Proactive Technologies Report – August, 2019

There are many significant reasons that structured on-the-job training will help any employer really maximize the value of each worker employed with the company, improve operational efficiency and lower the risk of non-compliance (ISO/TS/AS, Safety Mandates, EEOC Mandates). These are not just buzzwords. Here are thirteen reasons (not in any order of importance, since some may be more important to different stakeholders) to consider. Read More 

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

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

“Studies on the cost of employee turnover are all over the board. Some studies (such as SHRM) predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on average. For a manager making $40,000 a year, that’s $20,000 to $30,000 in recruiting and training expenses. Read More

ISO was the basis for first the QS model (automotive industry) that later became the TS16949 model. The TS and AS9100D (aerospace industry) models are similarly structured when it comes to training. During audits, the auditor looks for evidence that all three requirements are met, seeking a pattern of consistency in past records that the system appears to have the attributes that will lead to the same consistency going forward. Customers may use similar techniques to audit vendors and suppliers. The new National Aerospace and Defense Contractor Accreditation Program NADCAP (for prequalifying defense and commercial aerospace industry suppliers to a higher level of consistency) as well as other industry-specific standards developed or being developed have similar requirements for training. The reason that all of these models follow a quality standard for worker training is that it is measurable, unlike the old days when auditors encountered a drawer full of rosters or a partially current Excel spreadsheet – with no real evidence of  the connection between training, the work to be performed and the worker to perform it.

Taking a class on even closely related theory does not prove a worker can perform a process, but it might show the worker has the core knowledge and possibly lower-order skills to learn the unique processes to be performed, which is a good basis upon which to start task-based training. From a quality assurance perspective, documentation showing that process-based on-the-job training was recently delivered (and any process revisions were since conveyed) correlates to the decreased odds of non-conformance for that process. That is the reason quality assurance and control models seek that evidence in an audit. Read More 

• Perhaps from a sense of futility, with engineers seeming to have given up on the notion of training workers first to ensure immediate output quantity, quality and consistency;
• Perhaps it is from knowing that the organization lacks a “system” in place to facilitate the transfer;
• Perhaps it is from the belief that, especially in the early stages, the product or service may go through many changes before a coherent, repeatable process settles in and when it does the next product or service has been introduced;
• Perhaps from a sense of superiority, that “I know how to do this [because I designed it] so everyone else should know what to do.”

For those who recognize the need for worker training and try to incorporate it manually while trying to keep up with engineering and technological innovations, it is common to find a training program released well into the last days of the life cycle – just in time to train workers for the things they made and serviced years before. Manual methods just do not keep up anymore, and they haven’t for the last 30 years. This doesn’t mean we should “leap-frog” to Artificial Intelligence or online training. The cost alone would dissuade anyone from utilizing it for this type of task-specific training, never mind the inappropriateness.

The most efficient and effective path to expediting a process from development of the process (including all pertinent aspects) to implementation is displayed. The task should be the central focus, with each stakeholder department contributing its input and metrics of accurate performance. Simply stated, the engineer can draft a process, then the other departments can add their components in order. Once all inputs are in, everyone can review and make changes based on each other’s observations and comments before a final document is released.

Too often departments are the focus of process development and implementation. Each department may contribute, but each department may also have its protocol, maybe even separate software or manual system, and each creating its own support document. A process making its way through this maze – back and forth with revisions and corrections – may take months. Making changes to it, for things learned in implementation, may not make it through the maze before the next request for change is submitted. Read More