Even the Best Written Work Instruction Is No Replacement for Structured On-the-Job Training
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to assemble a toy or piece of furniture by the included instructions, you’ll appreciate the assessment that many of these instructions seem to be an afterthought, lacking clarity and often causing more confusion than one would think for something considered to be an “assembly instruction.”
You might be aware that many companies create work instructions in a rush attempt to qualify for ISO, IATF or AS certification. Often someone with little or no experience as a technical writer is asked to write a work instruction for others to follow. Sometimes several people, with many backgrounds, are tasked in an effort to quickly prepare the organization for a pre-certification audit. The belief is that the auditor only wants to make sure that the company has work instructions, not critique the quality of the instructions. Often, as well, little thought is given to keeping the documents current and accurate as changes and improvements occur. Soon, any document clarity is reduced to confusion.
click here to expandThe original intent might have been a document that was a clear, step-by-step guide to performing a task but, written in the style of the untrained writer, one clear step could have turned out to be one convoluted paragraph, forcing the reader to read, interpret, understand, and follow while having their hands full.
Lacking experience, a writer will sometimes leave out some of the important aspects of task performance – the things they needed to know when they first learned the task. For each person being trained to compliance with the document, each interpretation is revealed in performance. As time goes by, and these individuals become future trainers, these misinterpretations might be institutionalized in performance, and not be detected until major quality, safety or audit issues arise. Read More
Lessen Gen Z Workplace Anxiety – Make Training Deliberate and Engaging
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
In an article in Business Insider entitled, “Gen Z is bringing a whole new vibe to the workplace: anxiety,” author Eve Upton-Clark tried to shed some light on a contemporary topic considered enigmatic by some and over-blown by others; Generation Z and its journey into the workplace. Understanding generational shifts in behaviors and expectations are a never-ending role of employers and their management. Having a better insight can make the experience a little less challenging for everyone.
In her article she writes, “Anxiety is driven by uncertainty,” Ellen Hendriksen, a clinical psychologist and the author of “How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety,” said. Because they grew up in the digital age with nearly unlimited amounts of information at their fingertips, Hendriksen said, Gen Z has the least experience with uncertainty. “When you need to know where to go, you can pull up Google Maps,” she said. “If you are going to a new restaurant, you can look at the menu ahead of time. There’s a lot of certainty in this world now which didn’t exist before.”
She continues, “But at work, there’s often a lack of certainty — which gets exacerbated in a remote workplace where it is easy to avoid confrontation. “Anxiety is maintained by avoidance,” Henriksen said. “Our first reaction when we are anxious is often to avoid the thing that is making us scared, and so if we are anxious about speaking in a meeting, we might remain silent. If we are anxious about taking phone calls, we’ll let those calls go to voicemail.” Further, “Whether sensing when a presentation has gone on too long or understanding the subtext of what someone is saying, managing how you work is a fundamental skill.”
Whether a Gen Z or Baby Boomer, how we are trained once hired is a crap shoot. Read More
Proactive Technologies’ Turnkey Package Offers for Prospective and Returning
Clients – Discount Window Now Open
by Proactive Technologies, Inc. – Staff
The world has been through a lot in the last few decades. Employers finding themselves making decisions and changing their mind for the most unexpected reasons. Proactive Technologies, Inc.® wants to accommodate and support those workforce development decisions in the best way it knows how. This introduction for new and returning clients of its turnkey worker development package is one example. The current discount window is open from January 1st – March 15, 2024!
Value comes in many forms. Sometimes value stares us in the face but we may not realize it…or fully realize it. Like a software we purchase but only use 10% of its functions, a car that we seldom drive, or the treadmill that sits in its original packaging. Underutilized value not only represents a minimal return on an investment, it is a lost opportunity to maximize its potential and an inefficient use of capital.
Undeveloped or under-developed worker capacity is a lost opportunity to increase return on worker investment and reduce labor costs. Multiply this experience by the number of employees you have and the loss can be substantial! This is a fact that should be obvious and continually frustrates many a CEO or Operations Manager. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Every employer conducts a massive amount of informal, unstructured and undocumented on-the-job, task-based training every year. The significant cost(especially if you have a lot of retiring experts, revolving new-hires and marginally trained residents), as well as the effectiveness, usually goes unmeasured. If you doubt this point, ask yourself one question; Do I know which tasks each of my employees have mastered, and which they have not? If you draw a blank, you are not alone. Read More
Deming Was Right on Training Workers
By Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming, an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant, remembered for his vital role in rebuilding the Japanese manufacturing sector after being destroyed during WWII, said “You have one chance to train a worker, just one, so don’t muck it up.” At the time, his theories on management and manufacturing, quality and business longevity, were dismissed by U.S. manufacturers. After quickly helping move Japan’s manufacturing and economy towards competitive status in a relatively short time, U.S. manufacturers reevaluated his theories and practices and began implementing the parts of them that did not significantly affect short-term profitability.
It is not clear if, by the
statement, he had the U.S. vocational education and classroom-based training system in mind, or the informal, haphazard and undocumented one-on-one training a worker receives once hired. Either way, one thing in common was that the accelerating rate of technological advancement – post-WWII to 1980 and beyond (computers entered the scene) -forced continuous revision of the learning and training requirements for employment. Literally, technology was changing the nature of work before their eyes leaving manufacturers flat-footed on what to do and education, already technically lagging the current nature of work, in a perpetual and losing state of “catch-up.”
To set the record straight, this is not a criticism of education itself. But the way education institutions are structured, they literally cannot keep up with academic-led innovation let alone employer-led technological innovation. For example:
click here to expand- innovation occurs
- someone writes and publishes a book (2-4 years)
- an instructor adopts the book and presents it with their curriculum to the review committee (1-3 years)
- a student attends a course that includes the new technology, completes the degree program (2-4 years)
- former student searches for job where skills are relevant (1-3 years)
- former student lands job and can utilize skills (1-2 years)
If all goes well, a student trained to be worker with skills relevant to that technological advancement contributes to the momentum…7-16 years after the innovation was introduced. By then several new advancements were probably either building on the initial advancement or making the initial advancement obsolete. Read More
Read the full February, 2024 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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