How Start-Ups and Joint Ventures Can Benefit From Structured On-The-Job Training

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

A article in a previous issue of the Proactive Technologies Report entitled “Enterprise Expansion/Contraction and Worker Development Standardization” explained the process of standardizing training for expanding, contracting, merging and acquiring enterprises. It discussed how to take inventory of incumbents and new-hires in training, and how to standardize multiple worker development strategies. But what about standardizing tasks that are in design, have just been designed or are evolving in their design? Or the importance of this component in creating an enterprise to perform the tasks meant to lead to profit from an innovation? If the goal is the repeatable high-quality performance of tasks once they have been formalized, then standardizing and documenting the procedural steps is necessary, though often an afterthought.

Entrepreneurs and engineers that design and fine-tune a production process or service strategy are immersed in it until they feel confident it is ready for scaling. Whether through “expert bias” – the overconfidence that results with satisfaction in discovery leading to the opinion that everyone should understand their innovation – or through mere oversight, a brilliant idea can fail in proliferation during efforts to transfer the processes and techniques without a formal structure.

The solution is simple. It takes an understanding that a structure to transfer the standardized task from the expert to the task performer is vital to ensuring that all aspects of the innovation are maintained and repeatability of the highest quality of performance is certain.

When standardizing best practices, the process Proactive Technologies follows to establish any task-based, structured on-the-job training program is the same for existing, evolving and newly released production or service processes. Repeatability of process is just as important for any stage and type of enterprise. Start-ups and joint venture programs are even more vulnerable to failures in accurately transferring the procedural certainty needed for repeatability. A delay in transfer, or failure to completely transfer, of innovative processes can lead to the abandonment of potentially successful products or services when start-up funding evaporates.

The element of time is important. Structured on the job training ensures that the user of innovation starts to receive the accelerated, structured on-the-job training the minute the innovation is available for use or, ideally, prior to release – not months, maybe years after deployment. It also builds a structure upon which to expand tasks, redefine tasks through user application, and supports ISO/IATF/AS quality programs should compliance with one or more of the these become a requirement.

Furthermore, as the start-up or joint venture hires more workers as it expands, providing the accelerated, structured on-the-job training ensures that bottlenecks are not created when hiring workers with no one to train them or no training materials available to help. Maintaining momentum is critical to grabbing a share of a market, maintaining it and expanding while competitors plan how they can jump in and battle for a share. 

If you would like to know how this approach might work at your firm, and how a pilot project may be the best way to introduce this approach to your organization, contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can 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.