I recently had dinner with a friend of many years, Günther Hauser, in his hometown of Neckarsulm Germany. I met Günther several years ago when Proactive Technologies, Inc. ("PTI") was working on a project in South Carolina that required PTI staff to travel to the LÄPPLE manufacturing plant in Heilbronn, Germany where Günther was the manager of the apprenticeship program. During that dinner, our conversation naturally drifted to an area of shared interest; worker training and apprenticeships and the differences in the United States and European systems of workforce development.

LÄPPLE is a worldwide supplier of press parts, autobody shell components, standard parts and rotary tables as well as automation solutions. They employ over 2000 people and provide exclusive, sophisticated solutions in forming and car body technology as well as the engineering and design of automation systems, machines and tools. Some of their customers include many of the automobile manufacturing companies such as Audi, BMW and Volkswagen.

While working on the Heilbronn project, PTI staff performed job/task analysis on several job classifications that were being duplicated at a new joint venture in Union, South Carolina including Press Operator, Press Technician, Maintenance, Quality Control, Assembly Operator and Assembly Technician. Günther was kind enough to take me on a tour of the apprenticeship center at the plant. The center had around 100 apprentices at any one time at various stages of progression. Modeled after the manufacturing plant where it was established, the group of young workers were processing in each of their disciplines of choice; CAD-CAM Engineering, Tool & Die, Quality Control, Machining. It was like a mini-manufacturing facility with the LÄPPLE factory.

Those apprentices in their final 2 years of study, I was told, were treated like a part of a Tool & Die Manufacturing center. When an order came in for a die, either from LÄPPLE or one of its customers or suppliers, the process started with designing the die, machining the die components, assembling the die, inspecting the assembly and shipping the die to the customer. Instead of making “key chains and donkey carts” like apprentices are often asked to make in the US as their “hands on” training, these apprentices were producing an actual product that was sometimes priced as high as USD1 million!

Of course, these apprentices were paid while in their program. Much of the wage came from the government, while the company paid for the facility, equipment, instructors. But LÄPPLE, like many European apprenticeship hosts, learned how to leverage the work produced by apprentices in honing their skills for paying for the costs to host the program. And when an apprentice completes the program, LÄPPLE gets first pick of the class. The other apprentices have proved their skills enough to be immediately hired by one of many manufacturing facilities in the area aware of the program and its high standards of apprenticeship. Read More

In 1979, a book written by Raymond Hull entitled “The Peter Principle” was a topic of conversation around the water cooler (the precursor to today’s bottled water and a euphemism for a meeting place in the office for casual conversation and gossip…for those young enough to have missed the expression). It lasted throughout the 1980’s and early 90’s. College courses in organizational development and management theory mentioned it in passing, but for most of us its meaning and significance might have been misunderstood.

Although there is a basis of overlap, this is not to be confused with “The Dilbert Principle,” a 1990’s satirical theory by cartoonist Scott Adams based on a comic strip called “Dilbert.” The Dilbert principle roughly theorizes that companies tend to deliberately promote their least competent employees to management to limit the damage they can do. A more cynical view of contemporary management practices, The Dilbert Principle was a way for demoralized employees to express their perception of seemingly incapable supervisors and middle management with a theory that could be mistaken for one that could easily be produced in higher education after thoughtful research. The word “Principle” acts to give it legitimacy and, in a way, mock sincere studies and theories.

The Peter Principle, however, was the result of a lot of thoughtful research and deliberation. Its conclusion was that in an organization’s hierarchy, employees tend to be promoted based on success in their prior job or jobs; not necessarily on whether they have the prerequisite skills and relevant experience to succeed in the job to which they are promoted. Eventually, an employee “tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Peter’s Corollary for an organization unchecked progression of The Peter Principle, is: “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.”

The citation of The Peter Principle might have been dismissed by management in its day as nothing more of a disgruntled employee’s attempt to criticize management after being passed over for promotion in favor of someone who isn’t known or respected for their work performance, relevant experience or social skills. But sometimes the choice might have seemed the most counter-intuitive choice for the position by many in the department –acting as further evidence that management was actually out of touch with what was going on in the daily work performed. Read More

After a year-and-a-half long Covid-19 break, Proactive Technologies Inc. is once again extending to employers a generous discount offer of up to 30% from June 15 to August 15th, 2021!

This accelerated transfer of expertise™ approach is a tremendous offer without the discount, but with it can help any employer quickly and completely train the skilled workers they need AND realize an increase in worker capacity, work quantity/quality and compliance (ISO/TS/AS, engineering specifications and safety) while reducing the internal costs of training! New-hires and incumbent workers are driven to full job mastery and higher levels of return on worker investment (ROWI). The task-based, structured on-the-job training infrastructure is perfect for the apprenticeships; instead of marking the calendar for “time-in-job,” job-relevant tasks are mastered and documented.

Waiting on general classes or unstructured, ad hoc one-on-one training to improve performance and maximize the investment in each worker usually proves to be futile and disappointing. When a worker masters the work they were hired for, it can now be possible to explain, document, repeat and/or improve performance. When turnover occurs and puts you back to square one - wiping out any gains and wasting your investment - labor costs rise, quality and work consistency decreases and the "gap" skill remains. So why not treat workers as the investment it is and manage it for the outcome you need and expect? Read More

It is no secret that with the traditional model of “vocational” education, the burden of the job/task-specific skill development falls on the employer. It is not economically feasible nor practical for educational institutions to focus content on every job area for every employer. So they, instead, focus rightly on core skills and competencies - relying on the employer to deliver the rest. This is where the best efforts of local educational institutions and training providers begin to break down even if highly relevant to the industry sector.

Employers rarely have an internal structure for task-based training of their workers. Even the most aggressive related technical instruction efforts erode against technological advances as every month passes. If core skills and competencies mastered prior to work are not transformed quickly into tasks the worker is expected to perform, the foundation for learning task performance may crumble through loss of memory, loss of relevance or loss of opportunity to apply them.

New workers routinely encounter a non-structured, rarely focused, on-the-job training experience. Typically, the employer’s subject-matter-expert (SME) is asked to “show the new employee around.” While highly regarded by management, the SME (not trained as a task trainer and having no prepared materials) has difficulty remembering the nuances of the tasks when explaining the process to the new employee, since that level of detail was buried in memory long ago. Each SME, on each shift, might have a different version of the “best practice” for processes, confusing the trainee even more – rendering the notion of “standardization” to “buzzword” status.

Initially, new employees have difficulty assembling, understanding and translating the disjointed bits of recollection into a coherent process to be replicated. Each comes with their own set and levels of core skills and competencies, and learning styles vary from the self-learner/starter to the slow-learner worker who, with structure to make sure they learn the right best practice, may become loyal, high-quality workers.

The more time the SME spends with the new employee in this unstructured, uncontrolled and undocumented experience, which is the prevailing method of on-the-job training, the more the employer is paying two people to be non or minimally-productive. Adding employees can actually lower short-term productivity and add little to long-term productivity for an organization, but the costs will attract notice internally and may lead management falsely believe the problem is cost related. Read More

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