How you train your workforce really sets the pace

Training seems simple, right? Nope. I want you to think back to all the training sessions, company meetings and CE (continuing education) credit sessions you’ve been to in the last several years. What were the key takeaways? What did you need to learn from them and what did you actually learn?

For any sessions that were really memorable, what was the reason? The teacher? The materials? The way the sessions were taught? Your classmates?   Keep in mind that there are multiple learning styles and even more styles for how people process things.

Harvard Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education, Howard Gardner, has laid out the theory of multiple intelligences, or MI. These are not learning styles, like the common visual, auditory, verbal, kinesthetic, logical, social, and solitary. Rather, MI are independent ways your brain takes in and processes information. Think of it as one computing power for language, and a separate one for spatial or musical information. Gardner believes the average human has between 7 and 10 of these. (Find a summary here and a full article in The Washington Post.)

This idea gives me hope. In the world of sports, for instance, I know that I can run or ride, but I’m helpless with “ball” sports. I do not have the processing power to do something with an object that’s coming at me – baseball, softball, football, basketball – you get it. While some people look at this as skill in one area or another, I know that my brain just doesn’t keep up with what’s happening. And yes, I do believe I could train myself in these, but the theory that my cognitive area is fast where I might be slower elsewhere really resonates with me.

Production Operations

And so it is with your people. All your people. Some will learn in one style or another. Think about members of your team that you can talk through something with, and they get it right away. They “see” what you’re saying. Team those up with people who you could tell something to 6 times and they still won’t remember. Perhaps they’re less auditory and more verbal – which, in the case of learning styles, means they process it easier if it’s written down for them or they write it down (that’s me).

Have you considered this when you look at how you communicate with your shop floor team? How about how you train them? If you’re looking for better uptake than the classes you attended in the last year, perhaps you should.

Production Control

We build and sell MES software – manufacturing execution systems that run your shop floor from inventory sourcing through order or job dispatch to production and fulfillment. These are complex systems that touch most areas of the organization from the top floor to the shop floor. When the subject matter is so diverse and you have a team full of individual learners, you need a partner that’s going to flex that training with you.

Think about all the different ways your team could learn – written materials, online demos, in-person and virtual training sessions, and custom training. We favor the latter. While we have options for everyone, we feel that customizing the training for the teams and people that are present is required to really help the uptake. We want you to get training in the language that you use (tech versus operator, order versus job) with the people that need it the most, in smaller, role-focused groups.