Lack of Immediate “Big Win” Puts Improvements in Worker Development on Chopping Block…For Short-Term Focused Management Cultures

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Let’s face it, discussing the desperate need for worker training to build consistent performance, increased worker output and compliance, is a hard sell in any boardroom. The first question is usually, “how much is this going to cost us?” Not “what is the investment and how will we realize the return?” Since accountants, who are not trained in any aspect of worker development, have more weight in this type of showdown, guess who wins.

Shareholder gains are measured in terms of quarterly profit margins; try explaining the merits of building a stronger, more resilient and retained workforce and the value of increasing worker capacity, increasing work quantity, quality and compliance over yawns and disinterest. It usually takes decades of unintentional or intentional neglect to weaken a firm’s workforce; it stands to reason the solution won’t bring exciting monetary returns in a quarter.

There is plenty of shared blame for this state of disconnect. Human resource professionals, training and development experts, and education in general have focused their workforce development solutions promotion on products they have – the quick and simple classroom and online products. It makes sense. That is the domain they are strongest. These products are great for pre-employment core skill development and post-hire core and general technical skill (if properly aligned), but these represent transfer of knowledge, not transfer of task-based expertise.

“Quiet Quiting” on a Collision Course with “Quiet Hiring;” How to Make Matters Worse.

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

“Quiet Quitting” and “Quiet Hiring” may be new names, but both phenomena have been around as long as there has been work to perform and someone hired to perform it. The media seems to believe they discovered the trends and named them, like explorers “discovered” new lands…that were inhabited. Like every other impending crisis named, there seems to be manufactured pressure to respond to it – spawning a wave of “expert” opinions that often overshoot the intended target and sometimes complicating matters further.

In an article, What to Do About Quiet Quitting: 3 Ways to Reframe the Narrative, the author comments, “You’ve seen the term splashed across headlines and igniting social media. It isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s coming into sharper focus – like a bullseye – as employees return to the office. Quiet quitting, or “quitting in place” or, simply, “disengagement,” is the latest viral catchphrase that reminds us of one single, inexorable truth: That the pandemic has left workplaces reimagined and workers forever changed. And it’s a wakeup call for employers.”

Disengagement is defined as “the action or process of withdrawing from involvement in a particular activity, situation, or group,” which can be hidden or overt. It can be a simple difference between a worker minimally doing their job to take home their pay and no more, to someone doing that and harboring growing resentment towards their manager, the company and/or their coworkers but lacking the skills and confidence to move on. If left unchecked, it can poison the work environment and, worse, may lead to workplace confrontations.

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.

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 unstructured, haphazard and inconsistent manner, this is a major contributor to worker attitudes toward the company, themselves and others in the workplace.

Confusion Over What Constitutes “Training” is Stumbling Block to Effective Worker Development Strategies

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

For the anyone searching for information to help them choose a worker development strategy, a web search of “on-the-job training methods” might produce thirty or forty informative, but confusing, charts. The search result is a mixture of domains, methods, philosophies – one seemingly in conflict with the other. A non-practitioner of workforce development strategies can gather from this search result alone why there is a perpetual state of confusion between even “experts,” marked by decades of employer and trainee disappointment in the lack of recognizable strategies and outcomes, which are often devoid of meaningful results.

Over the years, approaches and methods have evolved out of their ineffectiveness, many diverging from the basic principals of workforce development. Markets for products to address these approaches grew and well-funded marketing began to find unaware customers. The notion of “training” morphed into branded versions of “learning,” selected not so much on their basis in logic, but more on the lack of “smart” choices and how well the marketing effort worked.

“A great first step is to clearly differentiate between “learning” and “training.” The strategies, methods of delivery and outcomes for each are very different. Without such clarity, one might mistakenly invest heavily in a strategy to accomplish worker development objectives that, instead, uses up vital resources and scarce opportunity, and sours the organization’s attitude toward training for years to come.”

Read the full March, 2023 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Contracting? Expanding? Don’t Underestimate the Tremendous Value of Your Worker’s Cumulative Process Expertise

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Paraphrased many times and in many ways, the meaning is the same. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” W. Edwards Deming put it more succinctly, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t what you are doing.”

How often do you hear an employer critically examining their system of worker selection, development and maximization? Has anyone tried to describe your firm’s strategy for developing new-hires once on board, or developing incumbent workers to something more than a fraction of what everyone expects of them? Does it sometimes seem that all you have to train your workers to be their best once hired is, “Bob, this is Jim. Why don’t you show him around?” Don’t be embarrassed; it is more common than you think.

“Decisions that look good on this quarter’s balance sheet too often are made without realizing that the short-term gain grossly underestimates the long-term losses yet to be realized; reduced capacity, loss of historical expertise that made the business thrive and degradation of work process compliance.”

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.

“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. “

The Employers Have the Most Advanced Equipment Available for Training

by Frank Gibson, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

Community and technical colleges, career centers and joint vocational schools have always struggled with how to make a positive difference in workforce training. They often bear the brunt of criticism for the “skills gap” employers report when, in reality, employers share equally in the responsibility. Educational institutions have only the resources and capacity to provide core skill training upon which only employers can then provide on-the-job training to drive trainees to the job mastery needed.

Educational institutions are often tempted to assume more of the employer’s role in worker development but run into budget, feasibility and practicality limitations. This distracts them from their very important role of maintaining perpetually relevant core skill and related technical instruction that a high-quality technical education requires. Trying to provide all things to all employers never was the role of educational institutions so they should not take it too personally when good-intentioned efforts do not reach the expectations for them.

Tips for Establishing Your Company’s Training Strategy – Practical, Measurable, Extremely Economical and Scalable

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

For most companies, an in-house training center doesn’t have to be brick and mortar, and doesn’t necessarily require additional equipment and personnel to support it. It is about focusing the resources already available to develop workers faster and to a much higher level of capacity. This does not happen by throwing dollars or classes at the problem; if that were the case many employers who did so would have solved the “skills gap” problem. It takes a more deliberate approach than that to achieve the outcome that has been out of reach, for many, for decades.

In previous articles, such as in the May, 2016 issue of the Proactive Technologies Report, “A Simple Solution to Skill Gaps – New-Hires and Incumbents” I described a simple, easy to implement strategy for developing new-hires and incumbent workers to full capacity. I emphasized that by focusing on the outcome, the proper inputs become clearer. But by focusing on the inputs, the connection to the outcome may not necessarily be clear. Any use of irrelevant, improper or ineffective worker development inputs means unnecessary costs with low or no return, wasted time and additional opportunity costs.

Read the full February, 2023 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Standardizing “Best Practices”

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

When it comes to the term “best practices” for process-driven tasks, there seems a wide range of understanding of the concept; some better than others. According to Wikipedia, “A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered…Best practices are used to maintain quality as an alternative to mandatory legislated standards and can be based on self-assessment or benchmarking. Best practice is a feature of accredited management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14001 – the framework for industry quality programs such as AS9000 and IATF16949. ISO 30414 broadened its focus on best practices with its “Human Resource Management – Guidelines for Internal and External Human Capital Reporting” in an effort to secure an organization’s sustainability with regard to worker technical expertise through establishing documented best practices.

This credible definition of the concept is representative of a consensus opinion that I have seen in the field at organizations who strive for high quality performance. However, how many individual interests derive their best practices, or what they display as their best practices, seems often to operate at the edge of the definition yet close enough to claim that best practices have been achieved. In truth, proclaiming a process as a best practice may be soothing to the locals, it may not have the same credibility with clients, potential clients or auditing agencies.

Your “Resident Expert” May Not Be an Expert Trainer, But Easily Could Be

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

Just because a worker is informally recognized as a “star performer,” it doesn’t necessarily follow that they can be an effective trainer. Employers like to think it is as easy as that, but seldom does it turn out to be the case. However, with a little structure, some tools and a little guidance these resident experts can, and often do, become expert trainers.

If one thinks about how an expert is measured and recognized, it is usually by subjective, mostly anecdotal measures. The worker performs job-related tasks quickly, consistently and completely. This implies few mistakes, performance that is mostly within specifications and standards of performance, and no one can remember anything rejected or returned as scrap or rework.

Increasing Worker Capacity – An Alternative to Cutting Workers for Short-term Cost Savings

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

In business, if you encounter market “softness” and believe that the business level that you were previously operating at is now unsustainable – even if for a limited period – you might be tempted to first “cut labor costs” to extend short-term cash flow and/or make the balance sheet appear healthier in pressured by investors. It often becomes a slippery slope that can lead some organizations struggling to get off. Sometimes the pundits’ forecasts were inaccurate or the recovery is swifter than anticipated. Regardless, what appear as a benign short-term solution can have long-term repercussions as the market recovers and the employer is now struggling to regain the capacity the workers afforded, while watching opportunity slip by.

Sometimes investments are made in machinery and technology during the lulls to get ready for the economic up-turn, but too rarely is any effort made to determine the level of each worker’s current capacity (i.e. what percent of the tasks they were hired to “expertly” perform) relative to the job they are currently in and what could be done to increase it to handle not only existing technology and processes, but the new technology and processes as well. One might even think about cross-training workers to build “reserve capacity.”

Enterprise Expansion/Contraction and Worker Development Standardization

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

One challenge faced when expanding, contracting or acquiring an enterprise is adjusting the scale of the workforce development strategy(ies) that already exist(s) to the increase/decrease in the number of workers while maintaining a consistent ratio of output, quality yield, safe performance and process compliance. Contrary to an accountant’s perspective on staffing level adjustment, there should be serious consideration given to the range and depth of each worker’s acquired skills; an “inventory” of each employee prior to the official act of expanding or contracting. We take a physical inventory of product, equipment, parts, etc. to assess value, so why would we treat a human asset any different?

Obviously, an expansion strategy is different than a contraction strategy, but when it comes to determining the value of a worker it is similar for both strategies. How an organization addresses the development, measurement and maintenance of that value may differ widely. Let’s look at both scenarios.

Read the full January, 2023 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Is it Possible to Close the “Skills Gap” if Focused on the Symptom, Not the Cause?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

There is nothing like the futility of trying to solve a specific problem with a general solution…or treating the symptoms with methods that do not address the underlying problem. No one would use a screwdriver to tighten a nut or bolt. However, in an environment surrounded by a loud, unrelenting and self-interested screwdriver industry “expert” voices there may well be many who try – even those who should know better. Especially if given a “free” screwdriver.

According to the Center for Economic Research, “US Businesses lose approximately $160 billion total every year as the result of the skills gap.” According to a 2017 Training Magazine report, the “Total 2017 U.S. training expenditures [employer] rose significantly, increasing 32.5 percent to $90.6 billion. This dropped slightly to an estimated at 87.6 billion in 2018.” On top of this, in 2018 the US spent $50 million on STEM education (simply putting back what was taken out of education after reforms started in the 1980’s) to “address the skill gap of future employees.” While education and training throughout 2020 -2022 was upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, employers seem to be slowly returning to the informal forms of training. Predominant prior to the crisis, informal on-the-job training is a familiarly better alternative (to the online tools and programs they tried during the Covid slowdowns and shutdowns) for their practicality in developing the employer’s unique task-based skills.

Task-Specific Performance Reviews – An Accurate Metric for a Structured On-Job-Training Outcome

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

We have all been through it. For decades this has been the topic of comedy shows and movies…the dreaded annual performance review. And when it is over, we might tell our confidants how non-reflective of reality and unfair it was. We calm down over the next few months and grow more anxious each month as we get closer to the next one thinking we are at its whim.

Why are they used? Are they supposed to be a good measure or performance or just a way to meet a human resources department obligation. More times than not they seem like a justification for not giving a wage increase than guidance on how an employee can continually improve and contribute to the organization.

Is the “Gainful Employment” Requirement for Education Realistic?

by Dr. Dave Just, formally Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education at Community Colleges in MA, OH, PA, SC. Currently President of K&D Consulting

In May of 2019, the U.S. Education Department sent out reminders to universities of the July 1, 2019 deadline to update their websites to include specific information to comply with U.S. Obama-era “gainful employment” regulations. On July 1, 2019 it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Education published its final regulation to eliminate the so-called gainful employment rule. However, it may not go away entirely. Proponents of the rule say Congress might later choose to alter the regulation in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which would require the department to again address the issue.nly focuses on the “supply-side” of the equation. No matter how much tinkering goes on with the rule, if employers and government policy fail to provide the quality jobs with quality compensation levels for which the focused college learning is directed, gainful employment may remain an unachievable goal.

In the 1990’s, computers and microprocessors began to appear in more and more aspects of a broader range of occupations. The alarms went off that this was going to dramatically and significantly alter the nature of work and the skills required in the future. Education at all levels began to reexamine its learning models and content in an, often, futile attempt to “keep up with change,” never mind get ahead of it.

Learning, Unfortunately, The Hard Way

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Employers are being tested these days on their ability to respond to a rapidly changing world and maintain operational continuity. Who could have imagined that a pandemic would so disrupt the world’s supply chain, and realign consumer needs and preferences so fast and furiously, that even previously successful business operations would be pushed toward shuttering?

I am sure we all thought that after the Economic Crash of 2008 and its horrible aftermath that we had left those days of extreme reaction behind us. But here we are with another test to see who was paying attention.

Read the full December, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Replicating Your Best Performers

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 might be 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.

What Are You “Turning Over” When You Say You Have “High Turnover?”

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

It is not hard to overhear human resource managers commiserating over the high rate of “employee turnover“ they are encountering and struggling to remedy. In listening a little more closely, it is not entirely clear as to what that phrase, seemingly ubiquitous, means today. Is this a conversation where both parties seem to believe they know what the other is talking about, but underlying each case are different facts?

Not too long ago, turnover meant the rate of loss of employees to replace those who exited the company. It usually referred to those employees in which the employer had made an investment to develop them into an asset. it appears many still see that as a general description, but the source of their struggles seems to address other structural issues.

Pairing Structured On-the-Job Training with Related Technical Instruction Just Makes Sense

I have for worked with educational institutions for many years, trying to reach out to employers with the latest and best courses and seminars they had. It is what we did with good intentions, but in many cases this was a difficult sale at best. Their products were often already built…before they precisely knew the needs of the employer. If the employer engaged them for our services, when delivered it was more of an underwhelming experience for the customer than I felt comfortable with. Often it didn’t lead to follow-on work.

An employer’s operation is driven by accounting for the bottom line. Accountants are quick to dismiss core and technical instruction as a cost. That is what they were taught in college, and truthfully there is no evidence that attending a course improves work performance in most cases. Sadly, that level of “job relevance” or content validity was considered less important than the power of the institution’s name that was promoting the products or services.

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 lease, that was the simple vision of economists past.

It is fairly a proven fact, however, that in the past three 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.

Read the full November, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Nine Scenarios That Would Make You Wish You Had a Structured OJT System

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

I think one can confidently say that most employer’s focus on training the workers they need – to perform the tasks they were meant to perform – has become detrimentally blurry, counterproductive and often non-existent. There are many reasons for that – some legitimate. But without a deliberate, measurable strategy for quickly driving each worker to mastery of the entire job classification, an employer’s labor costs (not just wages, but opportunity costs and undermined return on worker investment as well) can be substantial and act as a drag on an organization’s performance.

Many employers are still waiting for the educational institutions to solve the problem. After all, look at all of the money spent on education directed at “training the workers of tomorrow.” Yet a lot of the institutional strategies appear to include repackaged tools from the past…and not the ones far enough past that seemed to work. For example, the recent comments made by education insiders saying we should have kept the high school vocational programs that were relatively effective until the late 1970’s in place. These were phased out when the push to prepare students for college took priority. Now, there is a push for community colleges to “pump out” more apprentices which, if done only to meet numbers but not emphasizing quality of the general training, could be another waste of scarce resources of time, money and opportunity for the trainee, the employer and communities. Another decade lost.

Put Yourself in a Trainee’s Shoes

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

It is fun to watch a popular TV show on CBS, now in syndication, called “Undercover Boss – reruns and all.” Watching a CEO or executive of a major corporation slip into disguise and enter the world of their workers is interesting and entertaining. Sometimes they find the organization needs a little “tweaking,” and sometimes it needs major rethinking.

The entertainment value, I suppose, comes from watching these individuals being tossed into a job classification – alien to most of them – and, while cameras are rolling, receiving a crash coarse in performing various job tasks. Some tasks are performed close to the customer. Not only do leaders get a rare look at what it is like at the lower rungs of the organization, in some cases they get a look at the sub-par performance most of their customers experience and how tenuous the corporation’s existence is – sustained only by the initiative a few loyal, but mostly self-interested, employees. These employees try to make up for the corporation’s short-comings as if their job and future depend on it…which they do. If the company fails, they lose their job, plain and simple. Some put up with the company’s shortcomings in pursuit of the next opportunity.

Grow Your Own Multi-Craft Maintenance Technicians – Using a “Systems Approach” to Training

Do Contemporary Economic Theories Apply to This Version of Capitalism?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Lately, Americans have been in heightened state of anxiety and distress over confusing messaging. After all of the uproar by employers that they just can’t find skilled workers, now business talk shows are saying that employers are looking at layoffs because the economy is “too hot,” as if shedding the workers they struggled to find is a good thing for profits. Maybe reducing payroll from the balance sheet looks good for this quarter or next, but destroying long-term capacity for a brief illusion seems counter-intuitive.

Rising prices of just about everything are eating away at the meager and long-overdue wage increases employers used to entice candidates to apply and hired workers to stay. It seems like a collision of America’s two economies, which has been on this course for 30 years.

Read the full October, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Who is Responsible for Decisions Regarding Training?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

We sometimes run into a conundrum when promoting the concept of structured on-the-job training: finding who is responsible and accountable for the decision to provide training within an organization. It doesn’t seem like negligence, but it often feels like every decision-maker is saying it is someone else’s responsibility, sincerely believing the other has this important area covered. But it is also surprising when no one inside the organization asks who is responsible when any of the many symptoms of lack of training shows up.

In this environment that seems like “training anarchy,” it is easy for loud voices and strong personalities to step outside their zone of expertise to tackle, what may appear to be, a simple challenge – only to come up short. Sadly, although the proposed solution wouldn’t rise to that provided by an experienced professional or recognized as “training,” others may not know this. They might vent their disappointment by denigrating the notion of training or seek blame of the trainee saying things like “these workers just don’t want to be trained.” The legitimate role and purpose of training is tarnished, but never the solution’s architect.

Have You Captured The Expertise of Your Critical Hourly and Salary Positions?

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

Starting in the late 1980’s, employers became increasingly concerned with succession planning; ensuring salary workers were being groomed to replace critical senior employees in the event of retirement or voluntary/involuntary separation. It was realized that the potential disruption – direct and the ripple effects – caused by an unplanned void in the leadership chain might be perceived as a threat to shareholder value. Shareholders, too, wanted assurances that maximizing a firm’s performance was not tied to one or two invaluable people.

Compounding the concern was the realization that the workforce was aging at all levels, and that retirements were a certainty. Prior to the Crash of 2008, employer’s concern over this was amplified by anecdotal reports from other employers already experiencing the impact. A movement toward a remedy began to take shape, and not just for high-ranking salary positions, but technically critical salary positions and even hourly positions that with a loss of one or a few technical experts might disrupt operations and impair a firm’s viability.

Workforce Development Partnerships with Substance: My Experience

By Randy Toscano, Jr., MSHRM, Executive Director of Human Resources, Paris Regional Medical Center

Partnerships between employers and local educational institutions/training providers are a tricky thing. Not every employer knows clearly what they need nor can they articulate the need, and not every educational institution can understand the need, or has products or services available or relevant enough to make a difference. If either of these realities are present, or worse both of them, it can make worker development partnerships difficult to disappointing.

Employers are closest to the work that they need performed by the worker, which is usually very different from the employer down the road. Yet employers rarely bother to document what makes up that work to articulate it in an understandable way to an educational institution or training provider. If you doubt that, take any of your job classifications and try to explain it in enough detail to train from it.

“Our partnership, located in northern Ohio, was the first implementation of the US Metalworking Skill Standards in the country.”

How Much Would “Full Worker Capacity” Through Full Job Mastery Be Worth to Your Firm?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

According to Ed Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, “our labor costs in the U.S. are still 20% too high.” If he means that employers may be paying too much for unused or unusable worker capacity, and they should seek methods to develop it, I can agree with that. If he means employers should focus on spending enormous amounts on finding alternatives to labor, or randomly cutting workers, or asking workers to work for less wages and less benefits, I would say “hold on a minute.”

Given the growing fear and discontent by workers who still haven’t recovered from the Crash of 2008 and now knocked down with the Covid-19 pandemic, they may want a seat at the discussion. These workers will be trying for some time to, once again, regain value in their 401K and other impacted assets and to rise to the wage level they once had for the talents they possess. Many have the perception, wrongly or rightly, that their employer and their shareholders built great profits while workers slid backward. Many families, today, are challenged by rising prices of nearly everything…against eroding wages. This preoccupation with driving down labor costs, while reporting to Wall Street record quarterly profits, may benefit shareholders in the short-run, but it is surely illusionary and self-destructive in the long-run as the Crash of 2008 should have demonstrated, but the Covid-19 pandemic might remind.

Read the full September, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

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.

How Start-Ups and Joint Ventures Can Benefit from Structured On-The-Job Training

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

A article in a previous issue of the Proactive Technologies Report entitled “Enterprise Expansion/Contraction and Worker Development Standardization” 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.

Reluctant to Reshore Due to Apparent Shortage of Skilled Labor? Don’t Be

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

These are relatively uncertain times for some manufacturers with supply chains that transcend borders to countries subject to punitive tariffs, and/or social, political and economic unrest. Knowing where to invest time and precious resources isn’t as clear as it was a couple of decades ago, yet that is the situation many are in.

We all remember how quickly companies relocated part (in some cases all) of their operations, and/or prodded their suppliers to do the same, to lower wage, lower regulation and lower property cost environments – regardless of the transport costs, and risks of regional instability and supply chain disruption. As those economies developed and the associated operational costs increased, those perceived savings continued to erode. And as regional instability rose, many employers started to plan their next move. Once again, the U.S. looks like a viable site alternative.

Quality Policies and Process Sheets Do Not Equal Training

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

A very common fallacy in business operations is that a description of what should be done listed in a quality policy, such as a quality control policy or a quality assurance plan, that seems to be sufficient for the training component of ISO/IATF/AS certification meets, therefore, the company’s training requirement in general. Perhaps this false equivalency is wrongly supported by the additional fallacy that the existence of standard work instructions is the equivalent of on-the-job training plans. Too often this is used to defend the belief that this replaces formal task-based training.

Sometimes this leads to the rationalization that if the company keeps it simple and barely meets what an ISO/IATF/AS auditor might accept for their certification purposes, the training requirement is covered. But an auditor at that stage is just looking at what the company is intending to do, not how they carry it out. That is discovered later.

WELCOME MENNEL MILLING!

by Proactive Technologies, Inc. – Staff

Proactive Technologies, Inc. is happy to welcome Mennel Milling! Mennel has been milling wheat into flour since 1886. Whether for a restaurant chain or a food company of any size, Mennel can be counted on for all custom flour blend and bakery mix needs, perfecting over 300 recipes.

Mennel operates 13 country grain elevators throughout Ohio, Indiana and Virginia. Mennel has 26 industrial sites throughout the U.S.; 19 of them in Ohio. Thanks to their long-standing commitment to research and development, Mennel has a proven reputation for providing outstanding products. Their team of research scientists identify new applications for their flour and co-products, and as a result develop new or specialty post-milling processes and products.

Read the full August, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Is It Possible to Improve Worker Performance Without Documented Task Mastery?

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

W. Edwards Deming said, “We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.” The inefficiencies, discrepancies, affects on morale and potential for adverse incidents would seem to make preventing this a priority. To make improvements given this condition seems to be, at most times, futile.

Often we are lulled into believing this phenomena doesn’t exist when products get produced and shipped, and services are provided. That is where the metrics are pointed – output. But how much is known about the effort, sometime struggle, to get there? Was the effort efficient, accurate and consistent? If we do not have definitive answers to these questions, how to improve performance will likely be as illusive and resources used in the attempt a waste.

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

Explaining Your Process Training to Auditors, Prospects and Clients

by Proactive Technologies, Inc. Staff

How much time, energy and resources are expended by your firm when someone comes to visit and wants to “kick the company’s tires?” When it comes to training your workers to internal and/or company processes, a structured on-the-job training program that operates smoothly and completely in the background may have the answers your clients are looking for.

For most organizations, the general notion is that training is going on in every corner of the organization, for every worker at any time of the day or night. One person is showing another person how to perform a process, operate a piece of equipment or software, fill out a form or, yes, make a copy using the new copy machine just installed. How effective is that informal form of training? Have you ever walked by a copy machine and seen someone standing in front of it, staring at the control panel…then the sky, as if seeking divine intervention.

Maximizing Worker Capacity Maximizes Shareholder Value…If Done Right

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

To many, “maximizing shareholder value” has become synonymous with layoffs and short-term cuts that will typically have harmful effects on long-term operational capacity. An often overlooked, but more productive, goal is “maximizing worker capacity” and should be a priority for every organization – publicly traded or not. Leaders of an organization are quick to say, “our workers are our greatest asset.” Yet, efforts to maximize returns on this asset are often hard to recognize or understand.

Maximizing a worker’s capacity maximizes worker value. Collectively, maximizing each worker’s capacity maximizes an organization’s value, and that of the shareholders. It is as simple as that.

Read the full July, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.

Appreciating the Value of Labor

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 between a “training cost” and a “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.

Have Advances in Technology Distracted HR From the Fundamentals of Worker Selection and Development?

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

Billions of investment dollars are driving the advancements in technology into every corner of our lives, including the selection and development of workers. Predictably, the emphasis often seems more on the technology and the money it can make for investors than the practicality for the end-user or those it effects.

It is not just the refrigerators that talk to your grocery store, or watches that talk to the phone in your pocket. Wall Street, with an accumulating mountain of cash, can drive any idea to fabricate a “trend” that often dissipates as quickly as it emerges, sometimes leaving disruption in the wake but yields a return for investors. For investors it is the means to an end. To many, it may negatively affect their life and their future.

More Employers Finding Ways To Strategically Ensure Fair Pay

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

In an article appearing in IndustryWeek entitled “Trying to Ensure Fair Pay, Employers Are Changing Policies,” it noted that according to a recent employer survey “2018 Getting Compensation Right,” “60% of U.S. employers are planning to take some action this year to prevent bias in hiring and pay decisions.” Further, 53% “are planning on or considering adding a recognition program.”

The report went on, “37% percent are planning on or considering changing criteria for salary increases. Among employers not redesigning their programs, most are making changes to the importance of factors used to set base pay increases.”

Balancing the Need to Raise Wages with the Need to be Competitive by Increasing Worker Value

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

It is said employers are having a hard time finding workers. It may be due to some workers having time to think during the disruptions of the past few years and may be looking for jobs that are better aligned with their career goals. Some may still fear the status of the Covid-19 cases, and its variants, made confusing by the premature, incomplete and contradictory news reports. Some may want to return to work but are navigating the difficulties of child care and return to school policies that vary from district to district.

It appears employers have accepted that, for the short term at least and quite possibly the long-term, that they will need to reconsider their compensation structures if they are to attract the caliber of worker they need. Some feel that discussion is long overdue. Of course, raising wages and benefits is going to add to the cost of labor associated with production or services. If the shortage of supplies raising the costs of goods accelerate the reshoring of jobs to America, the competition for the best workers could get fierce.

WELCOME!

Proactive Technologies, Inc. welcomes SK Food Group, one of North America’s leading custom food manufacturing companies. They operate nine state-of-the-art facilities across the US and Canada, and employ more than 2,000 associates. SK Food Group supplies handcrafted sandwiches, wraps, snacks, flatbreads, burgers, protein snacks and more to the most respected foodservice brands, neighborhood cafes and Fortune 500 companies.

In the US, the company has locations in Phoenix, AZ, Columbus, OH, Reno, NV, Minneapolis, MN, Tupelo, MS. As leaders in the industry, they take an active role in ongoing scientific testing and food production safety, with a commitment to product safety and integrity.

Read the full June, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.