Last month's issue of Proactive Technologies Report’s Part 1 of “Costs Associated With Unstructured, Haphazard Worker Training,” offered a number of examples of unstructured, haphazard and ineffective worker training that I experienced in my early years in manufacturing. We all have had similar experiences throughout our lives to draw on, I am sure. It is still perplexing that - in view of all of the advanced systems, process controls and metrics that keep an enterprise operating competitively - management would assume that such a “hands-off” approach to developing the critical worker component wouldn’t detract from the other metrics. Why would management expect anything more than skeptical results?

"New equipment that leads to decreased output, more workers added but productivity and capacity falling, or more workers producing product but most of it going into the scrap or rework bin. All of these counter-intuitive outcomes - signs of inadequate or non-existent task-based training - will eventually grab upper management’s attention!"

Until the processes associated with the new equipment and technology are stabilized for maximum efficiency, learning of the processes - from the each worker’s perspective - is seen as fluid and ambiguous. Even if a noble effort is attempted to indoctrinate the worker in the use of the equipment, the erosion of the worker’s skill base compared to the evolving standard practices and technology is ongoing. Multiply one worker’s learning experience times the number of workers needed to operate the equipment – learning the same tasks in different ways on different shifts from different trainers - the direct costs of training, as well as the opportunity costs of under-utilized “worker capacity,” can be enormous. Calculate this cost for every job classification for which task training is needed and the costs can be “attention-getting.” Read More

by Stacey Lett, Regional Director of Operations - Eastern U.S. - Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In my college years, a number of my classmates participated in internships in an effort to gain real-world work skills and experiences, and to be able to add a line to their resumes. Over the years when we compared notes, it seems the results varied from company and by job area. But the common sentiment was that the experiences were not as helpful to building workplace skills and personally fulfilling as they could have been.

According to a NACE ("National Association of Colleges and Employers”) 2015 survey entitled “Internship & Co-op Survey,” “The primary focus of most employers’ internship and co-op programs is to convert students into full-time, entry-level employees (70.8 percent and 62.6 percent, respectively).” So, it appears most employers view internships as a potential recruitment tool and a way of evaluating candidates for employment.

“Shadowing” without being able to touch and interact can be done with a DVD at home. Fetching coffee and making sure the break room is stocked with paper plates and napkins do not test the skills developed after 12 years of educational learning and 2 or 4 years of technical and academic study. Do not get me wrong, those who were paid while interns are appreciative for the opportunity and the resume line. However, they all seemed to wish they could have been able to learn and experience more.

Engineering and accounting areas seem to provide more meaningful task-based internship experiences because both have had a long time to standardize some tasks – even proceduralize them in cases – to make it easy for a new person to follow and observe. Other job areas seem to lack standardization of tasks and, to each observer, seem to be seen and understood very differently.

My experience in helping to build “structured on-the-job training” programs from a detailed job and task analysis caused me to reflect on those internship experiences. The structured On-The-Job Training Plan and On-The-Job Training Checklists binders of a Proactive Technologies program seem to help a new-hire and incumbent worker learn. Therefore it is not a stretch that they would help the intern learn, follow and perform a subset of tasks that can be learned during the internship period. It accelerates the process and provides a more deliberate, documented work experience. Read More

I spent a lot of my career as Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education at community and technical colleges, in several states. Where we could, we tried hard to provide the best core skills development delivery for technical job classifications the employers in our community requested. We often did this working off the limited, and often suspect, job information the employer could provide to us.

Often we were up against budgetary constraints that limited our efforts to customize programs and keep the programs up to date when the instructor was willing to maintain the relevance of the program. If that wasn’t enough, school leadership often showed ambivalence toward adult and career education due in part to the fact that its demand was driven by gyrations in the economy. Furthermore, the institution was built upon, more familiar with and understood better credit courses for the more stable subjects such as math, science, literature, history and the social sciences.

We tried a lot of innovative programs for employers in the community within the constraints mentioned, but if I was to be honest we rarely kept up. What we thought we knew of the targeted job classifications and their requirements, and upon which our programs were built and measured, seemed to become increasingly misaligned within just a few years. Not only was advancing technology putting pressure on the content of our learning materials and program design - a constant push toward obsolescence – the employers were continually rethinking the design of their job classifications to meet their business goals and budgets. We were finding less and less similarity in job classifications between employers, by job title and job content.

Inevitably, and not from lack of effort or desire, it was difficult to keep technical curriculum current to within 5-10 years. The “Maintenance” job classification was a perfect example and could be incredibly different from company to company. In the early days, Maintenance was thought of as multi-craft; a maintenance person was responsible for maintaining all aspects of the operation. Some companies tried to hold onto that concept of Multi-Craft Maintenance but, as Multi-Craft Maintenance Technicians were becoming harder to find and therefore required higher pay, more and more companies began to deviate from multi-craft to specialty and single-craft positions that cover only limited areas such as facilities, electrical or mechanical. Some Maintenance positions did not include HVAC, some were primarily focused on servicing machines but not repair. Some employers subcontracted out facility maintenance and instead had their Maintenance employees perform preventative maintenance tasks on everything from manual machines to PLC driven multi-axis machines, to robots and robotic manufacturing machines – leaving the servicing to the warranty and/or contracted OEM experts. Read More

This perpetual labor volatility is more unique to the United States than to other developed economies. European government and business policies facilitate workforce development efforts based on more accurately predicted labor needs. Economic policies have a purposeful affect on the corporations that thrive, and toward workers and the available jobs today and those to come. Students are exposed to career opportunities starting in grade school which leads to focused interest by middle school school, leading to paid vocational training and apprenticeships before leaving high school. For those wanting to continue college in their chosen profession, apprenticeship training is coordinated with academic learning to promote growth in each and time in both to reinforce each effort.

It is much different here. The U.S. does not believe in long-term planning for the greater good. Many like to believe that this driven by a policy of laissez faire or “let it be” or “let it go.” Other economists claim that this is not a policy as much as it is neglect. Still others see this version of laissez-faire as very selective and that the government does intervene to the betterment of some individuals, companies, and industries to the detriment of others. Read More

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