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.
It doesn’t matter if employees move through different job classifications as a matter of cross-training, the approach provides growth opportunities as well as speeds-up the adjustment of workers to a position that needs being filled or better suits them. Structured on-the-job training, as part of a formal infrastructure, can provide all of this without any disruption in work activity since it is more focused than the informal on-the-job training already accepted as the “best that we have.” In fact, if embraced as part of a company-wide system, the approach can expedite the transfer of expertise from resident job classification experts to new hires and cross trainees – leading to:
- higher returns on worker investment (ROWI), faster
- higher levels of worker capacity
- higher levels of process and safety compliance
- higher levels of worker satisfaction and confidence
Once these economies can be demonstrated, it is easier for an accounting department to see the value and advocate for the programs, as well as defend it when discussions of cutting “costs“ arise. Otherwise, accounting departments are forced to default to the familiar, unfortunately. Laying off workers with documented value is a lot more difficult than random percentage cuts in headcount to lower labor costs, knowing that inevitably long-term viability of the operation will be impacted…and not for the better.
If you recognize these challenges and have shed your fear of even looking for other solutions, check out Proactive Technologies’ structured on-the-job training system approach to see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff. As always, onsite presentations are available as well.
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