A Case Example: Why Try Out Training Materials Before Using?

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for June, 2007

Six employees had just completed writing a training module and cover sheet on how to deliver the correct parts to a warehouse loading area. Their next step was to verify the training module at the work site by having a trainer teach a trainee the task as if it were a real training session. The following day, a trainer, a new trainee, and an observer from the design team who wrote the module went to the work area to test it.

One action step in the training module required the trainee to pick up a heavy carton and transport it to the other side of the building, using a powered hand truck. When the trainee came to this step, she paused for a moment and said, "I've never operated a hand truck before. Should I just skip that part?" It dawned on the trainer that there was no hand truck operation training available in the entire plant. He said, "We always learned what to do by watching someone else." Unfortunately, operation of the hand truck was not identified earlier as a prerequisite task during the team job task analysis, nor was the need for training on it discovered when the design team wrote the module. The trainer reported the event to management, and the design team quickly added hand truck operation to its task list. Today, training is available and employees are licensed to operate the vehicle.

Without on-site verification, this lack of training might have continued unnoticed. One of the store managers commented, "A fascinating thing happens when we discover something wrong with the training modules during the verification process. More often than not, we've been violating company policy."

In actual training situations, trainees normally hesitate to question anything the trainer says, so chances of catching a mistake at that point are much slimmer. The trainee in this case, however, felt comfortable asking questions because the purpose of the verification process is to test the training module and cover sheet and not the trainer's or trainee's performance.

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