Tracking Documented Worker Capacity and Value Growth
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
It is difficult for any operations manager to justify investments in worker training to the accounting manager. Without empirical evidence, the institutionalized belief by accountants that training is a “cost“ often prevails over common sense improvements in a company‘s workforce. While only familiar with traditional “classroom learning“ with repetitive seat time costs, accounting departments are swift to challenge any attempt to spend money on classes alone, where no tangible correlation between time spent and improvement in performance is credible.
Structured on-the-job training is different. Employers invest in informal, unstructured, and undocumented one-on-one worker training all of the time; all day, every day for every employee. Once an employee is hired, including the brief training for individuals who do not end up staying past probationary period and periods of cross-training, “Bob” is paired up with “Jim” and a mysterious process begins. No training plan, no documentation, very little accounting for real hours of training or outcomes. If there were, accountants would be strong advocates for long overdue changes in worker development strategies.
Nevertheless, informal on-the-job training produces some positive results for some people or products wouldn’t get shipped nor services delivered. But it doesn’t work well, especially for many who could have been great, loyal workers. The process cannot be explained, measured, improved or accounted for – most likely the reason it is accepted as fact but avoided in process improvement discussions. Yet it is the only thing holding most operations together.
Structured on-the-job training works much better. It provides the infrastructure, the accountability, the documentability, and empirical evidence to justify increases an investment for tangible increases in worker performance. It is not difficult to set-up a structured on-the-job training system if you have the methodology; you just build an infrastructure around the informal on-the-job training that already exists, incorporate all available process, safety and quality documentation available to make training an accurate, deliberate and complete experience. Read More
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.
Hundreds of 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.
In the 1990’s, investors started to look at the National Security Agency’s and Central Intelligence Agency’s “key-word search” capabilities used to scan millions of documents from around the world for specific words and phrases to expand their intelligence gathering reach. They saw applications of this technology in the civilian world, including scanning the mounds of resumes and employment applications employers had to filter in order to find a few new-hires. On the surface, this seemed to be a godsend.
Soon employers and employment candidates saw what the developers of this technology did not. The technology first had to count on employers having accurately designed job descriptions in consistent formats, using standardized terms, words and phrases to describe pre-hire knowledge, experience, skills and abilities of interest. The fact was reality couldn’t have been farther from this, with job descriptions written 50 years prior, written precisely for someone the employer wanted to hire (not so reflective of the actual job requirements), or cut & pasted from a handy library resource. Read More
Grow Your Own Craft Technicians Using a “Systems Approach” to Training
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
I have a long history with Proactive Technologies, Inc.®, partnering with them to help employers in a number of states since 1994. Together we have advocated the use of a “systems approach” to training that includes a combination of related technical instruction and structured on-the-job training to develop multi-craft maintenance technicians, advanced manufacturing workers, management and support classifications. This approach works equally as well with any job classification within an organization and is a viable option to paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to employment recruiters or recruiting efforts to locate these technicians on a nationwide basis…who still need to be trained once hired anyway. Plus, once the investment is made to setup the infrastructure, the employer can train as many workers as needed – with a declining investment per trainee and increasing ROI.
The systems approach to training, if built correctly for the company, forms the infrastructure of a highly effective, low-cost and low-to-no administrative burden apprenticeship (registered or not) model. This model can quickly and cost-effectively produce the workers needed, who will be qualified to perform the tasks required at the employer’s facility (not some conceptual position or a position down the road). Based on detailed job/task analysis, data is collected by Proactive Technologies’ experts using the employer’s existing documentation and internal subject matter experts, who have the final review before the data is used. A complete set of worker development materials and Key Performance Indicator reports are generated by Proactive Technologies’ PROTECH©® system of managed human resource development™ software for immediate use, updated monthly to keep the program always current, accurate and in sync with the firm’s specifications, standards and requirements. Most importantly, technical support to the project includes project implementation management, so the employer can focus on running their business without adding to, or burdening, existing staff.
The “Systems Approach to Worker Development” is effective because it builds an infrastructure around the informal, unmeasured and undocumented on-the-job training the employer already is struggling with. So the approach to deliberate training is familiar and much better – easy to slide into existing practices. To establish the foundation: Read More
Apprenticeships – An Alternative to the “400 Hours For Drill Press” Training Model
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
“Time-in-Job” Does Not Equal ”Tasks Mastered.” It does not reveal much about the level, quality, relevancy and transferability of the “on-the-job training experience.” It is akin to students tests being graded on how long they sat in the classroom. But yet this approach endures. Don’ get me wrong, it is better than no on-the-job training effort. However, I think we all agree that it leaves a lot of opportunity on the table.
An unfortunate hold-over from the traditional U.S. apprenticeship is the standard practice of defining the on-the-job training requirement in terms of “number of hours.” General work areas that are thought of as representative of the job are selected, a number of total hours for each area totaling the on-the-job training requirement are prescribed, and this with the required related technical instruction are registered.
We all know that we have worked, or are now working, next to co-workers who have been in the job classification for many years but for one reason or another seemed to not be able to perform all of the required tasks of the job. Some are called “area specialists,” but may have specialized in only the tasks they like to perform. Some might not have had an opportunity to learn and master certain tasks. When they are asked to train the next worker, their scope is limited to the tasks for which they specialized, and the pattern continues when that new person becomes a trainer later on. When Proactive Technologies sets-up a structured, task-based on-the-job training program and assesses incumbent workers to discover any gaps that might exist so that the on-the-job training can close them, it is common to find some long-time workers in the job classification that may have only mastered 20 or 30% of the total tasks that make up the job classification.
So what does the number of hours spent in a job area tell a person about the skills attained by the apprentice? How is this seemingly subjective metric measured and how is it tracked? Does it matter? Read More
Read the full June, 2025 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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