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.”
click here to expandThe acceleration started around 40 years ago. Prior to that, job classifications did not change much and were relatively simple in structure. Then panic set in over the approaching “skills gaps,” as computers were introduced into every aspect of our lives. Fear of baby boomers nearing retirement, taking their technical expertise with them, added to the challenge. Solutions started to appear out of academia, based on the world they knew and not as much on the world they were trying to improve, as they would have liked to think.
Did these methods address the workforce development challenges of their time? Read More
Employers Say They Struggle With a “Skills Shortage,” Yet They Cut the Training Budget. What Gives?
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Everywhere you read these days, you find commentary on the “skills gap” that employers seem to face when trying to find the workers they need for their critical job classifications. Either there is a skills gap or there isn’t, and more and more economists are challenging that premise. Some, like Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, say that if there is such a skills gap creating a shortage of skilled labor, then wages should be skyrocketing for those positions in a capitalistic, free market model.
Some point to the exploitation of loop-holes in the U.S. H-1B visa program, recently highlighted in a CBS 60 Minutes episode entitled “You’re Fired” that allows employers to replace long-time, experienced employees with lower-wage temporary workers (with no benefits) from countries such as India – even requiring the laid off worker to train their replacement or forego severance pay.
Yet other companies, genuinely experiencing a shortage of skilled workers in their region, seem to either accept the skills gap theory as the norm or have made assumptions that the right skilled workers already came through the front door. Some surprise everyone by redirecting training dollars that should be used to make sure each employee can perform the tasks for which they were hired to programs that are meant to improve performance – skipping the obvious. Trying to improve the performance of employees before being certain they can perform each task exactly seems incredibly counter-intuitive. Focusing dollars on LEAN, Kaisan, Six Sigma, etc. before being certain that employees have mastered each required task may be not only be a waste of money but probably will need to be repeated if the employees finally do master each task, since by then they will have forgotten any improvement techniques or how to apply them to the processes they are performing.
click here to expandSome wonder why companies have not added to, or are even cutting, their training budgets in response to the challenge. Read More
Jack of All Trades, Master of None
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
“Jack of all trades, master of none” according to Wikipedia “is a figure of speech used in reference to a person who has dabbled in many skills, rather than gaining expertise by focusing on one.”
The shortened version “a jack of all trades” is often a compliment for a person who is good at figuring out how to fix and do things, and who has a broad knowledge base. These types may be a master of integrating diverse knowledge topics, such as an individual who knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring them together in a practical manner to perform a task that is a subset of a craft or trade area. This person considered a generalist rather than a specialist.
There are many examples of this. The individual who can do his/her taxes each year, but would not be qualified to do others. Someone who can figure out what is wrong with the dishwasher, but reaches a point where the repair is out of reach. A lawyer who has passed the bar, but failed to specialize in an area of law to be the “go-to” guy for a particular case.
The “master of none” element appears to have been added to the phrase later to augment the meaning of the compliment; making the statement less flattering to the person receiving it. Today, the phrase used in its entirety generally describes a person whose knowledge, while covering a number of areas, is superficial to all of them.
click here to expandSome modern apprenticeships are so generally focused that it is unclear who they benefit. Including general industry skills and even skills that may become useful in the future is well-intended, but the primary focus should be the mastery of tasks the current or identified future employer needs performed. That is the historic meaning of an apprenticeship. Even as a secondary priority, the hedging of bets that industry-general skills will be needed in the future depends greatly on whether jobs requiring them will materialize and the apprentice will get to apply these skills before they forget them from nonuse. An over-emphasis on predictions can yield students that graduate with irrelevant skills, and employers left with the responsibility to provide more than the task-based training one would expect. Impatient employers, and employers that do not understand the deficiency in employment candidates enough to understand the impact, are left to wander through the myriad of options and false options while trying to maintain a thriving enterprise. Read More
A Simple, Low-investment Solution to Closing 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 and technically supporting 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 on improvements in an area of weakness.
“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?”
The main steps used to build an employer-based structured workforce development system starts with understanding the desired outcome first: Read More
Read the full July, 2024 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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