Recent Supply Chain Disruptions: Re-shoring Work to a Disrupted Workforce the Next Challenge, but Surmountable
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
No doubt about it, with the Crash of 2008 and the Covid-19 Crisis of 2020 most businesses have been forced into deep introspection about their products and services, their supply chains, maintaining their current and future workforce needs…even their survival and the evolving needs of an impacted consumer base. Any one of these topics would be plenty, but all at once while against the headwinds of an uncertain, but improving and evolving, economy and society is daunting.
Each one of these topics impacts the others. For example, changing a product or service may require adjustments or changes to the mix of suppliers and logistics, and may even influence decisions to perform tasks in-house or outside. Changing products or services, and potentially the tasks requiring workers to perform them, will determine what skills incumbent and new workers will need. It will require a reassessment of current worker selection practices, core skill development and task-related training. Most operations should consider to:
click here to expandThinking Past the Assessment – Unfinished Goals and Unrealized Expectations
by Stacey Lett, Regional Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
Literally speaking, an “assessment” is the process of measuring the value, quality and/or quantity of something. There are many types of assessments, and methods for assessing. In theory, it is the process of evaluating one thing against a set of criteria to determine the match/mismatch.
There are assessments for risk, for taxes, vulnerability. There are psychological, health, and political assessments. There is a group of educational assessments that measure a variety of outcomes such as educational attainment – assessments of course content mastery, assessment of grade level attainment, assessments of Scholastic Aptitude Tests (“SAT”) that compare a student to their peers nationally and a variety of college readiness exams.
click here to expandPairing Structured On-the-Job Training with Related Technical Instruction Just Makes Sense
by Frank Gibson, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center
I have for worked with educational institutions for many years, trying to reach out to employers with the latest and best courses and seminars they had. It is what we did with good intentions, but in many cases this was a difficult sale at best. Their products were often already built…before they precisely knew the needs of the employer. If the employer engaged them for our services, when delivered it was more of an underwhelming experience for the customer than I felt comfortable with. Often it didn’t lead to follow-on work.
An employer’s operation is driven by accounting for the bottom line. Accountants are quick to dismiss core and technical instruction as a cost. That is what they were taught in college, and truthfully there is no evidence that attending a course improves work performance in most cases. Sadly, that level of “job relevance” or content validity was considered less important than the power of the institution’s name that was promoting the products or services.
click here to expandReplicating Your Best Performers
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
One project I was involved with sought to establish a structured on-the-job training program for a “CNC Operator” position and establish an apprenticeship. It consisted of around 40 different machines; manual and NC-operated of several brands, controller types and purposes. When I analyze a job – task by task – I first contact the resident “subject matter expert.” It is my experience that in lieu of accurate standard process documents that everyone can use when assigned a machine, each operator keeps their own setup and operation notes. They are usually reluctant to share them.
As analysts, we assume that if the subject matter expert is assigned to us, it is a reflection of management’s confidence in the operator’s consistently high level of performance. We also learn a lot about the sub-culture that has arisen at the organization, bordering on “work performance anarchy.” Despite the connotations, this is a useful revelation. This lack of vital information sharing that has been going on can be eliminated. The collective wealth of task-specific information can be screened, validated, standardized and revision-controlled to be shared with all who are asked to perform the tasks.
click here to expandRead the full March, 2022 Proactive Technologies Report newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
Proactive Technologies, Inc.®; PROTECH; Human Resource Management for Tomorrow...Today!® and logo; br>Accelerated Transfer of Expertise System™; Certificate of Job Mastery Program™, Certificate of Task Mastery Program™ are all trademarks of Proactive Technologies Inc.®;