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Proactive Technologies Report – January, 2017

Posted on by DPrigelmeierpti

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Best Wishes for a Bright and Prosperous 2017 from 
PROACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.!

Economic Development Opportunities – An Important Incentive in Attracting Companies to Your Region

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
When organizations try to create new jobs in their area – working with companies that are considering moving to, expanding to or expanding within their areas – when it comes to labor availability many regional economic development strategies include an offering that consists of one part skills assessment, one part general skill classes and a sprinkling of worker tax credits or grants. That seems to be what most incentive packages include, but is that because: A) that is what the other offers look like; b) it has been like that for decades; C) it is assumed that is all that is available; or D) all of the above?

For over thirty years headlines sounded the alarm that those institutions that were training the workforce of tomorrow were not succeeding in their effort (see Proactive Technologies Report article, “An Anniversary That You Won’t Want to Celebrate: 30 Years Later and The Skill Gap Grows – Is it Finally Time to Rethink The Nation’s Approach?”). Many skilled workers that are available to work do not have the skills that employers need today. Not completely satisfied with their answer to the inevitable question regarding the region’s skilled labor availability and how workers with specific skill needs will be found or developed, some economic development organizations are exploring other options and opportunities.

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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.

Let’s face it, most organizations that promote their region for economic development do so on the current low cost of labor, right-to-work status, low business and employment tax rates, economic incentives, availability of infrastructure and quality of life. They probably never needed a system in place to develop the skills necessary to attract modern and advanced manufacturing. Companies interested only in geographical, financial and aesthetic incentives have already moved. Other employers understand that if they want higher skilled workers, they expect to pay higher wages now or later when those skill levels are reached and competition for skilled labor kicks in.
If we were honest with one another, community colleges and adult training centers are, at best, 10 -15 years behind the types of skills a prospective employee needs in order to learn and master the tasks required in modern facilities. It has always been like that, from time to time the gap surging deeper. The reason isn’t complicated; these institutions are designed as academic institutions first and have tried to fill a void in worker training with core skill development. However, they have never been embedded enough in today’s job environment to collect the job data necessary to be relevant nor have they applied the massive amount of government funding correctly to be that engaged.

“Whether attracting new companies and helping them thrive and expand, or helping existing business to do the same, this approach is an important component of any economic development strategy.”

I have written about another option for economic development strategies in past issues of the Proactive Technologies Report newsletter. For example, “ Regional Workforce Development Partnerships That Enhance Economic Development Efforts” . In another, “Apprenticeships That Make Money? Not As Impossible as it Seems Part 1 ” and Part 2 of 2 “The European Difference  – Setting Up an Apprenticeship Center”  I described one project that demonstrated a perfectly effective and inexpensive approach. For this project, Proactive Technologies was asked by a regional economic development office to attend a presentation in Germany for an employer that was considering a joint manufacturing venture in one of the state’s counties. Read More

Thinking Past the Assessment – Unfinished Goals and Unrealized Expectations

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Literally speaking, an “assessment” is the process of measuring the value, quality and/or quantity of something. There are many types of assessments, and methods for assessing. In theory, it is the process of evaluating one thing against a set of criteria to determine the match/mismatch.

There are assessments for risk, for taxes, vulnerability. There are psychological, health, and political assessments. There is a group of educational assessments that measure a variety of outcomes such as educational attainment – assessments of course content mastery, assessment of grade level attainment, assessments of Scholastic Aptitude Tests (“SAT”) that compare a student to their peers nationally and a variety of college readiness exams.

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“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.” 

Educational assessments have been adapted for use in workforce development and employment, used to assess a prospective employee’s suitability for a job opening. They often measure more of what, if anything, a student learned and retained before graduating than how they match the employer’s actual job opening. Psychological assessments have been adapted to measure a prospective employee’s sociability to the workplace, morphing into a new category called “psychometric assessments.”
We have seen a growth in the employment assessment industry over the past 2 decades – particularly after 9-11. There are assessments for cognitive tests, physical abilities, “trustworthiness,” credit history, personality, criminal background and more. When used improperly, the methods have been challenged in court for their appropriateness and intent.
An assessment is a “test,” and has been held as such by court rulings over the years.  Read More

An Anniversary That You Won’t Want to Celebrate: 30 Years Later and The Skill Gap Grows – Is it Finally Time to Rethink The Nation’s Approach?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It is not sure if that includes instances where the packaging has been changed but the process is basically the same. But I think we all feel, at times, a little like Bill Murray’s character in the movie “Groundhog Day” when it comes to skill gaps and worker training.

Proactive Technologies, Inc. was started in June of 1986 to address a critical need seen developing at the time. In the mid-1980’s, the addition of computers and microprocessors began to accelerate the automation of manufacturing and change the nature of work – sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes profound. Since this movement was in its infancy, it was difficult to predict its many directions and full impact. However, it was not hard to imagine that this was going to have a major impact on the nature of future work and, therefore, the way in which employers and education developed workers.

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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.

“It was not then, and is not today, uncommon for a displaced worker to bear the cost of a 2-year vocational program for a job that was there when the program started but not there when completed – a waste of time, money, opportunity and hope.”
Training materials and certification standards were difficult to develop and maintain to a moving target, and therefore often conflicts arose with engineering processes, and safety and quality compliance policies of the organization. Employers did not have the luxury to allow 6-8 months for the development of a training manual for just a part of the job, only to discover that 60% of it was obsolete when put into use.
The warnings went out, although more directed at the symptoms of the problem then the problem itself.
“By 1990, an estimated three out of four jobs will require some education or technical training beyond high school” … “Workers with critical technical skills will be retiring at an increasingly rapid rate. For example, the average of the nation’s 300,000 machinists is 58, yet the industry is training only one-forth of the skilled machinists needed each year.” 
Employment Policies:
Looking to the Year 2000
National Alliance of Business, 1986
“Some companies have calculated that the “occupational half-life*” of an employee has declined, on average, from 7-14 years to 3-5 years.”
* Length of time necessary for 1/2 of the employee – held knowledge, skills and abilities for competent performance (for the job classification originally hired) to become relatively obsolete.
Michigan Industrial Technology Institute, 1987
“Nearly $30 billion is spent on employee training each year in the United States…and most of that money goes to waste.”
Fran Tarkenton, Management Consultant
Training Magazine, November 1988
“Employers spent an estimated $30 billion last year on training, but some observers feel much of that outlay was wasted. If businesses want to get a bigger bang for their buck in the 90s, they have to make changes.” 
Noel Tichy, University of Michigan
Human Resource Executive, October 1988
Yet, technological advances were not the only threat to the once considered stable practice of worker development. In the 1970’s, America’s reaction to the skill gap was to begin outsourcing the production of entire industries – exchanging declining worker capacity with lower-waged labor…with even lower capacity. First, the steel industry took a hit and entire towns were devastated when the main industry that sustained the economy was dismantled and reassembled in lower-wage countries that minimized their own worker protections, environmental regulations, government taxation and oversight to attract the industry…in some cases incentivized directly or indirectly by our own government.
Next it was the electronics industry in the 1980’s. Again, entire communities who relied on the stability of well-paying jobs for their tax base and economic activity were left ravaged as citizens tried to first understand what happened to them, and then tried to figure out a way forward for themselves, their family and the community.
Each time this upheaval occurred the call by public officials was the same, “we need to train workers for the jobs of tomorrow”…”the old skills will not be effective in the new economy”…”America has to reinvent itself.” Federal and state government agencies responded to the crisis in a predictable way…more money to the same institutions to increase their capacity to train workers (without changing how they did that). And each time employers responded by spending more money to train workers because the institutions were not delivering what they needed. Read More

Changes in ISO 9001: 2015 and Any Effects on Worker Training

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
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.

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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
Read the full January, 2017 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Posted in News

Proactive Technologies Report – December, 2016

Posted on by DPrigelmeierpti

cardHAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU, YOUR FAMILY AND STAFF FROM THE STAFF OF

PROACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.!!

Best Wishes for a Bright and Prosperous New Year! 

Proactive Technologies Significant Discount Offer Announced in November Still Open Until December 15, 2016! 

Free “No-Risk” Consultation Session Added – Witness Approach for Your Specific Job Classification Before You Decide

by Proactive Technologies, Inc. Staff

Proactive Technologies Inc. is extending a generous discount offer to manufacturing employers through December 15, 2016 ! It is our way to reach out to employers – both returning clients (mostly disrupted by the Crash of 2008) and newly interested contacts – with interest in exploring the power and benefits of a structured on-the-job training infrastructure, but may have been held back by budget realities.

Recently notices were emailed regarding this offer. Former clients received specific information describing, in brief, “where we left off” with their project, suggesting that they contact us to learn what little needs to be done to update and implement their program. This accelerated transfer of expertise™ approach is a tremendous offer without the discount, but with it can help any employer train the skilled workers they need and realize an increase in worker capacity, work quantity and quality and compliance 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).

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 In the event that anyone needed one more way (i.e. in addition to live online presentations, onsite presentations) to gather enough information to decide on whether to move forward with structured on-the-job training to boost their training strategy, we thought of an idea that might help them decide. Read More –  The Free Briefing Session and Turnkey Package Offers for Prospective Manufacturing Organizations and Returning Clients 

DeanUnderstanding the Important Difference Between Classroom, Online and On-The-Job Training: Knowing the Difference Can Save Your Organization Time, Money and Disappointment

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In the November, 2016 issue of Proactive Technologies Report article entitled, “10 Reasons Structured On-The-Job Training is a Vital and Necessary System for Any Organization” I laid out 10 very important reasons employers should seriously consider adding structured on-the-job training to their worker development strategy.This is based on the supposition that everyone’s definition of “on-the-job training” is similar if not the same, the difference between “structured” and “unstructured” on-the-job training is clear and recognized, and the vast difference between true structured on-the-job training and “classroom” or “online” learning is unquestioned. It also needs to be understood that structured on-the-job training is not interchangeable with classroom and online learning, but rather the “capstone” of applying core skills developed from the latter into mastering units of work for which an employer is willing to pay wages.

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There are not many jobs available for which employers are recruiting people who have taken classes, or a lot of classes, as if that is where value lies. If one finds a job like this it is because the employer believes, legitimately or mistakenly, it has a strategy to cultivate those core skills into the performance of work tasks. A task is recognizable by a beginning point, and ending point and a series of steps that, when performed in the right order to the right specification, result in a recognizable and desired outcome. No employer hires people and pays them wages for “being good at math,” “reading exceptionally well,” being aware of safety rules.” Rather they are hoping those skills are current enough, and apply directly enough, to tasks that need to be mastered and work the needs to be done.

Still, if the collective content of all of the classes offered were effective alone in developing the workforce, why after 30 years do we skill have a “growing skill gap?” Ask any graduate what percentage of their 2 or 4-year education they use in the job and you will hear 10%, 20%…maybe more in highly structured disciplines such as law, medicine and engineering. Obviously something more is needed. For most, education is a foundation upon which to build (through training received on the job) higher order skills and master tasks that need to be done…if that training is available and deliberate.

To understand the importance of structured on-the-job training, it is important to slide1differentiate between the three main types of learning in the workplace: classroom, online and on-the-job training. Classroom and online learning are pretty well understood as useful delivery methods in developing core skills that will be utilized later in mastering tasks they will be taught on-the-job and required to perform as the main reason for employment. However that is in no way a guarantee that either online learning and classroom learning – alone or combined – leads to mastery performance of a task without proper task training on how to apply those core skills in the performance of a unit of work; the task. If fact, if not correctly selected for job relevance (as opposed to industry acceptance), online and classroom content may have little impact on task performance and these core skills usually dissipate quickly without immediate and repetitive usage.  Read More

Retiring Workers and the Tragic Loss of Intellectual  Property and Value

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

The warnings went out over two decades ago. Baby Boomers were soon to retire, taking their accumulated expertise – locked in their brains – with them. But very little was done to address this problem. Call it complacency, lack of awareness of the emerging problem, preoccupation wit h quarterly performance, disinterest or disbelief, very few companies took action and the Crash of 2008 dispruted any meager efforts that were underway.

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According to Steve Minter in an IndustryWeek Magazine article on April 10, 2012, “Only 17% of organizations said they had developed processes to capture institutional memory/organizational knowledge from employees close to retirement.” Who is going to train their replacements once they are gone? Would the learning curve of replacement workers be as long and costly, repeating the same learning mistakes, as the retiree’s learning curve? Would operations be disrupted and, if so, to what level?

“In our new “outsourcing nation,” a widely held belief is that employees are simply costs to be cut and not assets to be valued.” …. “Manufacturing faces a two-sided problem: it not only has thousands of people retiring, but it does not have the training programs to train skilled workers to replace them.”
A Strategy to Capture Tribal Knowledge
IndustryWeek- Michael Collins 5-23-16
In the last few years, it seems an alternative to the concentration of expertise in a few subject matter experts has become to use lower-wage temporary or contract workers who specialize in smaller quantities of processes, and who can be “traded-out” with a minimum amount of disruption. History will tell us just how costly that approach was and if anything was learned. Read More

Can’t Find The Right Workers? Why Not Train Workers To Your Own To Specification?

Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

According to a recent report by Career Builder.com, more than half of the employers surveyed could not find qualified candidates: 71% – Information-Technology specialists, 70% – Engineers, 66% – Managers, 56% – Healthcare and other specialists, 52% – Financial Operations personnel. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, nearly half of small and mid-size employers said they can find few or no “qualified applicants” for recent openings. And anecdotal evidence from manufacturing firms echoes the same challenge with specialty manufacturing jobs such as maintenance, NC machining and technical support positions. This, in large part, can be attributed to the upheaval caused by the Great Crash of 2008 and the following disruption of several million careers. Sidelined workers saw the erosion of their skill bases while waiting years for an economic recovery that, for many, has not reached them yet.

However, many or most of these workers can be “reskilled” or “upskilled” for the current workforce. The solution lies not in waiting for the labor market to magically produce the needed qualified candidates, but rather in each company investing a little to build their own internal system of structured on-the job training. With such an infrastructure, any candidate with strong core skills can be trained quickly and accurately to any employer’s specifications. Furthermore, a strong training infrastructure has factored into it methods of acceptable basic core skill remediation when the benefit outweighs the cost.

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No matter how you examine it, an employer is responsible for training workers to perform the essential and unique tasks of the job for which they were hired. It is not economically feasible or practical for education systems to focus this sharply. Waiting for them to do so or allowing it to happen by osmosis is risky and costly for the employer, since every hour that passes is one more hour of wage for unproductive output. Add to that the hourly wage rate of the informal on-the-job training mentor/trainer efforts multiplied by the number of trainees and this becomes a substantial cost that should attract any manager’s attention.

Investment in a formal, deliberate structured on-the-job training system will cut internal costs of training substantially, raise each person’s worker capacity to where it is expected to be, improve output quality and quantity, and raise worker compliance – to processes, to quality standards and safety mandates. It simply makes business sense.

For more information, click here  or attend one of the scheduled presentations.

Read the full December, 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Posted in News

Proactive Technologies Report – November, 2016

Posted on by DPrigelmeierpti

Proactive Technologies is Reaching Out With a Significant Discount Offer Until December 15, 2016! 

by Proactive Technologies, Inc. Staff

Proactive Technologies Inc. is extending a generous discount offer to manufacturing employers through December 15, 2016! It is our way to reach out to employers who contacted us with interest in exploring the power and benefits of a structured on-the-job training infrastructure, but were held back by budget realities.

Recently notices were emailed regarding this offer. Former clients received specific information describing, in brief, “where we left off” with their project, suggesting that they contact us to learn what little needs to be done to update and implement their program. This accelerated transfer of expertise™ approach is a tremendous offer without the discount, but with it can help any employer train the skill skilled workers they need and realize an increase in worker capacity, work quantity and quality and compliance while reducing the internal costs of training. Both new-hires and incumbent workers are driven to full job mastery and higher levels of return on worker investment (ROWI).

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For new clients, this turnkey package offer includes:

  • Performing detailed job/task analysis (incorporating employers’ process documents, qualilty and safety requirements) on targeted job classification(s);
  • Development of task-specific On-the-Job Training Plans and Checklists, Technical Procedures (Job-Performance Aids), and much more;
  • Training of employer’s current trainers to implement structured on-the-job training using the developed materials;
  • Technical support and record keeping/monthly reporting – 12 months;
  • Certificate of Job Mastery™ Portfolio preparation and delivery;
  • All production costs and expenses.

For former client-employers – those for whom their PROTECH© training infrastructure was built and investment made, but implementation was interrupted during the years following the crash of 2008 – this turnkey package includes:

  • Updating the previous job/task analysis (incorporating changes to employers’ process documents, quality and safety requirements) on targeted job classification(s);
  • Development of updated task-specific On-the-Job Training Plans and Checklists, Technical Procedures (Job-Performance Aids), and much more;
  • Training of employer’s current trainers to implement structured on-the-job training using the developed materials;
  • Technical support and record keeping/monthly reporting – 12 months;
  • Certificate of Job Mastery™ Portfolio preparation and delivery;
  • All production costs and expenses.

Why not find out more about this approach while the discount offer program is underway? What do you have to lose? Contact us to hear more how this discount offer can help your organization build a structured on-the-job training infrastructure with nearly half the normal investment. A live online presentation list is available in this newsletter. Click on the title you are interested in and best for a schedule, or click on Contact Us to schedule your own.

Watch your email inbox for a resend of the flyer in a few days with dates we will be in your area.

10 Reasons Structured On-The-Job Training is a Vital and Necessary System for Any Organization

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
There are many reasons a deliberate, structured on-the-job training system should be a priority consideration for any employer. For decades employers have felt that having an employee take a few classes here and a few online modules there translates directly to improved worker output and performance. But for decades, as well, employers have continued to talk about a continually increasing “skills gap.” Connection? Obviously yes.
“Employers expend enormous resources – time, effort, dollars – on efforts to improve efficiencies…in some cases without making an appreciable difference or reaching the intended goals.”

A deliberate and documented system to develop workers and maximize the return on worker investment should be a “no-brainer.” Employers expend enormous resources – time, effort, dollars – on efforts to improve efficiencies…in some cases without making an appreciable difference or reaching the intended goals. But rather than a philosophical discussion comparing approaches to training, I thought it might be beneficial to just offer symptoms of failed approaches and reasons why any employer should think more seriously about the state of their internal training infrastructure.

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According to a Training Magazine article entitled, “Bridging the Skills Gap” by Lorri Freifeld, these revealing points were extracted:

  • 49 percent of U.S. employers are experiencing difficulty filling mission-critical positions within their organizations. (ManpowerGroup’s seventh annual Talent Shortage Survey; 1,300 U.S. employers surveyed; positions most difficult to fill: skilled trades, engineers, and IT staff).
  • Only 1 in 10 organizations has the skills needed to utilize advanced technologies such as cloud and mobile computing, social business, and business analytics. (2012 IBM Tech Trends Report; 1,200 professionals who make technology decisions for their organizations, 250 academics, and 450 students.)
    • Alarming number of professionals (more than 60 percent), and students and professors (73 percent) feel there is a moderate to major skill gap in these four technology areas.
    • Nearly half of the educators and students surveyed for the report indicated major gaps in their institution’s ability to meet IT skill needs.”
  • Even with preventative measures, there could be 20 to 23 million workers in advanced economies without the skills employers will need in 2020 (McKinsey’s The World at Work report). Read More

Frank Gibson, Long-Time Program Manager of The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center Retires

By Proactive Technologies, Inc. Staff
Frank Gibson, Program Manager at The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center in Marion Ohio announced that he will be retiring from his position officially November 4th, 2016. A retirement party was held at the center October 31st at The Center. After a brief “time-out,” Frank plans to pursue projects in his area of expertise as a self-employed contractor.

Mr. Gibson started his career path in manufacturing, working in management for companies such as Millington Plastics, U-Brand Plastics, Baja Boats and Hydraulic Inc. Prior to formally joining the OSU-AEC, The Center contracted with him through Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center Adult Education where he was employed from 1997 – 2002. Mr. Gibson also held assignments with the Ohio Department of Development – Ohio Industrial Training Program as an area representative, and as a business and industry consultant for Tri-Rivers Adult Education.

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While at the OSU-AEC as Program Manager, Mr. Gibson performed front-end needs analysis of company’s training/education needs. This included: Issue Analysis, Strategic Planning, Facilitation Skills Train-the-Trainer, Meeting Skills, Managing Multiple Projects, Coaching and Training Plan Development. Some of Mr. Gibson’s many project clients included Ohio’s Triumph Thermal Systems LLC of Forest, GrafTech International Holdings of Lakewood, Parma and Sharon Center, National Lime & Stone of Findlay, and Uni-Grip Inc. of Upper Sandusky.

The OSU-AEC has continued to be a project partner with Proactive Technologies, Inc. since around 1996.  The Center continues to collaborate with Proactive Technologies on its Certificate of Job Mastery™ Portfolios offered to workers and trainees who master all of the tasks of their job classification through an employer-specific/job-specific PROTECH© structured on-the-job training program. Some projects have continued for many years, such as Triumph Thermal Systems (16 years),  Mahle Engine Components (10 years) and GrafTech International Holdings (3 years). Read More

A “Pay-for-Value” Worker Development Program – Fair to Management and Workers, and Effective Too!

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

A conundrum for many employers – those who are allowed to consider the wage-value relationship in their business strategy – is “what is the right pay rate for work performed.” An often used strategy is to establish a competitive wage range for a job classification based on area surveys of similar job classification in the industry, adjusted for the uniqueness of work requirements for the employer’s job classification. Once hired, an employee progresses through the wage range measured by time in the job classification, in some cases with wage adjustments based on merit. While consistent, this approach may limit the employer to paying, in many cases, more for labor than the value derived. And here is why.

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If an employer purchases a new, technologically advanced, piece of machinery that is advertised to increase the output of a process from 100 units per hour to 300 units per hour, the employer would be disappointed if it only received 150 units per hour. That employer would, most likely, challenge the manufacturer and perhaps request a refund if not satisfied.

“How would one determine the proper wage rate for the value derived if there is no effort to hire workers accurately to today’s job needs, train workers to all of the required tasks and measure workers for the work they were hired and trained to perform?”

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Why doesn’t that same sentiment apply to hiring workers? In a hypothetical, but typical, example an employer has an opening for a job classification that consists of 50 critical tasks that the employer expects the person filling that job classification to perform. Why shouldn’t the employer expect that person to master all 50 tasks? What might happen instead, after what is considered to be the “training period” is completed, the employer notices through anecdotal evidence and whispers that the output from that hired individual is below expectation. As time goes by and dissatisfaction grows, the decision to terminate the employee is made, often not measured against the investment in the employee thus far. If retained, the employee progresses through the wage range with no guarantee that the employee’s output increases. Where is the concern to correct this?
This is what happens without the right infrastructure to develop the maximum output from each employee relative to the job classification they are assigned. It starts like this: Read More

New Live, Online Presentation Topics

Proactive Technologies Staff

Proactive Technologies has added 3 new live online presentations to its website offerings. Of course, all presentations are free of charge and provided to clients and prospective clients to help them understand the power of the PROTECHŠ system of managed human resource development. (click on title to view description).

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View the full list of live online presentation topics for employers, education and workforce development agencies. Find a date and time that works for you, fill in the contact form and we’ll send an invitation and link. If none of the of dates and times work, mention a date and time good for you in your submission and we’ll set it up.

No special equipment needed – just a computer with speakers and microphone. If you do not have speakers and phone, use the “call-in” number.
Read the full November, 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Posted in News

Proactive Technologies Report – October 2016

Posted on by DPrigelmeierpti

SPECIAL NOTICE TO OHIO EMPLOYERS
The Ohio Incumbent Worker Training Voucher Program Round 5 Application Window has Open! Submission Deadline October 14th!

by Proactive Technologies, Inc Staff.

There is still an opportunity for those employers who have not yet conceived of a project and prepare an application for grant funding for the Ohio Incumbent Worker Training Voucher Program Round 5. Applications must be submitted October 14, 2016 at 10:00 am ET.

For well crafted applications this is, by far, the easiest grant money for employers to apply for, use and obtain reimbursement. Manufacturing and Advanced Manufacturing are two of the targeted sectors.

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Proactive Technologies, Inc. specializes in setting up, managing and supporting structured on-the-job training for the accelerated transfer of expertise™, and has worked extensively with all types ISO/AS/TS compliant manufacturers and manufacturing positions such as Maintenance (all crafts), CNC machining, Tool & Die, Tool & Gage, Mold and Die Repair, Assembly (all levels) and more. Many were registered as apprenticeships. Proactive Technologies has assisted client-companies to successfully apply for, manage, document and receive reimbursement for almost $2,000,000 in projects in just the last 3 years alone! A substantial amount of that amount was reimbursed to the clients by the state of Ohio to lessen their initial out-of-pocket investment on a project that leads to capacity building, quality improvement for maximized results and return on worker investment! Click here for more information. 

This is a reimbursement program. Once the employer applies and is accepted, the employer completes the approved training and submits the receipts and rosters to the OH IWT, the employer will be reimbursed for 50% of the cost. If the proposed training isn’t held and no training cost is incurred, the employer simply has nothing to submit for reimbursement. No risk, no penalties.

If you would like to discuss a project for your organization, contact us immediately and we will help you create a sensible project containing structured on-the-job training (for transferring task-based expertise) and related technical instruction (building core skills needed to learn the tasks), and we will put together a proposal that meets your needs. If the proposal is to your satisfaction, we will put together a proposed application (that meets the state’s requirements and your specifications). If that is to your satisfaction, we will input the application into the State of Ohio’s website so you can review and be ready to submit it by the deadline.

Proactive Technologies has made several trips to the area for onsite presentations in the last three months, and there will not be time for more onsite presentations before the deadline. However, several live online presentations are scheduled for October 6 – 10th and you are invited to attend one. Select the one – from the schedule in this newsletter or from our website that fits your schedule from the website page and we will send you a teleconference invitation for your viewing at your computer. If you would like to schedule one for an alternative date and time, contact us with your request.

We recommend that you do not delay. If you miss the deadline for this round, you will have to wait until 2018 (if an OH Incumbent Worker Grant round 6 is offered).

The Key To Effective Maintenance Training: The Right Blend of Structured On-The-Job Training and Related Technical Instruction

Dr. Dave Just, MPACTMaintenance and Reliability SolutionsDave Just Head Shot

I spent a lot of my career as Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education at community and technical colleges, in several states. Where we could, we tried hard to deliver the best core skill development programs for technical job classifications that the employers in our community requested. We often did this working off the limited, and often suspect, job information the employer could provide to us.

Often we were up against budgetary constraints that limited our efforts to keep the programs up to date, even when the instructor was willing to maintain the relevance of the program. If that wasn’t enough, school leadership often showed ambivalence toward adult and career education due in part to the fact that its demand was driven by gyrations in the economy. Furthermore, the institution was built upon, more familiar with and understood better credit courses for more stable subjects such as math, science, literature, history and the social sciences.

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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 – 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. Read More

Finding the Zen in Workforce Development Strategies – Structured On-The-Job DeanTraining and Job-Relevant Related Technical Instruction

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Many employers still feel locked into the old model of worker training. Waiting for the local educational institutions to crank out the qualified labor supply they need. If that is not sufficient, they search for available workers with relevant transferable skills from previous employment. If that doesn’t work, they settle for workers they find, hire them into the organization and hope for the best – maybe throwing in some classes and/or online training as if that alone will make up the difference.

Looking back, can one honestly say that this is an approach that inspires confidence? Or has worked well? Is it a matter of doing what we have been doing all along, not satisfied with the results and cost, but thinking that it is what every employer does? This is an area that cannot improve on its own. It needs to be brought into balance like all of the other organizations in the company.

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“Employers do not need to keep themselves locked in the antiquated model of worker development. They can break free and make the worker development system operate like all of the other manageable and measurable subsystems in the organization.”

Comparing this approach to all of the other, more systematic, approaches one sees in manufacturing it seems underwhelming, uninspiring and many ways inexplicable. What is the point of LEAN manufacturing efforts to streamline processes for efficiency if the participating employees are not properly trained to absorb the improvements? What is the point of analyzing processes for best practices if the employees are not properly trained for them now or when they are further improved later? Training in a manufacturing setting must be interactive and evolving, not stagnant and irrelevant, if it is to be viewed as anything more than a cost the accounting department would like to minimize.

Many past Proactive Technologies Report articles have addressed the need for highly job-relevant task-based training that can only come about from a comprehensive job/task analysis. If the reason an employer hires workers is to perform specific tasks that the business model requires to be profitable, then the proper attention and effort must be given to ensure each worker performs their tasks in the most efficient and effective manner. This moves the expenses associated with labor from the “cost” column to the “investment” column. Each employee’s task performance could be, and should be, managed just like all of the technology investments in the plant for maximum return. Read More 

The Efficacy of Employee Fitness Trackers: Where is This Leading?

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In a Pittsburg Post-Gazette article “Wearable Devices Help Employees Stay on Track”  on May 3, 2016, the author described the employer trend of utilizing wearable technology in the workplace to monitor employee health and wellness activities. “Because physical activity delivers a number of health benefits — including lower risks of diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure — health plans are now taking advantage of wearable technology to improve employee wellness programs.”

“For example, UnitedHealthcare recently launched UnitedHealthcare Motion, a wellness program that provides employees with a wearable device (at no additional charge) that tracks their activity and shows them statistics about the frequency, intensity and total steps taken each day. Employees can earn daily money bonuses for hitting specific activity goals. The money is deposited directly into their health reimbursement account.”

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“Employers also benefit through savings in insurance premiums based on participants’ combined results.”

But with all the perceived benefits wearable devices offer, the author cautioned employers, “Companies that want to incorporate wearable fitness trackers into their wellness programs should make certain the health plan will keep private data secure.” Read More

Read the full October, 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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Proactive Technologies Report – September 2016

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Extreme “Bumping” – A Powerful Lesson Supporting theDean Value of Cross-Training From a Union Shop

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

A challenge for union shops in this age of “higher-than-normal” labor turnover – through voluntary and encouraged retirements, reactions to economic events, corporate strategies to lower labor costs, etc. – is “bumping rights.” Whenever an employee with seniority departs the organization for any reason, a posting goes up and lesser senior employees can bid on that position if posted for bidding and kept open. If the hiring ends up being internal, several people can change seats to fill the open and subsequently opened up positions, until everyone is seated once again.

The very positive aspect of this labor contract provision is the opportunities for cross-training presented to the employees, and employer for that matter. Although it may be a little frightening for less senior people who, through the early years, get bumped rather than do the bumping, it provides hope to newer and younger workers seeking to move-up from entry-level and a chance to experience more challenging and interesting job classifications. The skill cross-training it provides facilitates continuous development opportunities to the employee that they might not have in a non-union shop -at least to that degree.

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One challenge it presents to the employer is the potential for loss of capacity in all departments affected by the bumping chain. Accumulated expertise becomes mobile and less valuable if not positioned to perform the work for which the expertise applies. Capacity is lost from both the job the employee departs and the one they are moving to fill. How much capacity is lost in each case, and for how long, is determined by whether there is an infrastructure to train workers quickly. In non-union shops that do not have a task-based training infrastructure, this potential risk is mitigated by limiting the movement of workers who have demonstrated high level work performance in one area from moving to another job classification – latterly or vertically – for fear of the repercussions of replacing them.

One extreme case of bumping we experienced was at a firm, with a union, for which Proactive Technologies, Inc. has provided technical consulting for the last 16 years. The company’s initial concern in 2000 was that 40% of their manufacturing employees were scheduled to retire in the next two years; 80% over the next 8 years. Read More 

Thinking Past the Assessment: Unfinished Goals and Unrealized Expectations

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Literally speaking, an “assessment” is the process of measuring the value, quality and/or quantity of something. There are many types of assessments,  and methods for assessing. In theory, it is the process of evaluating one thing against a set of criteria to determine the match/mismatch.

There are assessments for risk, for taxes, vulnerability. There are psychological, health, and political assessments. There is a group of educational assessments that measure a variety of outcomes such as educational attainment – assessments of course content mastery, assessment of grade level attainment, assessments of Scholastic Aptitude Tests (“SAT”) that compare a student to their peers nationally and a variety of college readiness exams.

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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. 

Educational assessments have been adapted for use in workforce development and employment, used to assess a prospective employee’s suitability for a job opening. They often measure more of what, if anything, a student learned and retained before graduating than how they match the employer’s actual job opening. Psychological assessments have been adapted to measure a prospective employee’s sociability to the workplace, morphing into a new category called “psychometric assessments.”

We have seen a growth in the employment assessment industry over the past 2 decades – particularly after 9-11. There are assessments for cognitive tests, physical abilities, “trustworthiness,” credit history, personality, criminal background and more. When used improperly, the methods have been challenged in court for their appropriateness and intent.

An assessment is a “test,” and has been held as such by court rulings over the years. The instrument determines a positive or negative outcome for the employee or prospective employee. The court has ruled, in many cases referring to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection Procedures, that anything used to evaluate a prospective employee’s access to employment, or an existing employee’s retention, promotion and movement within a job, must meet certain standards to be legally valid. Read More

The Movement to Clear “Dead Wood” From Payroll – Is This a Good Idea?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President, Proactive Technologies, Inc.

It sounds smart, practical and indicative of effective management. Who wants “dead wood” unless you are camping and need kindling? But it is easy these days to pick a target, whether facts support your position or not, and demonize it to rally support for its eradication – often unwittingly supported by the people it will most detrimentally affect.

Like most oversold management theories that appear and then disappear once the collateral damage is discovered, this one too seems to have that trajectory – probably not before it ravages the capacity of companies that are running well but on which “cost cutting at any cost” measures are imposed.

The practice may be incredibly risky to the long-term health of the operation. In the August 22nd, 2016 Wall Street Journal article entitled ‘Nowhere to Hide for “Dead Wood” Workers‘  by Lauren Weber, the author detailed the story of Kimberly-Clark’s aggressive approach to clearing out the dead wood. Gone are the days of “coddling” employees who are “under-performing.” Gone are the days when an employer’s loyalty to the worker was reciprocated with loyalty to the corporation. Survival of the fittest is the driving culture for these corporations that have embraced “Performance Management.” Read More

 

Structured On-The-Job Training for Non-Manufacturing Job Classifications

Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Although the PROTECH© system of managed human resource development was designed for manufacturing and there has extensively proven its effectiveness, the approach is just as effective for jobs in any industry, and level of the organization. Proactive Technologies, Inc.’s job/task analysis methodology is rooted in those used by the U. S. Departments of Defense and Energy – modified for use in the private-sector world with private-sector budgets and time constraints. The development and use of the job data is based on those practices that seemed to be working in human resource management, human resource development, technical writing, quality control and workforce development – modernized to an ever-changing and challenging world.

When it comes to the analysis of the job, which is the center of all instruments and activities developed from it, the common factor of all work is that it can be defined in discrete units called “tasks.” Nobody is ever hired and expected to be very knowledgeable about a subject, or be very aware, or be strong. These attributes do not become useful until applied in the performance of a meaningful recognizable unit of work. If correct performance of the task, the “best practice,” requires these attributes as either a necessary to learning to perform the task or needed in the performance of the task, they become prerequisite, but not the outcome.

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Every job classification can be broken into its duties (groups of related tasks), tasks and subtasks. That is where performance is measured and it should be the outcome that is detected and improved. There are individuals who cannot conceptualize this relationship and say something like, “my job is too complicated, it cannot be defined because I am asked to do so many things.” Once they are walked through how they think their way through a series of steps to get to an outcome, they are usually converted. If the analyst cannot get a handle on a job classification, perhaps there really isn’t an underlying job.Read More

Read the full September, 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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Proactive Technologies Report – August 2016

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Developing the Multi-Craft and Specialty Maintenance Dave Just Head ShotTechnicians You Need; To Specification,With Minimal Investment

Dr. Dave Just, MPACT Maintenance and Reliability Solutions

In the March, 2016 Proactive Technologies Report article, “Grow Your Own Multi-Craft Maintenance Technicians – Using a ‘Systems Approach’ to Training” I described how Proactive Technologies, Inc. and Mpact Maintenance and Reliability Solutions has joined forces to setup and implement the hybrid model of worker development for maintenance and technical support positions for their clients. The ‘systems approach” to worker development, as described, is simple in its structure but, also, includes the quality control points to ensure the worker development outcomes are reached. Although this approach can be used for any job classification in any setting, together we have applied this approach effectively for maintenance and technical support positions for many manufacturers over the last 2 decades.

We listened to our manufacturing clients. We heard the frustration they expressed in looking for highly qualified new-hire maintenance candidates when too few technical colleges offer a solid maintenance or maintenance technician program. The ones that either do not have content that is relevant enough or if they do, cannot graduate enough students to meet the demand. Employers realize they are, by necessity, a major part of the solution.

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“The effects of ineffective training for 1 person can cost your firm more than the training budget for 10 employees for 10 years. Why take the chance with speculative training approaches that may not deliver anything more than cost and disappointment?”

The secret to success is in the “turn-key” approach. We understand that most small and medium-sized manufacturers have a very limited human resources staff, not to mention a non-existing training department. But they do have the subject matter experts who have mastered the training content, just lacking the training technique, materials and support. By applying the Proactive Technologies and Mpact expertise to set-up, implement, support, keep records and report training activity, the time the subject matter expert needs to make available for training new-hires and incumbents is minimized and the effects maximized. The investment needed is low, but the impact and return on worker investment is substantial. Read More

Training Issue or Attitude Issue? Understanding the Difference

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

If you spend some time in the Human Resources Department office, you often witness a supervisor or manager trying to explain why the new-hire isn’t working out. “Why do you believe that?” asks the HR Manager. The supervisor thinks a moment and says, “He just doesn’t act like he wants to learn.” The issue seems to be attitudinal. The HR Manager doesn’t bother to ask for any empirical evidence since it usually doesn’t exist, so the decision is made to terminate the new-hire and start all over…again.

Some, more forward thinking, human resources departments concluded that assessing job prospects might reduce the amount of hiring turnover. It certainly does help do that if the job classification was properly analyzed and the assessment instruments were aligned to the data for “job relevance.” However, even with the best screening potentially good employees might be lost. Knowing how to recognize the difference between attitude and training-related issues may save good employees from being lost due to misdiagnosis.

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Whether a challenge to learning or performance is attitudinal is not easy to determine. Attitudes fluctuate from day to day, throughout the day. They can be affected by personal issues such as health of the individual, health of a family member, financial issues, relationship difficulties at home and the work culture (e.g. relationship with coworkers, supervisor and company management). Rather than hastily concluding any issue of worker development is attitudinal, I find it easier to eliminate the obvious and more common influence on worker learning and development; whether proper training has been conducted. After all, employee insecurity caused by feeling expendable while a 90-day probationary period clock is ticking can, in itself, affect anyone’s attitude and personality. If proper training is not available or worker development is conducted in an ad hoc, haphazard and inconsistent manner, this is a major contributor to worker attitudes toward the company, themselves and others in the workplace.

Assuming that the offered wage and benefits are competitive, there are four essential considerations to the hiring and keeping the best workers; the selection strategy, the learner’s capabilities, the instructor’s capabilities and the training infrastructure. Given the high cost of recruitment, selection, initial training efforts and separation, and heaven forbid a repeat of the process for the same job classification, an internal examination of these 4 components might go a long way toward reducing this cost and making the process cost-effective and efficient. Read More

Replicating Your Best PerformersDean

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of  Proactive Technologies, Inc.

One project I was involved with sought to establish a structured on-the-job training program for a “CNC Operator” position and establish an apprenticeship. It consisted of around 40 different machines; manual and NC-operated of several brands, controller types and purposes. When I analyze a job – task by task – I first contact the resident “subject matter expert.” It is my experience that in lieu of accurate standard process documents that everyone can use when assigned a machine, each operator keeps their own setup and operation notes. They are usually reluctant to share them.

As analysts, we assume that if the subject matter expert is assigned to us, it is a reflection of management’s confidence in the operator’s consistently high level of performance. We also learn a lot about the sub-culture that has arisen at the organization, bordering on “work performance anarchy.” Despite the connotations, this is a useful revelation. This lack of vital information sharing that has been going on can be eliminated. The collective wealth of task-specific information can be screened, validated, standardized and revision-controlled to be shared with all who are asked to perform the tasks.

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This highlights several other pre-existing 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, it is then when they should be shown how to apply the general safety knowledge to the safe performance of that task. Once a pattern is established, the trainee will be able to better apply the safety knowledge to the safe performance of all tasks. If ways to avoid a safety incident are known, shouldn’t that knowledge be shared with each trainee so that no one has to be hurt when the odds of an incident are known and avoidable? Read More

Using Workforce Development Grants to Extend Your Training Budget

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

There are a lot of pressures on company training budgets that can arise these days. The company may be performing moderately well – numbers looking reasonably good in an economy that can be called “sluggish.” Shareholders react and a major realignment is announced. Departmental budgets must be reexamined and each department may have to explain their purpose and value to the company.

Companies, especially publicly traded companies, are driven by monthly scrutiny of their quarterly guidance upon which the trading on Wall Street is determined. In a sluggish economy, 12-month goals may never be reached if evaluated quarterly for 12-month outcomes. Nevertheless, the effort to cut costs to raise earnings finally reaches bone.

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Training is especially vulnerable because accounting departments see little explainable value and hold the traditional view that these are “costs” that can be put on hold or eliminated – especially if the next quarter might bring a layoff of those scheduled for training.

If the value of worker training cannot be empirically explained during periods of budgetary angst, training, and those associated with training, are the first to be cut despite the obvious questions: “What if the economy comes back? Does the company plan to rebuild its training program and staff when it starts to rehire? Won’t the incumbent workers reassigned to take up the slack by layoffs need training for their new jobs?”

Companies rarely spend much time thinking of the ramifications of eliminating training during slow times. They often do not have a choice. So, training departments need to be relevant if they are to survive. They need to be able to explain their strategy to management, with a strong, empirical investment-return on investment component. If the case cannot be made in those terms, maybe the training department needs to redesign themselves or their cut might be justified. A deliberate structured on-the-job training program that is linked to engineering processes, quality specification and EHS requirements is harder to dismiss than a training strategy that based on an inexplicable selection of classes and seminars.

Another thing a training department can do is to research available worker training grants. Some are designated for new-hires, some for updating the skills of incumbent workers. Read More 

Read the full August 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

 

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Proactive Technologies Report – July 2016

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“Full Job Mastery” means “Maximum Worker Capacity” – DeanA Verifiable Model for Measuring and Improving Worker Value While Transferring Valuable Expertise 

By Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

It is no secret that with the traditional model of “vocational” education, the burden of the job/task-specific skill development falls on the employer. It is not economic feasible nor practical for educational institutions to focus content for every job area for every employer. So they, instead, focus rightly on core skills and competencies – relying on the employer to deliver the rest. This is where the best efforts of local educational institutions and training providers begin to break down even if highly relevant to the industry sector.

Employers rarely have an internal structure for task-based training of their workers, so even the most aggressive related technical instruction efforts erode against technological advances as every month passes. If core skills and competencies mastered prior to work are not transformed quickly into tasks the worker is expected to perform, the foundation for learning task performance may crumble through loss of memory, loss of relevance or loss of opportunity to apply them.

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New workers routinely encounter a non-structured, rarely focused, on-the-job training experience. Typically, the employer’s subject-matter-expert (SME) is asked to “show the new employee around.” While highly regarded by management, the SME (not trained as a task trainer and having no prepared materials) has difficulty remembering the nuances of the tasks when explaining the process to the new employee, since that level of detail was buried in memory long ago. Each SME, on each shift, might have a different version of the “best practice” for processes, confusing the trainee even more – rendering the notion of “standardization” to “buzzword” status.

New employees have difficulty assembling, understanding and translating the disjointed bits of recollection into a coherent process to be replicated. Each comes with their own set and levels of core skills and competencies, and learning styles vary from the self-learner/starter to the slow-learner worker who, with structure to make sure they learn the right best practice, may become loyal workers.

The more time the SME spends with the new employee in this unstructured, uncontrolled and undocumented experience, which is the prevailing method of on-the-job training, the more the employer is paying two people to be non or minimally-productive. Adding employees can actually lower short-term productivity and add little to long-term productivity for an organization, but the costs will attract notice internally.

However, this only describes the costs of inadequate new-hire training. What about the incumbents who made it through the process and are part of the staff? Does anyone know which tasks have been mastered or not? No structured on-the-job training system in place implies no records of task mastery or metrics of worker capacity, therefore no methods for improving worker performance. Read More

Retiring Workers and the Tragic Loss of Intellectual Property and Value

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

The warnings went out over two decades ago. Baby Boomers were soon to retire, taking their accumulated expertise – locked in their brains – with them. But very little was done to address this problem. Call it complacency, lack of awareness of the emerging problem, disinterest or disbelief very few companies took action and the Crash of 2008 disrupted any meager efforts that were underway.

According to Steve Minter in an IndustryWeek Magazine article on April 10, 2012, “Only 17% of organizations said they had developed processes to capture institutional memory/organizational knowledge from employees close to retirement.” Who is going to train their replacements once they are gone? Would the learning curve of replacement workers be as long and costly as the retiree’s learning curve? Would operations be disrupted and, if so, to what level?

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“In our new “outsourcing nation,” a widely held belief is that employees are simply costs to be cut and not assets to be valued.” …. “Manufacturing faces a two-sided problem: it not only has thousands of people retiring, but it does not have the training programs to train skilled workers to replace them.”

Michael Collins
A Strategy to Capture Tribal Knowledge
IndustryWeek 5-23-16
In the last few years, it seems an alternative to the concentration of expertise in a few subject matter experts has become to use lower-wage temporary or contract workers who specialize in smaller quantities of processes, and who can be “traded-out” with a minimum amount of disruption. History will tell us just how costly that approach was and if anything was learned. h. Read More

Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit: Part 2 of 2

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In Part 1 of “Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit” in the June, 2016 issue of the Proactive Technologies Report, a personal experience of vocational and community college program completion was discussed. The point was made that the high school vocational training programs of the past, which was phased out in the 1980’s while schools faced budget cuts, seemed closer to a European educational system approach and offered a relevancy to local employers that nationally coordinated efforts of today do not.

The 1980’s saw the beginning of the proliferation of computers in personal lives and business. Machines were being retrofitted to be run, in part, by PLC (“programmable logic controller”) programs and new machines were being designed around it. Even the most mundane tasks, such as writing correspondence and processing a business transaction, was being automated. As the technology, with all of its promise, was understood and absorbed the rate of technological innovation accelerated – creating an increasing gap between 2 and 4-year educational curriculum and industry needs.

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In order for a textbook to be integrated into a technical or career education program, someone from industry would have to write it. The textbook would have to be published, it would have to be marketed, vetted by the curriculum or book review committee and issued during an upcoming semester. Then someone would have to schedule the class and complete a 2 or 4 year program. That is 2 – 3 years for a book to be written plus 1 – 2 years to publish the book plus 1 year for the book to be marketed plus 1 year for the book to be accepted by the review committee plus 2 – 4 years for a student to complete the program. It is easy to see that the latest and best content might yield a graduate 7 – 11 years behind the current needs of employers. Read More

Differences in Job and Task Analysis Methodologies

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

There are many forms of job analysis today, each with its unique outcome, its own taxonomy and methodology. Depending on the needs of the job analysis data user, any type of output can be derived.

Job analysis can be defined as “the process of collecting and verifying information about the job.” Any job classification may have numerous components, such as duties, tasks and sub tasks. The best way to identify each is to break it down into its components. Approaching an analysis in any other way may prove frustrating and the output unreliable. In addition, when analyzing multiple jobs, tracking progress in any one of them may be difficult unless a defined, analytical method and taxonomy is established, and systematically applied.

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The chart illustrates several popular types of analysis – from the position-specific to the standardized, general information; from those that provide data about the work and those about the worker. Most of the methods of job analysis today have limitations and tend to have “single-purpose” outcomes. Some that are survey oriented methods allow for more subjectivity and may diminish the usefulness of the data. The more technical the requirements of a job classification (e.g. classifications in manufacturing, chemical operations, healthcare) the less subjectivity may be tolerated. This type of analysis is easier to administer and seems to be a “quick and dirty” solution, but seldom gives the level of detail necessary to identify complex job qualifications or process-related training and testing criteria. Read More

Read the full July 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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Proactive Technologies Report – June 2016

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Eroding Organizational Capacity: The “Unstructured, DeanHaphazard and Ad Hoc Task Training Effect”

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

If you work long enough for a variety of employers, there is one theme that seems to run common to all – the lack of structure to the all important job-based training that one would expect. Often we are shown our workstation, introduced to the area manager and then we wait for some guidance and training for what is expected of us. Sometimes we wait in vain. Sometimes we are subjected to bits and pieces of information and take it upon ourselves to make sense of them rather than wait.

None of our core skill bases and work-based task mastery history are, alone, sufficient enough to substitute for the need to know the best practices for performing the tasks for which the new employer hired us. If an employer hires a new employee not having a structure to quickly transfer job expertise from the incumbent experts to the new-hire, it is fair to say this runs counter to good business practices and economic principals. Yet unstructured, haphazard and ad hoc task training is the norm.

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“Only 17% of organizations said they had developed processes to capture institutional memory/organizational knowledge from employees close to retirement, while just 13% said they were providing training to upgrade the skills of older workers.”
IndustryWeek Magazine April 10, 2012 by Steve Minter

We all know that inaction to rectify this doesn’t make sense, but many managers dismiss the concern and take comfort in group-thinking, “this phenomenon is the norm, why not apply my efforts elsewhere since I will not be judged on something that appears to others to be beyond my control.” Some see a problem because this deficiency has become the norm. Others see it more critically as a threat to current and future organizational capacity and competitiveness and would be receptive to the following discussion.  Read More

Cross-Training Workers After Lean Efforts Builds Capacity Using Existing Staff

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Lean activities to redesign processes for better efficiencies in a department, or between departments, sometimes result in “surplus” workers – partially or in whole units. It is the subjective priority of Lean practitioners since it is a tangible illustration of a successful Lean improvement. Processes that previously needed 3 people to complete may now only need two, if the efficiencies were discovered. So what happens to that one person that has valuable acquired expertise, representing a significant investment by the employer? Would the wise outcome of Lean efforts be to just cut that person from the lineup?

The short answer is most likely not. Any efficiencies 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.

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If the worker is reassigned to another department, and no task-based training infrastructure is in place, that reassignment may lower the efficiencies there which, again, reduces the gains made by the Lean effort. So part of the Lean effort must be the deliberate cross-training of workers in temporary assignments or longer-term reassignments to other departments that seem to have the need for increased staffing, perhaps as a result of the increased throughput achieved from the Lean effort in the upstream department in the chain. Read More

Regional Workforce Development Partnerships That Enhance Economic Development Efforts

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Most area economic development goals are simple; expand the tax base so revenue is available to maintain and sustain the local socio-economic system. Strategies to accomplish this may differ but often include adding to the employment base of the community and/or region, since an effort to expand consumption – mandatory and discretionary – produces a “multiplier effect” as money circulates through the community. This goal can be reached by local and state governments offering tax abatement, cash and/or infrastructure improvements to companies seeking to relocate, or which are in an expansion mode. At least that was the simple vision of economists past.

It is fairly a proven fact, however, that in the past two decades the results of these tactics have become mixed as large corporations became larger and used their clout to seek incentives and cheap labor throughout the world. Commitments to local communities providing the incentives often evaporated faster than the ink on the documents dried, and corporations hopped from state to state, country to country, upsetting the stability of local tax bases, economies, communities and regions.

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Economic development agencies and government leaders have always talked about helping locally grown enterprises which create an estimated 70-80% of the new jobs in the country. As they start, grow and expand they would hire more, provide more in taxes and be more likely to stay put. As large corporations gained more control of the policies and policy makers of the states and the federal government, the focus drifted away from local small and mid-size businesses and toward policies and strategies that helped large corporations at great expense. Read More

Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit and a Lesson From the Past

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

I know this dates me, but in high school in the 1970’s I participated in a very good vocational electronics program. It was 2 ½ years in length and was conducted in addition to the traditional high school curriculum. I felt fortunate to attend and complete the program, as did my friends who were enrolled in electronics and the other craft training programs such as automotive, drafting (precursor to CAD-CAM), metalworking, welding and woodworking. Each one of us in the vocational electronics program went on to achieve higher degrees and/or successful careers after receiving our certificate of completion at graduation.

“…my point is this and begs the question every technical school graduate asks themselves even today, ‘How can I be marginally or completely obsolete 2 weeks after graduation”

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Looking back, I am still impressed with the quality of the program. It was closer in purpose to the European style of education and apprenticeships. The electronics program was state-of-the-art along with the instructor’s delivery of industry-relevant content supplemented by guest speakers from industry with current topics. Our high school vocational students, as with others in each state, even competed with community college students across their state to test our skills in Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (“VICA”) competitions for the right to represent the state at the national competition. That is how good our high school vocational program was; comparable to community college levels of learning. Since prior to the advent of microprocessors technology advanced at a slower pace, the vocational electronics training programs at that time trained students for local jobs that were currently in industry very well, which was exactly their mission. Read More

                

Read the full June 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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Proactive Technologies Report – May 2016

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Appreciating the Value of LaborDean

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

For expanding and improving businesses that have the capital for the investment in new equipment or processes, attempting to become or remain competitive, the level of investment is not as important as the return on that investment. This consistent practice of determining where to best place capital for the highest return should apply to labor. What is “paid” for labor is not as relevant as the value it adds to the operation and, ultimately, profit; the return on worker investment.

The lack of appreciation for the difference in “training cost” and “training investment”  is understandable because it is rarely contrasted. The college textbook entitled Financial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods and Uses, defines “direct labor cost” as the “Cost of labor (material) applied and assigned directly to a product; contrast this with indirect labor cost.” Indirect labor cost” is defined as, “An indirect cost of labor (material) such as supervisors (supplies).” There is no mention of an expected return on investment. Generations of cost accountants have been taught that there is no good that comes for higher labor costs, which to them is determined by the level of staffing and wage levels. There is no differentiation between strategic labor costs and uncontrolled labor costs.

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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 is 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. Read More

Who is Responsible for the Shortage of Skilled Labor?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Some critics say that employers have repeated the phrase, “we just can’t find skilled workers” to ease their guilt from outsourcing good paying jobs to lower wage labor markets. Some say they say this to justify low wages in the U.S., and some say it is to make the case to congress that the worker visa programs need to be opened up to allow technically skilled foreign workers who are willing to work for a reduced wage enter the labor market. While all of these may be true or could have been true at one time, no one doubts that the affects of the past few decades have greatly disrupted the continuity of a strong U.S. labor force and its ability to advance.

In an article written by Michael Collins for Industry Week last year entitled “Why America Has a Shortage of Skilled Workers,” the author makes a convincing argument that the so-called shortage was in large part self-inflicted. This article should be on every manufacturing operation manager’s, every accounting department manager’s and every corporate executive’s reading list.

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“Year after year, the large corporations have invested in more automation and complex machinery to eliminate labor, but do not seem to want to invest in the comprehensive training programs that will increase the skill levels of employees to maintain, troubleshoot and repair what they have installed.”

In an example of the misunderstanding of the value of labor he notes that, “Year after year, the large corporations have invested in more automation and complex machinery to eliminate labor, but do not seem to want to invest in the comprehensive training programs that will increase the skill levels of employees to maintain, troubleshoot and repair what they have installed.” I would add “operate” to that list. Read More

“Realistic Job Previews” Can be a Useful Tool for Measuring a Prospective Employee’s Transferable Task-based Skills       

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.                                              

The hiring process can be difficult for both the employer and the prospective employee. A wrong decision can cost each party a lot of time, money and opportunity. An unwanted outcome based on the employer not providing an accurate picture of the job, work environment and work expected to be performed can be avoided with a “Realistic Job Preview.” (“RJP”).

Wikipedia points out that “Empirical research suggests a fairly small effect size, even for properly designed RJPs (d = .12), with estimates that they can improve job survival rates ranging from 3–10%. For large organizations in retail or transportation that do mass hiring and experience new hire turnover above 200% in a large population, a 3–10% difference can translate to significant monetary savings. Some experts (e.g., Roth; Martin, 1996) estimate that RJPs screen out between 15% and 36% of applicants.

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

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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) Read More

A Simple Solution to Skill Gaps – New-Hires and Incumbents

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Proactive Technologies, Inc. has worked with many employers over the years, establishing cost-effective, task-based structured on-the-job training programs. For each employer, every effort is made to tailor the worker training system to accommodate the employer’s budget, job classifications (even unique training programs for each job classification in each department), business goals and manage the system through all types of change. Unlike some products or services that require the employer to change practices that work in order to utilize them, the PROTECH© system of managed human resource development  is built around what is working for the employer, incorporating established information such as work processes and specifications, safety standards, quality standards, etc. This approach minimizes the need for the employer’s culture to drastically change what works for them, focusing instead

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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?

on improvements in an area of weakness. The main steps used to build an employer-based structured workforce development system starts with understanding the desired outcome first:

  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; 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. Read More

 

Read the full May 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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Proactive Technologies Report – April 2016

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Is an Apprenticeship Without Structured On-The-Job Training an Apprenticeship?Dean

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Career and vocation-focused training is a pivotal point in every current and future worker’s life. This world is overwhelmed by forces that make the effort more difficult for the education and training providers, more urgent and critical for the learner, more scrutinized by the employer and constantly measured against time; how long the training takes (which determines costs) and the relevance of the skills acquired to the targeted job which is always moving to the next level of technology. If the training is not “continuously improved” and maintained to be predominantly current and accurate, the graduate may find that jobs for which the new-found skills were targeted now marginally or, even worse, no longer exist.

In theory, apprenticeships offer a promising approach for traditional trades and crafts. As of 2008, more jobs can be registered as apprenticeships with new models accepted by the U.S. Department of Labor. If the program is based on a sound structure and methodology (one that can work for any type of job classification), an apprenticeship capstone – the job-related, employer-based training – would be maintained current and accurate for at least the employer apprenticeship host. Without this component, an apprenticeship experience may be as hollow as some of the for-profit educational chains which are often criticized for high costs and low placement rates. Read more.

How Start-Ups and Technology Transfer Partnerships Can Benefit From Structured On-The-Job Training

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In the December, 2105 issue of Proactive Technologies Report article entitled “”Enterprise Expansion/Contraction and Worker Development Standardization” this topic was touched on as it explained the process of standardizing training for expanding, contracting, merging and acquiring enterprises. It discussed how to take inventory of incumbents and new-hires in training, and how to standardize multiple worker development strategies. But what about standardizing tasks that are in design, have just been designed or are evolving in their design? Or the importance of this component in creating an enterprise to perform the tasks meant to lead to profit from an innovation? If the goal is the repeatable high-quality performance of tasks once they have been formalized, then standardizing and documenting the procedural steps is necessary, though often an afterthought.

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Entrepreneurs and engineers that design and fine-tune a production process or service strategy are immersed in it until they feel confident it is ready for scaling. Whether through “expert bias” – the overconfidence that results with satisfaction in discovery leading to the opinion that everyone should understand their innovation – or through mere oversight, a brilliant idea can fail in proliferation during efforts to transfer the processes and techniques without a formal structure. Read more.

Worker “Prior Learning Assessment” – Documenting Cumulative Work Skills and Knowledge Acquisition

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Older workers, boomers, generation X’ers and Millennials, have either encountered or seen the point on the horizon when they may be separated from their job and need to sum up the training, education, skills and experiences of the last years, or lifetime to date, in a one or two page resume as they hunt for the next open position. How does one accurately and adequately summarize 5, 10, or 40 years of experience so the next potential employer can recognize the value and determine the fit to their organization’s needs? Can a person profile their life experiences and skill acquisition in a way that is complete and compelling?

For the last 20 years, many employers have used a “key-word” search filter to scan resumes, disqualifying millions of potential workers for not knowing the right words to match the key-word to explain their experience. Now that a vast majority of employers have realized the deficiencies of resume scanning programs – disqualifying well-qualified candidates for one – they are back to looking for substance in the resume to be substantiated at the interview. Being able to succinctly and completely summarize one’s education, training and work experience is more important than ever as more qualified people compete for fewer quality jobs.

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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.

Piece-Part Incentives Gone Wrong

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Sometimes we are tempted to take the easy route, even though it may cost more in the end, offer much less on the path to the desired outcome or cause us to repeat the effort another way. Shallow analyses and shortcuts often lead to unintended consequences. Changes to weaken metrics to convince us, or others, that progress is better than reality only postpones solutions to the underlying challenge. Too often we are focused on the search for a solution to a symptom and not the problem. The example I am about to share represents all of these tendencies.

As a Quality Control Line Inspector at an aerospace manufacturing facility in my early years, one of my first assignments was to in-process inspect work samples from several rows of NC Lathes, Mills and Grinders. I was assigned there with the implicit instructions to be on the look-out for “problems” identified by management: decreased quality yield, substantially high rates of scrap and rework, which lead to increased worker costs and lower returns. The proposed solution was more rigorous quality inspection of parts in-process before they became a component of an expensive sub-assembly or assembly.

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While making my rounds, meeting the operators and inspecting samples, it seemed I was seeing evidence that management identified the “problem” correctly. I say problem, but my feeling was that I had not gotten to the root cause of what I was observing. I was rejecting parts at nearly every work station, on every pass. I decided to dig a little deeper – get to know the operators a little better to see if I could determine why this was happening. Read more.

Read the full April 2016 newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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