Worker Capacity; Malperformance Cause-Effect

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

How often do we stop and ask ourselves why a worker is malperforming, under-performing or over-achieving? My guess is far too infrequently. Perhaps it is because of the hectic world we live in, with little time to study things deeper or explore an event closer. Perhaps because some of us feel helpless to do anything to correct it or exploit it (in the case of the over-performer) so we leave it alone. Perhaps the internal experts we rely on for answers lack the proper training themselves (in training program development, implementation, performance measurement) to be helpful.

However, so much of what separates a high performing company from a mediocre or failing company depends on the collective effectiveness of the workforce. And the underlying desire to correct bad task performance, and proactively develop and maintain good task performance to replicate star performers, seems common, logical and ubiquitous.

Generally speaking, when we troubleshoot an error in performance, we would like to get to the cause, such as “operator error,” “equipment malfunction,” or “flawed material.” But this is more like isolating the area in which the error happened. We can troubleshoot a machine or send material to the lab for testing, but often the analytical “tools” to dive deeper into the human factor are lacking or inadequate, and the will of management to devote the time soft. The notion of worker “capacity” is a very useful tool that can help a company be proactive in preventing most of the common employee-related errors.

According to the Business Dictionary, “capacity” (in a manufacturing sense) is defined as, “Highest sustainable output rate (maximum number of units per month, quarter, or year) that can be achieved with current resources, maintenance strategies, product specifications, etc.” This is fairly easy to relate to a piece of machinery, a department, or a company. But when applied to a single worker, some loose variables that apply broadly need to be tightened to be useful.

There are several ways a worker can learn to perform. The operator can go through general motions that they saw someone else perform. They can take in the raw information they discover, or are presented, and formulate their own process. These are the most common. Deliberate task-based training is often spotty or non-existent, and is easy to explain away if the infrastructure and tools aren’t in place. On the other hand, structured on-the-job training deliberately trains each worker to perform each task as the resident experts conceived it, repeating the same level of quantity and quality once the task is mastered.

It is the basis of apprenticeships and has survived for centuries. Today, it is considered more of an inconvenience to be avoided and an investment whose value is grossly misunderstood. In today’s world deliberate one-on-one training is marginalized to the status of a guilty pleasure rather than part of a business strategy as it should be. A simplistic, but good, analogy from the IT world is appropriate when “programming” masterful work performance in a worker; “junk in, junk out.”

Applying the concept of capacity to a employee, “worker capacity” can be more narrowly defined as “the number of required tasks (for the assigned job classification) a worker has mastered and can perform to mastery when called upon.” This is a very high bar of performance. It assumes each task is defined accurately, that a structured, formal effort is made to train the worker to perform the task as defined, records are kept memorializing when mastery is reached and that efforts are made to update the worker, when the task changes, to maintain mastery. If you notice, this is in line with the work process training requirement of ISO/AS/IATF quality programs.

For a machine, the manufacturer documents the expected capacity so the purchaser can estimate what the output range should be when utilized. If the owner needs more output from the machine, adjustments are made to increase output to the desired level, stopping short of the maximum capacity the machine is capable to avoid expediting the degradation of the machine. In this case, every output from the machine is expected to be within specification.

For workers, it is similar but with important differences. If a job is made up of 100 unique tasks, and it is the desire of the employer that the worker be able to perform all of them (the assumption is made that the tasks are performed correctly), this sets the upper limit. In order for a worker to perform one task correctly, a subject matter expert (resident star performer) has to take the time to show them how to perform the task correctly, supervise the trainee through practice, and acknowledge when the worker has reached independent, mastery performance of the task.

This has to be repeated for each task of the job if the worker is to be developed correctly. When the worker has mastered 50 of the 100 tasks, it is said the worker is at “50% capacity” – a reasonable assumption. Unlike a machine, in order to increase a worker’s capacity, the effort to deliberately train them has to be made. But as a worker adds mastered tasks to their portfolio, they are documenting their increasing value to the employer.

Furthermore, the average of a department’s or work cell’s aggregate worker capacity can be a useful measure to determine how that department is doing in developing its workers to job mastery in a world of change. Likewise, worker capacity can be measured across the entire company (for the participating job classifications) to express the entire capacity of the organization. These measures help in planning whether new workers are needed to increase overall capacity or does the organization have capacity yet to be developed.

The operative words here are “structured on-the-job training…”“to deliberately train…,” “mastery performance,” and “documented mastery.” Anything short diminishes the development of worker capacity and discredits the effort. Unfortunately, anything short is what exists in most, if not all, organizations. Employers do not setup to incorrectly train workers, or not train workers. I think most hope workers would come to the job like a full tank of gas. But it has never, and will never, happen that way. Institutional education and core skill classes are good for developing the base for task-based training, but not a substitute.

For some, the thought of a deliberate, structured on-the-job training might seem daunting and – even though unstructured, ad hoc and informal training is going on all of the time for each worker. Which would be least costly, most effective? Structured on-the-job training that steadily and quickly increases worker capacity or information training that may or may not improve it?

This quandary presents a problem when trying to troubleshoot the human factor in an event of “incorrect outcome.” Assuming that we have isolated the equipment and materials from the list of possible suspects, we can say it must be the worker if we have a “preponderance of evidence.” Yet if we are correct, it still does not tell us anything about why the worker malperformed. Some examples of worker under-capacity, causes and corrective action might be helpful in understanding the connection to worker performance.

Although this chart deals with the case of an isolated task, it shouldn’t be hard to expand that that to the entire job. For example, in cases of “inconsistent tasks quantity”(across the job tasks), the potential causes are similar. If an employer doesn’t have a deliberate structured on-the-job training program for one task, they probably do not for all tasks for all jobs, or any jobs for that matter.

Without a structured on-the-job training infrastructure for each critical job, troubleshooting the human factor is nearly impossible to the level where credible corrective action can be taken. There are too many variables without isolating the obvious (e.g. has any one deliberately trained the worker on the task, witnessed mastery performance and took the time to document it)?

Once management has documented proof that a worker has been trained on a task, has mastered the task, was signed off on the task after a subject matter expert witnessed the mastery performance of the task, then troubleshooting of why a worker malperformed is easier, and more factually black and white. A troubleshooter can focus on questions for which answers will be found:

1. Was the worker trained properly?
2. Was the trainer competent on the task enough to train?
3. Was the process engineered correctly?
4. Had the process changed recently and the worker not notified?
5. Were the worker skills current and fresh (i.e. how much time elapsed since last performance of that task?
6. Was the machine operating correctly?
7. Was there anything that could have keep the operator from performing the task correctly?

These are questions that elicit a fairly straight-forward yes/no response. However, if the underlying question of “was the worker deliberately trained on the task” cannot be adequately answered, these questions really are irrelevant.

If management tries to assign accountability without proper evidence, it might become a question of management’s version against the employee’s. “Well, that is the way I was shown to perform the task,” is a common response, but one for which the challenge is just a flimsy, “No you were not.” This is not very conducive of a corrective action for an organization that is run tightly by systems and empirical evidence. This inherent conflict diminishes the credibility of other efforts of the organization, as well, which are painted with the same brush when the worker’s perception of the assignment of blame is unfair and incorrect.

The bottom line for any organization is if you want high worker capacity and performance quality, and assurance that this is consistent across all job classifications and all workers, you have to develop, document and manage it yourself. If you want to improve this and perform corrective action on it in cases of an incident of inferior quality or unsafe performance, you have to have a structure in place and make the effort to use it. Otherwise, there is nothing to measure, nothing to correct, nothing to improve.

Proactive Technologies, Inc. and its PROTECH© system of managed human resource development creates for the employer-client the infrastructure to develop each worker to their fullest – one task at a time – and manage each worker for job changes and growth. It keeps the focus on developing the worker for the employer’s precise need. The approach provides the metrics to measure progress and quickly identify anomalies, potentials for error to prevent them, and a path to take accurate corrective action if something slips through the cracks.

The approach provides for the accelerated transfer of expertise™  for both incumbent workers and new-hires. Check out Proactive Technologies’ website and contact a representative for more information.