On the Job Training

Training as a Communication Strategy

Learning Objectives

On-the-job training gives the trainee information and skills that can be used immediately in a situation that is at the employee’s new work station or one that is as close to “reality” as you can make it.
On-the-job training should be monitored and evaluated to determine if it is effective or a waste of money. OJT makes sure that the trainee can do the work well while they are on the job.

On the job training (OJT) is used in most, if not all, organizations. Examples abound of how different organizations conduct OJT, and it is very likely that your own organization has some OJT programs, including the employee orientation.

OJT can be implemented different ways, but there are some ways that are better than others. All training, including OJT, should be monitored and evaluated to determine if it is effective or a waste of money. After all, whether OJT is done by an instructor, a manager or a computer, on-site or off-site in a simulated work setting, you want to make sure that the trainee can do the work well while they are on the job. The more productive an employee is, the better the organization will perform and the more satisfied the employee will be.

Successful OJT Programs

There are five elements for successful OJT programs.

The inclusion of academic instruction. In many U.S. federal programs, these academic components are either remedial education, such as basic English and math skills or English as a Second Language (ESL).
The inclusion of vocational skills training, integrated with academic (or remedial) instruction. Integration does not imply (as it does in job training) that individuals receive both kinds of instruction, at different times of day; it is a much more complex practice in which academic and occupational content are combined within a single class, sometimes with the collaboration of different instructors.
The inclusion of work-based education, coordinated with school-based instruction through "connecting activities", to provide a different kind of learning, such as the Center for Employment Training provided by the Department of Labor.
The connection of every program to the next program in a hierarchy of education and training opportunities. For example, high school programs are explicitly linked to possible college opportunities. The analogy in job training programs is that every program would be connected to further programs providing higher level of skill and access to enhanced employment opportunities.
The use of applied teaching methods and team-teaching strategies. By implication, all school-based and work-based instruction should develop teaching methods that put the training in context, should be student-centered, hands-on, and project- or activity-based.

Such programs would also try to establish links among programs in order to create education and training "ladders" -- training-related activities that individuals can use to progress from relatively low levels of skill (and relatively unskilled and poorly-paid work) to higher levels of skill and (presumably) more demanding, better-paid, and

more stable occupations.

Poor Quality of Some OJT Programs

When they do not emphasize moving individuals into employment, job-training programs sometimes provide some training in job-specific skills. Sometimes this takes place in classroom settings, and sometimes in work settings or on-the-job training.

However, a study of on-the-job training revealed that in a large fraction of these programs (55 percent), there was little or no explicit training going on: employers viewed the program as a source of subsidized labor and used individuals in routine, unskilled work, without any attention to providing either job-specific or more general skills.

This approach among employers to on-the-job "training", which occurs in a variety of job training and apprenticeship programs, is particularly likely to occur where employers are small and marginal and are pressed for resources. In many local programs, local government agencies seem to act as a screen to provide such employers with a steady source of relatively stable, low-cost labor, and can therefore come up with jobs for trainees -- but these placements have very little training and few long-run prospects.

The quality of classroom-based job skills instruction in job training programs is uneven and likely to have serious problems. Keeping up with technological changes is difficult enough in the more sophisticated, longer-term programs offered in community colleges and technical institutes, but in short-term job training programs with little funding for capital outlays it must be nearly impossible. Similarly, the problem of finding instructors from sector of activity is a difficult issue. Many job-training programs are operated by community-based organizations, which typically pay low wages, and their experience in job training and education, as well as their connections to employers, may not be strong.

While the quality of job-related instruction merits further investigation, the conditions in many job-training programs are not conducive to high-quality training.

Poor OJT Strategies

The basic strategy of many job-training programs is a poor one. It assumes that just because an individual is trained, he or she will stay.

For example, many U.S. government-funded programs have stressed moving individuals into employment quickly, using job search assistance, work experience placements, and on the job "training"; however, they provide relatively little actual training, despite their name. The underlying assumption is that the basic problem of the unemployed is one of job finding, and that once individuals get jobs they will remain employed.

This also assumes that there are plenty of jobs available to those who want to work and that the appropriate motivation to work will be sufficient. There has been much less attention paid to the problem of enhancing the basic competencies of job trainees.

Furthermore, the kinds of jobs that individuals “graduating” such programs can typically get are so dreadful -- repetitive, boring work, few prospects for advancement, and often harsh and demeaning supervisions -- that it is no wonder that individuals leave after short periods of time.

Findings indicate that job training programs increase earnings by increasing the amount of employment, rather than by increasing the wage rates (and presumably the productivity) of individuals. But this strategy ignores the reality that the low-skilled labor market for which job training programs prepare individuals is so unstable that without the increase in basic skills that would enable individuals to escape the secondary labor market, they will continue to suffer intermittent employment, low earnings, and the kind of discouragement that leads them over the long run back to marginal employment or welfare.

Structured OJT

A positive element of a structured On-the-Job-Training (OJT) program is the empowerment for many staff to be involved in training. Ownership of the training is decentralized to the work site or department, and both the trainers and the trainees can then identify this kind of training program as their own. In general, employees feel they are more likely to have an opportunity for receiving training with the OJT strategy.

The formal recognition of the training by all staff means a positive training climate and attention by all staff to ensure the success of the training. Key to this are the orientations held just prior to the launch of the OJT.

The plan for the structured OJT provides a focus for supervisors to do the training they consider necessary as part of their regular duties. Although the trainer in many cases directs the training, both trainer and trainee usually feel comfortable with this.

There tends to be a personal and professional commitment by the trainees to the training process. Trainees are usually able to do the work at their own pace and are motivated to progress through the training outline. In most structured OJT programs, the trainees do some self-study, by reading, doing practice exercises, and the like. There is usually a workbook with the OJT trainer’s review and notes on the exercises themselves.

It is important that the trainees learn both the theoretical knowledge the practical skills work. Trainees often want to go straight to the practical training, in part because of the value they attached to being able to use the skill right away. Structured OJT provides a mechanism for trainees to interact with other staff, a situation that doesn’t usually occur in their work. Interaction with the OJT trainer gives “permission” for trainees to ask questions.

Vocational OJT

Perhaps the most enduring belief about vocational education is that it's only for the

non-college bound, the potential dropouts, or other students with special needs, a belief often shared by educators and policymakers. But do the facts bear it out?

No, they don't. Almost all U.S. high school students enroll in vocational courses; 80 percent take at least one occupationally specific vocational course, and one in eight academic students actually takes more vocational courses than vocational students do. Furthermore, Kober and Rentner and Stone report that vocational education students enter postsecondary education at about the same rate as all high school graduates, and vocational students with applied academics such as math and reading in high school are just as proficient as college-prep students. So does vocational education pay off?

Stone reports that vocational graduates are more likely to be employed and earn more than their nonvocational counterparts, particularly vocational graduates who worked part time during high school. Bishop provides strong evidence that the generic technical skills and occupationally specific skills provided in vocational education increase worker productivity, skill transfer, job access, and job stability when vocational graduates find training-related jobs.

How does this compare with getting a traditional four-year college degree? Among college students who graduate with a four-year degree, only two of three will find employment related to their field of study. Among college students who graduate with a professional credential (e.g., for teaching, engineering, or accounting), only one in two will find related employment. The fastest-growing piece of the high-skill, high-wage technical workplace only requires an associate's degree.

Monitoring and Evaluating OJT

In testing a new type of training, there is a two-pronged approach that can be used to assess the effect. In the short term, you want to do a pilot test to examine the feasibility of implementing on-the-job training within the current organizational setting.

The monitoring and evaluation strategy for this focuses on a mixture of data-collection methods. Baseline data established the conditions at the work delivery site prior to the OJT pilot test. These data included documentation of the usual work routine at the site, and summaries of logbooks, stock records, and service statistics, for example.

The monitoring activities need to document how the pilot-test implementation is proceeding. At each site, interviews of the OJT supervisor, trainer (if different from the supervisor), and trainee (and other personnel, as available) and site visit notes from observations during the visit will document attitudes toward the training process, perceived and actual changes in the work routine during the training period, and changes in trainee (and possibly beneficiary) experience at the work site. Monitoring should also include examination of the OJT Trainee Workbook (there should always be a workbook) and analysis of the trainee’s progress to date through the dating of the completed activities (that is, comparing expected versus actual completion of a section of the workbook) and review of the experiences that support the OJT plan.

Key questions when monitoring the OJT site may include how long does each trainee take to complete the OJT sequence, how effective the training sequence is, are trainees having problems with a particular section, practice exercise, trainer-trainee practice sessions, and the like, are there problems with supplies, equipment, or other site issues that hinder effective OJT, what effect does OJT have on service delivery, and what strategies have been used to minimize the disruptions?

Almost all organizations have OJT and they don’t even know it. It is the employee orientation. However, with the push for cost containment and the expense of delivering an orientation by all sorts of people, is it possible to change how the orientation is presented?

Everyone wants out-of-the-classroom training (including employee orientation) that can be conducted without the need for an instructor, or at least without the need for the instructor and the employee to be in the same room at the same time.

The reasons for this are several. First, it's expensive to have to gather people together in the same room for training, especially if they are dotted around the country and need to be flown in. Second, it's not always easy to arrange to have everyone together at the same time, even if you do have the money to do it! Third, Classroom-based instructor-led training (ILT) is event-driven -- sometimes it's good, sometimes not.

So how can the employee orientation be moved out of the classroom? You can use video, narrated PowerPoint, or whatever real-time technology available that has already captured ILC training that has been found to be effective.

You can also use self-guided or asynchronous training for a non-classroom orientation which may include self-guided manuals, workbooks, computer software, CD-ROMs, email training, Web-based training (Intranet, extranet or Internet) and other distance learning materials.

Non-classroom orientation may or may not involve an instructor, depending upon whether or not the organization feels the employee can work through the materials mostly or entirely by him/herself.

Training as a Communication Strategy

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