More Education Won’t Fix Flat or Declining Wages, But Appropriate Compensation and Stable Job Markets Can Make College Worth It
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Having several degrees myself, I can say that I am a strong believer in higher education. I sometimes take issue with the quality and relevancy of courses or degree programs, but I would always encourage an individual to consider the value of acquired knowledge to their life plans and the additional doors it may open.I say this even though many of us who have achieved a higher degree silently questioned how much of their degree really mattered, or how much was forgotten for lack of application when an opportunity to apply it came along too late.
All said, two major trends influence my need to add a caveat to my encouragement to pursue higher education. First, be aware of the endless increases to the cost of higher education and, second, be cognizant of the instability of target job classifications and careers that not only renders a two or four-year degree irrelevant but, today, may leave the graduate empty handed and swamped with student loan debt. Even if the graduate is able to find a job it their expected field, the shock of unexpectedly low and flat wages may harness them to an unfulfilling job for life and sliding backward with all-consuming debt.
click here to expandAccording to the Huffington Post, the cost of a college degree in the United States has increased “12 fold” over the past 30 years, far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food. Referencing a Bloomberg study, college tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978. Using a chart to explain its findings, Bloomberg reports that the rate of increase in college costs has been “four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.” It also notes that “medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.” Additionally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, since 2013 the tuition costs continued on its upward path.
While education costs have skyrocketed and with student loan debt reaching $1.5 trillion, wages for graduates have continued to stay flat or decline. While it is still true that advanced degrees have a tendency of leading to higher starting wages and higher wage caps for the field, the number of fields this still holds true for are dwindling as these jobs are redefined, relocated or staffed with foreign workers invited to work for less. This makes working out of student loan debt slow, laborious in itself and often impossible. Read More
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.
click here to expandThinking it through a little further, one might struggle to explain how the expert performer developed these traits. Someone showed them how to perform a task, and repetitive performance developed new, retained skills. They are now operating as a “robot” while performing a task, seldom thinking about the subtleties and nuances of each task (filed in memory long ago), which makes them fast, consistent workers – something the employer can notice an appreciate.
But if we ask “who trained this expert,” “how was he or she trained,” or “what specifications and standards were emphasized,” we come up empty. By just playing the role of a trainee, and allowing one of these experts to train you on a task, will reveal a lot as to what the new-hire or cross-trainee can expect. If we compare this expert’s task performance to other peer experts, we probably will notice slight differences in performance between them, which means workers that each trained may be trained differently on the same task. Sometimes these differences can be subtle and of no consequence, sometimes they become a point of contention, lead to confusion and/or unsafe and incorrect task performance.
Every work environment is less than ideal for learning. Production pressures, personality clashes, learning style and teaching style differences, and departmental boundary incursions do not make it easy for a trainer to train or a trainee to learn without structure and guidance. If any of our experts train the next wave of new-hires or cross-trainees without structure, tools and standards – the building blocks of “best practice” performance – some of the expertise might not transfer and the differences between them become more obvious with each wave. Read More
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 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 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 who 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.
click here to expandIt is interesting to see CEO’s marvel at how difficult it is to learn the job tasks they previously thought were inconsequential and not worthy of attention. Previously known only as a word on a report, the fact that how the tasks are performed by these neglected employees are the reason the corporation exists goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Some look like episodes of the popular television shows of the 50’s and 60’s, “I Love Lucy.”
A typical Undercover Boss episode might display: Read More
Worker Capacity; Malperformance Cause-Effect
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
How often do we stop and ask ourselves why a worker is malperforming,under-performing or over-achieving? My guess is far too infrequently. Perhaps it is because of the hectic world we live in, with little time to study things deeper or explore an event closer. Perhaps because some of us feel helpless to do anything to correct it or exploit it (in the case of the over-performer) so we leave it alone. Perhaps the internal experts we rely on for answers lack the proper training themselves (in training program development, implementation, performance measurement) to be helpful.However, so much of what separates a high performing company from a mediocre or failing company depends on the collective effectiveness of the workforce. And the underlying desire to correct bad task performance, and proactively develop and maintain good task performance to replicate star performers, seems common, logical and ubiquitous.
Generally speaking, when we troubleshoot an error in performance, we would like to get to the cause, such as “operator error,” “equipment malfunction,” or “flawed material.” But this is more like isolating the area in which the error happened. We can troubleshoot a machine or send material to the lab for testing, but often the analytical “tools” to dive deeper into the human factor are lacking or inadequate, and the will of management to devote the time soft. The notion of worker “capacity” is a very useful tool that can help a company be proactive in preventing most of the common employee-related errors.
click here to expandAccording to the Business Dictionary, “capacity” (in a manufacturing sense) is defined as, “Highest sustainable output rate (maximum number of units per month, quarter, or year) that can be achieved with current resources, maintenance strategies, product specifications, etc.” This is fairly easy to relate to a piece of machinery, a department, or a company. But when applied to a single worker, some loose variables that apply broadly need to be tightened to be useful.
There are several ways a worker can learn to perform. Read More
Read the full April, 2019 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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