Training Methodologies

Lessons Learned in Workforce Training 6/9/09

By: Wade Rohloff

Agenda

• Goals• Case Study / Development• Industrial Art• Disconnects – philosophies• Lessons Learned • Case Study #2 - Signpost• Integrated Approach• Various Methodologies • Know your audience• Workbooks • Force Multiplier• Evolution

Goals

What are your goals in workforce training?

• Reduce Accidents (to zero).• Lower Insurance costs.• Keep or enhance workforce

marketability.• Reduce liability.

What else?

Goals Continued…..

Further goals in workforce training?

• Increase worker efficiency?

• Higher productivity?• Less employee

absenteeism?• Less employee theft?• Employee Health?

• Are these really safety department issues? Should they be? Who else will do these things?

Case study• A group of pumpers I had trained

for over 9 years.• When challenged by an outsider

(trainer) they performed poorly.• I had administered difficult written

tests monthly (tests changed yearly).

• Group had high monthly scores on tests.

• Only 1 accident in 9 years and that was a product liability issue.

• What would you do to correct this situation?

Case Study Continued…

Options

• Institute Philosophies?

• New Programs?

• Incentives / Safety Bonuses?

• Buy new safety videos?

• Online training and forget it?

• What Else?

Case Study Continued…What I Did

Bear in mind that to keep my audience from sheer boredom I changed the safety training programs (slideshows) stylistically and bought new safety videos every year.

• How many outstanding safety videos can you remember?

• Do safety videos work?

Case Study Continued…History

• I had shown this group dozens of new safety videos, if not more than 100 over the years.

• Results were poor!• Studies show that you only

remember about 20% of a video, regardless of how well it is made.

• How many movies have you seen that you didn’t catch everything until you saw it a second or third time?

Jurassic Park is a Safety Movie!• I cut this video up into segments,

created a “safety observation worksheet” and asked employees to watch the segments of the movie and merely document the hazards (there are many).

• The longer the story played the employees found fewer hazards even when they were numerous and obvious.

• Why? Because the employees became emotionally invested in the story much like they are in performing their work.

• Safety must be graphically built in to job function training. Video is too fast and engaging.

Disconnects – philosophies• Slogans and philosophies

such as “be safe”, do they really work?

• They have their place but they can be a copout.

• They guy throwing the chain, shouldn’t he be thinking “I better keep my fingers from between the wraps of the chain?

• Training should be more pointed and tailored to your work situation.

• Don’t just adopt slogans and think you have done enough.

Case Study Continued…

What I Did• Considered Options.• Acted on a belief and began

experimentation with graphics. • My belief was that “a picture

says a thousand words”.• Development -Workbook

scenarios!• Next Page

Workbook Scenarios

• I challenged the employees to think deeper about situations with workbook style questions.

• Graphics became “memory keys”.

• When challenged, the employees did better.

Industrial Art• I took art classes in order

to illustrate my works.• I have evolved and

developed my own methods for that purpose.

• I am able to control and manipulate pictures/graphics to show only what the audience should see.

• Unlike video, graphics are controllable.

• Within how many safety videos have you spotted wrong things?

Industrial Art Continued…I was taking pictures of a rig down in August of 2008. I witnessed an accident where a truck dropped a separator which sling-shotted his poles over and smashed his cab. Nobody got hurt but I snapped the pictures as it happened.

This technique is called “motion graphics” and it is very useful for students to study cause and effect!

Lessons Learned

• Graphics work!• Pointed challenge

questions work!• Stop looking for

miracle cures on oversold products.

I decided that more had to be done. Work with managers and together determine needs. Perform gap analysis and development of training that does more than just address safety as though it were a separate issue.

Case Study #2 - Signpost

• In 2003 I trained all of the crews of a rig with an IADC ‘Rig Pass’ program.

• One of my students was killed in an accident with caustic two weeks later.

• The company was sued, the production company was sued and I was named in the lawsuit.

• $30,000,000 (that’s 30 million dollar$).

Case Study Continued…What I Did

• I had used an early prototype of a workbook I was writing. The only graphics I had in it was the page you see here. I submitted a copy to opposing attorneys via subpoena. The owner of the company said I won that lawsuit for them!

• Roughnecking 101 workbook.

• The opposing attorneys settled for $30,000

• Most importantly the employee was trained right but chose to break the rules.

Lessons Learned

• Attorneys and Jurys use the term “reasonable care and concern” when discussing workplace issues.

• They had judged that we had used reasonable care and concern.

• Should you use graphics in training?

Lessons Learned

• Don’t divide job function training from safety issues.

• The two are not mutually exclusive.

• Take an integrated approach to safety communication.

• Make graphic training a part of the normal work environment.

Integrated Approach

• Safety Department should be training department.

• Work with supervisors to determine workplace training with safety integrated.

• Safety is not separate. This should be a partnership.

How do you make everybody happy?

Various Methodologies

• Bits and Bites - break the text up. Write at audience level.

• Ponderance. The student must leave with things to ponder.

• Graphics, dyslexics and visual learners. Graphics meet the needs of these type learners.

• Mind Mapping – graphics become memory keys.

• Making things obvious.• Design for your audience!

Know your audience

A structured method of training will season employees faster than most other types of training. Following Supervisors around to get on-the-job training is the way “baby-boomers” learned these jobs but generation X and generation Y employees expect a different experience in the workplace. A study provided by NIOSH is shown how that structured training coupled with “hands-on” training is the fastest method for bringing employees to an acceptable level of on the job performance.

NIOSH Study

Workbooks• I developed workbooks to

meet the demands of shrink and swell industry, economically.

• Provides effective training.• Writing out answers in a

workbook helps employee retention.

• Getting employees to recognize hazards is the ultimate in training.

Force Multiplier• The use of the workbooks has become a “force

multiplier”.• In cases where they are used in the field,

supervisors are not expected to train the workbooks but are expected to oversee the process.

• Supervisors don’t want to be ignorant of what the workbooks offer!

• Safety department is not burning the candle at both ends but still achieving the goal of employee education.

Evolution• Employees trained in job-function training with

safety built-in become more efficient workers who are less likely to make mistakes.

• Hands-on certification raises the self-esteem of workers.

• It can be a long process but almost any subject can be effectively taught through the workbook process.

• The difference in training is apparent.