Workforce Development Realism: Properly Weighing Structured On-The-Job Training and Related Technical Instruction

by Frank Gibson, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

With all the distractions caused by COVID-19 pandemic, employers and workforce developers are being forced to reevaluate what they thought were effective workforce development strategies. Work is being redefined, jobs are being redefined, and people are being reassigned to adjust to changing supply chain requirements and to the new realities of work. Unlike any time in history, except perhaps the Crash of 2008 and the Great Depression of 1929, have employers been required to expedite such mass reconsideration of its human assets – all while under a national health threat.

Prior to this pandemic, adult and continuing education was pretty settled in their approaches to training workers for today’s work. Classes and certificates were linked to what they believed were today’s realities, But the paradigm shifted with no indication yet that things will entirely return to that “normal.” Not only are educational institutions redefining themselves, their products and services, and their delivery methods, they are doing so while employers are in the process of redefining themselves to their new operational needs. Both transformations are impacting not only trainees who were currently taking related technical instruction classes at a community college in preparation for employment, what the employer does once they hire the individual in many cases is less defined now then it was poorly defined prior. In short, this is a period of flying blind to a moving target.

When Education encounters disruptions such as covid-19, institutions shut down, instructors wait at home, training providers are sidelined, and some of these even move on if the opportunity arises. Yet their employer – many left open as essential industries – are continuing to employ, informally train incumbent, new and transferring workers. Those employers that invested in a structured on-the-job training infrastructure were able to adapt and minimize the impact. Even those without a formal structured on-the-job training system were better positioned to continue to deliver training (albeit informal and ad hoc) compared to educational institutions and providers that were essentially shut down waiting for the green light on when and how to reopen.

There is clear role for related technical instruction in workforce development, which is to build essential core skills and competencies in trainees so they can learn and master the tasks the employer needs done. But if the employer has a structured on-the-job training infrastructure in place, not only can they accept more prepared candidates they can quickly drive them and incumbent workers to sustained maximum capacity. Even better, they can keep the worker development process going while they wait for their related technical instruction partners to redefine themselves and recover. Employers have the facilities, the equipment, the subject matter experts and the need, so to allow them to be reluctant or timid workforce development partners when they would like to be more aggressive is an unfortunate mistake.

This structured on-the-job training model builds the framework to host internships with task-specific training, and apprenticeships of traditional and non-traditional job classifications – without the bureaucratic headaches associated with apprenticeships of the past, nor the heavy costs of hosting when the return on investment was hard to predict or explain. These internships and apprenticeships are built around the employer’s reality and the outcomes easier to control, and workers receive these credentials in the normal course of their employer-based training. The employer can select related technical instruction from local providers with a high level of confidence of the job-relatedness. Employers and employees will be more willing to support and protect a worker development delivery system that they built.

This model starts by clearly defining the employer’s job tasks for which the employee was hired. Even if the work processes are evolving as is the case for many employers today,  it is still possible to capture the tasks, define the best practice, from that extract the core skills and abilities and competency requirements, so that they might be passed to the educational providers in the area to not only prepare future workers for employment but to remediate needed skills that may be hinged to the evolving tasks. This environment requires better sharing of information now more than ever if we are to get past the troubling conditions placed on us by this unforeseen pandemic or whatever the next disruption might be.

Educational institutions, when they stabilize in both staffing, operations, and delivery methods, hopefully will continue to have an important role in developing workers as they should. But they have to be more accurate, more accommodating to the employer’s needs, and more responsive then they were able to be in the past to be part of the worker development strategies of the future. Freeing themselves of the notion that they are the sole providers of workforce development supplies and services will allow them to adapt more freely along with employers to remain an important partner, with a larger role and footprint, in workforce development.

If educational institutions were honest with themselves., they would have to say that as much that has been said and done to project the image of an institution as having all of the answers, they continue to play a minor role in workforce development once an employee is hired. Tightening up the engagement is possible but only if accuracy can be guaranteed. Employers no longer have the resources, inclination and internal support “to try this” or ”try that” or have people attend classes where the job relevancy cannot be clearly explained or the cost justified.

It is vital that employers seriously consider something like what Proactive Technologies has been promoting since 1986. Proactive Technologies PROTECH system of managed human resource development^TM establishes an infrastructure that captures all the tasks and all re-corresponding skill, ability, competency, safety and other requirements for today’s job classification for the accelerated transfer of this expertise to new-hire workers, incumbent workers, temporary workers and reassigned workers. Those employers that have this infrastructure in place are finding out that transitioning to new realities of work, new products and services, new marketing and supply chain requirements, is much faster, simpler, more effective, less costly in terms of investment and opportunity cost while easily supporting compliance with ISO/IATF/AS and OSHA requirements. This approach also facilitates the continuity necessary to sustain and maintain a viable business enterprise.

For information on the Proactive Technologies hybrid models of workforce development and projects in which they have, and are, successfully participating, visit their website. Feel free to contact them to learn more about how their products and services can help employers, and help employers partner with educational institutions to, improve the workforce development process.

Learn more about Frank Gibson. If you recognize these challenges and have shed your fear of even looking at 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.