From time immemorial man has discussed whether prior experience is a guarantee of future results from an employee. There are ever many factors involved in ‘guess-timating’ their potential for success, but the one that I continually come back to is “In what context will they be a success? What are your criteria??
To be sure, those criteria can be many or few, but again, even those depend on the situation you find yourself in. Toyota Lift of Minnesota makes an excellent point “regarding the validity or value of training received by a company’s new or potential employee if that employee wasn’t trained by his soon to be employer.” They speak to the idea that an employee needs to be trained in the environment in which they will work by their new/current employer. Just have forklift training does not mean they employee will be either safe or competent until we see how they operate in their new or natural environment.
This goes beyond just safety though. This idea that “They were good over there so they will be good over here.” is, pure and simple, hogwash. I can give you countless examples of highly productive people being lured to greener pastures and failing miserably.
Here are some of the factors that are involved:
- Changes in corporate culture - even the old company was similar it takes the employee time to be certain of this. In reality no two corporate cultures are alike.
- Changes in physical environment – using forklifts as an example, there is a huge difference between being outside in a pipe yard and inside a working warehouse open to the public.
- Here’s a biggy for me – Changes in MENTAL environment. I refer here to the time it takes to make actions and reactions quicker and more automatic. This happens through repetition and causes, literally, a shift in the area of the brain in use. Why do you think the military and law enforcement use mock-ups whenever possible before conducting operations? To train the operator’s brain to do things automatically by not having to deal with too much new information.
What to do about this?
- Stop and think about the shift in the environment for a new employee.
- What are the physical and mental challenges associated with the new environment?
- How long will it take them to get on top of the that initial learning curve?
- How will you support them to achieve that?
Anyway, here is an OSHA Consultation letter on Toyota’s site that speaks to their point of view on training as well. By the way, look who they hold responsible in the letter.
Kudo’s to TLM for recognizing this as an area for improvement.
If you want help as a manager or to support a manager or supervisor, we should talk. Call me at 925.757.7473 or contact me here.
Bart Gragg
Blue Collar University® – It’s What’s Above The Collar That Counts!
New manager and supervisor training and orientation programs.
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