A Training Approach That Should Make the 
Bean Counters Happy
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc
Whether out of deference or lack of awareness, it is an unspoken truth that more and more employers have been neglecting their role in worker development lately. Investments in related technical instruction are being pushed to the back burner by ever growing emphasis on meeting quarterly numbers; the push for greater output and profits to meet shareholder expectations which seems to perpetually increase. Classes and online content have always been seen by accounting as costs that can be put-off for a later date that, now, never seems to come.
The more important structured on-the-job training (the transfer of task best practice and expertise) is squeezed in if and when time allows (which is in short supply) by whoever is available – this in an age of Lean and continuous improvement. If employers are waiting for someone else to train their workers to 100% mastery of their unique tasks, on their unique equipment for their unique processes, well that is just wishful thinking.
click here to expand
The contradictions are alarming, and many times middle managers and upper management of corporate-run or private equity managed enterprises are caught in the middle. They know the risks of neglecting training and they see the results first-hand, but have little say in the matter or are afraid of getting caught up in a “cost v. benefit” discussion with people that seem to live in a different world and have made up their mind before the discussion begins. When capacity deteriorates or the siren’s call of cheaper labor markets prevails, someone makes the decision to move the entire operation to a location where training is even more difficult but can be absorbed due to offsetting wage discounts – that is until wages rise and total cost of ownenership is understood.
“The decision to not invest in driving each employee to full job mastery – making sure all company employees have mastered the best practice of every task for which they were hired – is akin to deciding to buy a Corvette in your middle-years to impress your friends then skimping on the gas to drive it. The return on the investment is not realized, so it starts to look like pure cost. Magnify this by tens or hundreds of employees and there is no doubt of the folly.”
If employers do decide to host related technical instruction, they tend to gravitate toward classroom or online training solutions since they seem more familiar. They settle on local institutional instruction providers and private vendors by finding what they think is a close fit, yet they and the end-users are often underwhelmed by out-of-date or unrelated content that weakens their credibility and makes them reluctant to ask for permission to host another. It has always been difficult to show how related technical instruction and courses “du jour” translated into improvement in a worker’s performance – expressed by the attendees and those who sent them through the class.
Employers are buoyed by the belief that on-the-job, task-based training seems to be going on in one form or another all around them – even if they cannot explain it, measure it, document it and improve it. To a degree they are right; work gets done and products and services reach the customer. In an age of tight budgets and cynical accountants and shareholders, getting it wrong again is not an option. So the temptation is to accept this reality as the only choice, not ask for additional resources (from individuals who discourage the mere request) to maximize worker potential and, in doing so, the bottom line.
If designed and implemented right, structured on-the-job training, especially Proactive Technologies’ accelerated transfer of expertise™, is the easiest to justify by ease of implementation, by the potential increase in worker capacity, work quality and quantity, by the effortless increase in compliance with ISO/AS/TS and OSHA, by the measurable and documented return on worker investment and by the declining cost per trainee.
A structured on-the-job training infrastructure is easier to set up and implement than might by thought if done right. Many of the components are already there, so structuring the unstructured builds on what is familiar and useful. If ad hoc and informal on-the-job training was going on anyway, then structuring it to make it more accurate, efficient and purposeful has to be a return on investment from the “get-go.” Having structure to accelerate, document, measure and improve the transfer of worker expertise adds to the returns. Providing documentation to support compliance with ISO/AS./TS quality programs and OSHA mitigates the risk of noncompliance and litigation – even more return. And if you have similar job classifications across multiple locations, the returns due to “customized standardization” escalate.
If you want to have a better shot at pitching to management and accountants why training will have a better outcome this time, what deficiencies it will address and what returns on investment can be expected, then seriously consider the structured on-the-job training, systems approach. Discussing academic theory to hardened managers has become very difficult since many have turned out to be just that; academic theory. Drilling down on real-world examples of waste and under-utilization of workers with a solution that seems directly suited to affect this has a better chance for a successful decision and outcomes that reinforce the choice made.
Michael Collins wrote about it in an article in IndustryWeek entitled “How Financialization Is Starving Manufacturing” that short-termism has made manufacturing companies focus an inordinate amount of time, attention and resources on immediate gains at the expense of long-term, sustainable growth. This applies to worker development, too. Read More
Increasing Worker Capacity – An Alternative to Cutting 
Workers for Short-term Cost Savings
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.
In business, if you encounter market “softness” and believe that the business level that you were previously operating at is now unattainable for a limited period, you might first find cost cuts that do not erode the business capacity once held in case your, or the pundit’s, forecast was wrong or the recovery is swifter than anticipated. Sometimes investments are made in machinery and technology during the lulls to get ready for the economic up-turn, but too rarely is any effort made to determine the level of each worker’s current capacity (i.e. what percent of the tasks they were hired to “expertly” perform) relative to the job they are currently in and what could be done to increase it to handle not only existing technology and processes, but the new technology and processes as well. One might even think about cross-training workers to build “reserve capacity.”
Too often, in this age where every quarterly report has to be as good or better than the one before – actually earnings per share – even if the economy currently doesn’t allow it, well-run businesses are pressured to cut into the bone; driving down wages, cutting benefits and ultimately eliminating workers. Investment in new technology isn’t permitted. It doesn’t take an accounting genius to make sweeping, ill-informed cuts, but it does take a pretty savvy leader to pick up the pieces after this mistakes have been made.
click here to expand
“That is the one point missed in all of the cuts to wages, benefits and staff; the first wave affects those who have no choice, the second wave affects the company as those with choice exercise it.”
When the economy recovers and the company stumbles in regaining its capacity, heads roll, more cuts are made and finally the investors pull out – leaving the previously well-run company impaired or near collapse. No good has come from this, and why it is allowed to continue makes no sense – except that it takes little thought to order, gives Wall Street the appearance of something good happening and something to report. That is why stocks rise when layoffs are announced – even in the face of predictable long-term effects of what the cost cutting means. That and the media’s cheering section that naively extols a short-term bump that may turn into a long-term fumble.
Worker capacity will be needed once the economy resumes, and the prudent businessman would not want to miss the recovery while spending too much time rebuilding the organizational capacity, part of which is finding “talent” to the replace the ones encouraged to leave and part trying to encourage the ones currently employed to stay. Additionally overlooked, employee and management morale suffers during wholesale cuts and irrational cost-cutting acts. The workers needed to sustain a recovery and regain market share are affected by what they see happening around them, and those most talented keep one eye on the door because they have the skills other employers might appreciate and always have the option to leave. That is the one point missed in all of the cuts to wages, benefits and staff; the first wave affects those who have no choice, the second wave affects the company as those with choice exercise it.
An alternative to knee-jerk cuts to workers is to assess each worker’s capacity (i.e. what percentage of the tasks of the job they have had a chance to learn and master), then use business “lulls” to raise it to full job mastery. Read More
10 Reasons Structured On-The-Job Training is a Vital and Necessary System for Any Organization
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.
There are many reasons a deliberate, structured on-the-job training system should be a priority consideration for any employer. For decades employers have felt that having an employee take a few classes here and a few online modules there translates directly to improved worker output and performance. But for decades, as well, employers have continued to talk about a continually increasing “skills gap.” Connection? Obviously yes.
“Employers expend enormous resources – time, effort, dollars – on efforts to improve efficiencies…in some cases without making an appreciable difference or reaching the intended goals.”
click here to expand
A deliberate and documented system to develop workers and maximize the return on worker investment should be a “no-brainer.” Employers expend enormous resources – time, effort, dollars – on efforts to improve efficiencies…in some cases without making an appreciable difference or reaching the intended goals. But rather than a philosophical discussion comparing approaches to training, I thought it might be beneficial to just offer symptoms of failed approaches and reasons why any employer should think more seriously about the state of their internal training infrastructure. According to a Training Magazine article entitled, ” Bridging the Skills Gap” by Lorri Freifeld, these revealing points were extracted:
- 49 percent of U.S. employers are experiencing difficulty filling mission-critical positions within their organizations. (ManpowerGroup’s seventh annual Talent Shortage Survey; 1,300 U.S. employers surveyed; positions most difficult to fill: skilled trades, engineers, and IT staff)
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.
The main steps used to build an employer-based structured workforce development system starts with understanding the desired outcome first:
click here to expand
______________________________________________________________
“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?”
______________________________________________________________
- Determine the Employer’s Need and Agree on Strategy: How has the client been (or not been) training workers until now; what are the current and projected staffing levels for incumbents and new-hires along with attrition rate and reassignments; is the culture supportive of training workers and see it as vital to competitiveness; are any task-based documents available and are they in use (e.g. work processes, quality standards, safety standards); which jobs are targeted and why; is the company following any quality mandates, such as ISO/TS/AS and do they have any quality programs underway such as LEAN, Six Sigma; what is the budget for setting up the structured on-the-job training program and implementation. A strategy encompassing all of these points is prepared for the employer before an agreement and timetable is confirmed. Read More
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.®;