.

The new standard includes a couple of changes that make the new standard easier to implement with other management systems, and focuses more on management commitment and performance and less on prescriptive measures. The standard has a new structure called a “High Level Structure” and introduces the concept of “risk-based thinking.” The emphasis is on organizations identifying risks to standardize quality performance and taking measures to “ensure their management system can achieve its intended outcomes, prevent or reduce undesired effects and achieve continual improvement.” The revised standard also puts increased emphasis on achieving value for the organization and its customers; in other words “output matters.”