Structured On-The-Job Training for Non-Manufacturing Job Classifications

Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

Although the PROTECH© system of managed human resource development was designed for manufacturing and there has extensively proven its effectiveness, the approach is just as effective for jobs in any industry, and level of the organization. Proactive Technologies, Inc.’s job/task analysis methodology is rooted in those used by the U. S. Departments of Defense and Energy – modified for use in the private-sector world with private-sector budgets and time constraints. The development and use of the job data is based on those practices that seemed to be working in human resource management, human resource development, technical writing, quality control and workforce development – modernized to an ever-changing and challenging world.

When it comes to the analysis of the job, which is the center of all instruments and activities developed from it, the common factor of all work is that it can be defined in discrete units called “tasks.” Nobody is ever hired and expected to be very knowledgeable about a subject, or be very aware, or be strong. These attributes do not become useful until applied in the performance of a meaningful recognizable unit of work. If correct performance of the task, the “best practice,” requires these attributes as either a necessary to learning to perform the task or needed in the performance of the task, they become prerequisite, but not the outcome.

Every job classification can be broken into its duties (groups of related tasks), tasks and subtasks. That is where performance is measured and it should be the outcome that is detected and improved. There are individuals who cannot conceptualize this relationship and say something like, “my job is too complicated, it cannot be defined because I am asked to do so many things.” Once they are walked through how they think their way through a series of steps to get to an outcome, they are usually converted. If the analyst cannot get a handle on a job classification, perhaps there really isn’t an underlying job.

Each task and subtask has beginning point and an ending point and a series of steps between called “elements,” process steps” or “procedural steps” that must be performed correctly, in the right order and meeting specifications to get the right, repeatable outcome.

For example, consider the task called “Make a copy” using the company’s copy machine. Who doesn’t know how to make a copy, right? But have you ever walked by the copy room and seen grown men and women standing in front of the copy machine for several minutes with a confused look on their face? What happened to the old copy machine? This one has a different control panel and I, eh hem they, cannot find the damn copy button. They have made copies all of their life, so they obviously have the knowledge and skills, but it looks as though not the process for making a copy on this new and different machine. How many more routine tasks have been changed out from under the employees and what is the cumulative cost to the company for people to self-teach themselves to use the new technology alone? Even a task such as making a copy, though mundane, is important and has a right and wrong way to perform it.

What about a lodging job classification called Front Desk Clerk, and the task “Check in the Guest?” In the mid-1990s, Proactive Technologies provided the technical consultants to analyze 8 hospitality job classifications – 4 from lodging and 4 were from restaurants – under a grant to the Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (“CHRIE”) from the US Department of Labor. The project was to job/task analyze key positions at high-performing small, medium and large properties throughout the United States to develop National Skill Standards. These standards would be used to legitimize the job classifications and provide guidance for training and certification programs. The difference between high- and low-performing properties when it came to “checking in the guest” was how the task steps were defined and how each worker was trained to meet and exceed the standard.

As Proactive Technologies staff found out during the analysis, what distinguished the high from low performing properties in these hospitality industries, these job classifications (no different from manufacturing) was how effectively all task procedural steps were defined to high standard “best practices” to accomplish the desired outcome and how well that was conveyed to each worker. Later this project was articulated to include retail and grocery job classifications in New Jersey.

Another project involved programming job classifications at a major bank chain for their ATM-based products. Other projects included job classifications in the prison system, control room operation at a major brewery, swine farm management for a commercial farming business, medical laboratory specialist job classification at a hospital medical lab, shipping/receiving operator at many distribution facilities, commercial web press operator at a popcorn manufacturing facility, and on and on. Other than possible transferable core skills and abilities, these job classifications have little in common. However, in each case we used the same job/task analysis process to define the job classification and the same structured on-the-job training approach for the “accelerated transfer of expertise™” to develop workers.

Within a job classification there are endless variations. Proactive Technologies always analyze a job classification from scratch so that we do not bring inaccurate assumptions of the job’s requirement into the analysis. For example, the CNC Machinist job classification can be incredibly different from company to company. One might focus on one type of lathe and limited brands of controllers. Another might focus on multi-axis lathes and many types and brands of controllers. Another might focus only of various multi-axis mills and many different controllers, and yet another might require performance on a combination of manual machines, different types of mills and lathes and a range of controllers. One would not be able to gather that from the job title.

We have applied this approach effectively to crew leader positions, first line supervisor positions, manager positions and executive positions. While tasks at the production level might be more detailed in procedural steps and specification driven, tasks at the management level might have less steps but more reliance on a range of “KSAs” (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities). That is the primary difference.

This structure supports ISO quality certification programs for companies wanting to export, AS quality programs for aerospace manufacturers and suppliers, TS quality programs for automobile manufacturers and suppliers, and other industry or customer-imposed quality requirements affecting hospitality, healthcare, financial services and others. Ensuring that employees performing the work are properly trained, documented and certified is key to ensuring repetitive high levels of quality performance.

The primary point being made is that analyzing a job classification from the bottom up each time allows any job, in any industry and to any level of the organization to be broken down into its tasks, subtasks, elements and core requirements for more deliberate training and easier learning. Just because no one has bothered to job/task analyze a job classification to this level at an organization doesn’t mean it couldn’t be, or shouldn’t be.