Training Competency and Effectiveness Documentation

[Greg Mack]

Simple is the way.....

Hi Nav,

This is what I have done.

1. All Job Description 'Responsibilities' area recognised as being the competencies required. After all, if they have a responsibility documented, they need to be competent to perform that task.

2. Each 'Responsibility' will have tick boxes allocated to it. On the left hand side it will be for induction for new employees. On the right hand side there is two - one for 'Competent' and the other for 'Training Required'. These will be assessed at the annual perfromance reviews.

3. A training plan will be compiled from the identified 'Training Required'

4. Training Effectiveness will be evaluated either at perfromance reviews, interviews with the employee or monitoring job perfromance through errors or audits as required.

This is a simple method for us to maintain and still be 'effective' in what we do.

 

[Fire Girl]

Hello

Everyone has a lot of great ideas. But I am curious. Does anybody actually have their certificatio in ISO 9K:2K? I'm just wondering. Plus, has anyone had any experiences with their auditor not approving how they documented competency. That is my concern right now. Some of our technically skilled guys probably know more about, well technial stuff, than most of us, but don't ask them to write a test. I was thinking that performance reviews should be sufficient, plus we monitor NCR's and internal auditing. That satisfies me, but I'm not my registrar.

Any comments?

FG

 

[Nav]

We are planning to continue to use our job descriptions as the basis for competency. They are very comprehensive and layed out to merge well with these new requirements (only by luck not planning). As employees are hired or get promoted/transfered to a new job we are adding to our current training checklists areas that must be demonstrated competencies. These items will be signed by the trainer and the employee. As a final step the shift supervisor or trainer will verify the competency of the individual.

Other measures will be the quality data that is already collected and some new things we are going to be looking to add to the quality process.

In the future we are also going to be adding a piece for employees who only do a task only a couple of times a year, ie: cover a different machine for vacations, etc. There will be a review sheet for the supervisor/trainer to verify competnency in these rare cases.

:thedeal:

 

[Fire Girl]

Anyone care to enlighten me?

Hello

6.2.2 d) ensure that personnel are aware of the relevance and importance of their activities and how they contribute to the achievement of the quality objectives

WHAT? How in the heck do I do that? Is it enough that I explain the big flow chart matrix thing so they see how their job fits into the scheme of things? Am I out in left field here?

Any help would be great!

Thanks.

FG

 

[SteelMaiden]

Fire Girl,

A lot of this requirement as I see it, fits into the "warm and fuzzies" as I see it. Not only pointing out the "here you are in the big flowchart" , I think that managers, supervisors, and of course you can influence this a lot by your culture. The kinds of conversations that remind everyone how they influence all the other functions, their part in customer satisfaction, etc. We keep telling everyone that while we have a sales department that takes the orders, they are the ones who ultimately influence the customer by providing the best product possible.

 

[energy]

Re: Other means

Originally posted by db
But to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken, consider normal Quality indicators; reject/scrap rates, customer complaints, etc. Anything that can distinguish whether someone can do the job, or not might be sufficient. Some of this stuff, you might already be recording. Additional paperwork requirements should be nil.

db,

Devil's advocate time

I like the concept. But, according to most of the learned folks posting here, employee errors are unacceptable excuses for answering CAR's. This acknowledges that it is real and the excuse is real and that additional training is required. No? Do I make up an acceptable response worded like "The operator needs more training in counting parts?" He made an error and it got caught

 

[Marc]

Nice Try!

> I like the concept. But, according to most of the learned
> folks posting here, employee errors are unacceptable
> excuses for answering CAR's. This acknowledges that it is
> real and the excuse is real and that additional training
> is required. No? Do I make up an acceptable response
> worded like "The operator needs more training in counting
> parts?" He made an error and it got caught

I think you're twisting the thread theme / confusing the issue. I think we were discussing employee errors with respect to answering CARs in another recent thread --> https://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4168

This thread is more about Training Competency and related Documentation and proof thereof. With respect to the thread topic I agree with:

> But to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken,
> consider normal Quality indicators; reject/scrap rates,
> customer complaints, etc. Anything that can distinguish
> whether someone can do the job, or not might be
> sufficient. Some of this stuff, you might already be
> recording. Additional paperwork requirements should be
> nil.

and a number of other similar responses.

 

[energy]

Re: Nice Try!

Originally posted by Marc
[BI think you're twisting the thread theme / confusing the issue. I think we were discussing employee errors with respect to answering CARs in another recent thread --> https://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4168
This thread is more about Training Competency and related Documentation and proof thereof. With respect to the thread topic I agree with:
[/B]

Yea, I did stray a bit. But, if an operator can be measured for incompetence by using a CAR, for example, the response may well be "Operator Incompetence". How does that sit with the people that do not like "Operator Error"? He didn't make a mistake. He's just a dolt. Just trying to make sense out of who's the judge between error and incompetence. I must be getting rusty

 

[Fire Girl]

IMHO

I don't think the issue is really being twisted too far. We are still kind of on topic here. It seems that auditors perhaps like the best of both worlds. On one hand they tell us that 'operator error' as a root cause for an NCR or whatever, is unacceptable. And on the other they tell us that we need to document competency. I think the NCR should be quite an obvious red flashing light to the fact that perhaps this operator is incompetent. Which to me spells training issue. I do think that sometimes people have dumbhead moments. I have several a day!

It seems to be that the key to documenting competency is thru a variety of methods. And chances are, that most of us are probably already doing something that qualifies as documentation of competency.

But that's just me.

FG

 

[Nav]

As we go through our evaluation of why a product is not meeting the quality standard set we look at all the aspects. Machines, initial products being used and their quality, and operator factors. If it is determined that it is operator error, then we will "retrain" the person. If the quality does not go up to standards, then the person maybe, "a dolt" . Then we begin or continue the process to correct them or terminate them.

Sometimes the tendency is to take the easy way out and say it's the person and not look for the root cause of the problem. What helps us is that we also look at the quality factors from the machine when other operators are using it. This can drive the quality folks a little crazy . Especially when the error can't be traced back to a particular piece, or fact. But that's the fun of dealing with quality issues.