Over the year, it has been proven that they have been able to overcome many challenges related to labour, product inconsistencies, workplace efficiency. This has been proven again during the pandemic when the technology went hand-in-hand to ensure no stone is left unturned in maintaining a facility and creating a safe environment. And the credit goes to training. As professionals relied on their training to tackle issues that they were unaware of.

Additional: Check out this Exclusive Webinar on the Importance of Training & Certifications during the Pandemic

The importance of training has come under the spotlight. However, while we need to make our professionals future-ready, it is key to take a look at the skill facts when it comes to maintenance.

1. Most companies do not have fully skilled maintenance personnel. You cannot fire everyone that is incompetent.
2. Hiring skilled maintenance personnel is difficult.
3. Most repetitious equipment problems that cost companies billions of dollars a year are a direct result of skill deficiencies.
4. A person that feels competent is a better worker and is motivated easier.
5. Often maintenance personnel is disciplined because of skill deficiency, not because of a lack of concern or commitment.
6. People become frustrated or stressed when they do not know the proper way to do a specific task.
7. Companies spend millions of dollars a year on maintenance training without regard to the results expected from it or without a way of measuring results.

CM today has put together a few tips that will help employees acquire knowledge, develop necessary job skills, perform more effectively on the job, be better prepared for their next step in their careers, help turn your company into a learning organization, and maybe even create innovations that help the organization stay ahead of the game.

Tip 1: Understand the employee 

Training should be centered around the learner/employee, who is trying to learn. As a result, you must keep the employee’s learning needs and preferences top-of-mind. And that means you’re going to have to know the employees you will be training. For example, one should be aware of the requirements of their job? What can they do now and what can’t they do now? What’s their work schedule (important for scheduling training), what kind of training infrastructure do they have access to (for example, do they have access to computers or not), etc.

Tip 2: Understand the Company Goals

Similarly one must understand the company goals as well because it is not enough to just train an employee. Organisations have a training department because they want the training department to help the company reach its goals. From the organization’s perspective, the end-goal is to move closer to or reach those business goals, and the job of training is to help in that effort. As a result, trainers need to know what those business goals are, and they need to develop training to help the organisation meet those goals.

Tip 3: Adopt a Human Performance Improvement Approach

While you have understood the employee and company goals, it is also important to take a human performance improvement approach. Training isn’t always the right solution to a workplace performance problem. In some cases, even many, you may find that other interventions address the problem more productively.

That’s where human performance improvement, or HPI, can help out. HPI is a systematic method that also includes a heavy emphasis on systems thinking for problem identification and solving. So the trainer needs to constantly take performance analysis, evaluations, intervention, and change management to measure the impact of the training being conducted. 

Tip 4: Use Evidence-Based Training Methods

As in all fields, in training, some things work and some things that don’t. However, this is a field where there is enough evidence to show what kind of solutions to implement in various situations. Trainers can use their story-telling skills to make the session more interactive by helping the employees understand various methodologies even more effectively.

Tip 5: Become a Learning Organisation

While training is an essential part of an organisation’s growth it is also important to give employees a holistic atmosphere to truly grow. A learning organisation is dedicated to creating, capturing, and sharing knowledge to make organizations more flexible and adaptable and therefore more prepared to change, adapt, and react to changing times and circumstances.