Education vs. Training - Training effectiveness program

[Crash Not]

How are other organizations handling this type of "training"? Are you monitoring the effectiveness of these educational sessions as well?

We have a training file for every employee. If/when we have a shop meeting, the date and topics covered are recorded in their training file. An attendance sheet is circulated and signed by all present. An example that would be entered into the file: "ISO awareness training, 10/7/08". As ISO Mgmt. rep., I keep the attendance sheet and meeting agenda on file.

As far as monitoring the effectiveness: Every employee has an annual reveiw where training is discussed and recorded. Also training is discussed and recorded as an agenda item in all department meetings.

 

[Hanr3]

Effectiveness of training/education is a difficult thing to track in a work environment.
Typically to know if an empoyee improved thier skills/knowledge you will see an improvement in performance, reduction in errors, or improved customer satisfaction (internal as well as external). How you track that can be a nightmare.

We generally monitor it via work station internal audits and track errors. Internal audits will tell you if they have the knowledge, and tracking errors will generally show you thier skills. DO not use error tracking as a tool to beat up the employee, disciplinary action. Once disciplinary action is associated to error tracking you compremise the accuracy of the error tracking. Instead use the error tracking to imrpove the process or provide additional training to the employee. Find out how the error was made and fix the process, then retrain the employees. Beating employees over the head repeatedly only makes them gun shy, doesn't teach them how to correct the problem, nor does it fix a process flaw.

 

[CQA2006]

Thanks for everyone's input! Let me throw another question out. What about education sessions such as annual code of conduct training, conferences (i.e. ASQ Audit Conference) or third party classes (i.e. Career Track or Fred Pryor seminars). Would you track the effectiveness of these as well?

 

[AndyN]

Thanks for everyone's input! Let me throw another question out. What about education sessions such as annual code of conduct training, conferences (i.e. ASQ Audit Conference) or third party classes (i.e. Career Track or Fred Pryor seminars). Would you track the effectiveness of these as well?

Nope - just the skills development. Randy's a bit off base by saying only competencies are required......what you do about building competencies is also required (the standard says taking action, including training) and that's got to be effective.

Educational things such as some of those you've described are just awareness building, job enrichment types of things.

 

[bobdoering]

I like to use pre-test/post-test. It is not the most profound measure of understanding, but it is a measure. More importantly, I have found it to be a key tool in the training. When teaching SPC, for example, I get operators marching in, proclaiming they do not need the training, chock full of attitude. They take the pretest, and they get humbled right off the bat. I tell them that the pretest and post test are the same. It then allows them to focus on the important points of the content. Of course, that means the test has to also contain the important points of the content. So, it ends up being more than just a measurement tool, it is a key facet of the training itself.

I will also note 6.2.2 d): ...ensure that its personnel are aware of the relevance and importance of their activities and how they contribute to the achievement of the quality objectives.

This is actually a very good requirement that has been missed in the past. In automotive, we had people running the machines making product that they thought was "just a screw". Well, it wasn't just a screw, it was a brake part that would kill people if it failed. So, training production operators on the use and importance of the part really is a part of the responsibility of taking an order for that type of product.

Medical and aerospace also typically note that issue. In medical, they showed movies of the device in use. I had to tell them I get it, please turn it off and get me some cold water....

 

[Jen Kirley]

Thanks for everyone's input! Let me throw another question out. What about education sessions such as annual code of conduct training, conferences (i.e. ASQ Audit Conference) or third party classes (i.e. Career Track or Fred Pryor seminars). Would you track the effectiveness of these as well?

Auditing conferences can be linked with specific qualitative improvements in performing auditing. That's usually recorded in employee reviews processes.

Other seminar education classes, such as Crucial Confrontations (such a good course!) can be tracked as effectiveness in work within teams where one person's personal performance can impact the team's outcomes. It's often good for people managing groups and projects, which is harder to track for effectivenss than outcome assessments in production people. Cycle times and rework in projects can be tracked, but reductions in these quantitative outcomes would need to be positively correlated with the manager's new education. In other words, that one thing would generally need to be the only significant difference in what was going on.

There are other ways to get this done, though. Carefully worded surveys can feed back information showing how the manager's new or improved skills helped team members do their tasks more efficiently or accurately, saved money or improved external customer satisfaction, etc.