As promised, EBMag and sister magazine, COS, deliver a special video documentary about the work being conducted at St. John’s Rehab in Toronto: a special clinic investigating and treating invisible ...
Our industry is undergoing a major demographic shift; a wave of grey-haired talent is retiring, leaving legions of younger workers that will inherit a continent full of old equipment. This is not news, but what is your organization doing about it?
90% of the workers at one of our client’s facilities have less than
five years of experience; many of the remaining 10% are eligible for
retirement, meaning this client may have to outsource its
apprenticeship program. What future losses will this facility suffer
over the next several decades when it loses literally hundreds of years
of hard-earned experience?
Good judgement comes from experience (and experience often comes at the
price of bad judgement). By making good judgements, we can achieve
significant accomplishments; and when we avoid bad judgements, we can
actually avoid extraordinary losses
At one end of the spectrum, bad judgements create rework, overtime and
frustration. At the other end, they can lead to explosions, injuries
and fatalities. Making good judgements while avoiding the bad ones is
the difference between organizational success and complete failure.
To ensure its success, one proactive client is conducting low- and
high-voltage electrical safety training for all of its North American
workers, which includes self and instructor assessments, testing,
interviews and skills observations. The outcome will be a precise
assessment of every individual worker’s skills and abilities, and his
required development needs, customized for his specific facility and
the dangers within.
There’s an even greater benefit to this initiative: as this client
hires new workers, it can recruit against the skill sets specific to
the needs of a particular facility, and provide these workers with
customized development plans that ensure they are “target-trained” for
safety and effectiveness. This client understands the value of making
important investments in its people, and the returns on those
investments in the areas of safety, productivity and morale, with
associated decreases in accidents, investigations, legal fees and fines.
Producing an expert
Several of our instructors were senior instructors in a North American
utility, where they developed and managed four-year apprenticeships
dedicated to high-voltage equipment, with classroom training specific
to their system. Most importantly, the time between classroom sessions
comprised a series of field projects of increasing complexity conducted
throughout their various regions under the direction of the field
supervisors. It was a cohesive and integrated development program.
This produced well-trained journeypersons (but with limited
experience). Decades of observation at this utility proved that it took
10 to 12 years before it had an “expert” electrical worker. This is
consistent with international research into expert systems by cognitive
psychologists, where the consensus says it takes about 10,000 hours of
dedicated effort to produce an expert.
In contrast, the majority of industrial electricians have apprenticed
with construction firms; residential, commercial or industrial. Their
four years consisted of four school sessions, each typically eight
weeks in length and focusing on electrical construction with, perhaps,
a day or two on high voltage.
Construction apprentices return to work and are required to be
productive for their employers, with personal development a result
rather than a planned and managed process. Additionally, residential
and commercial construction apprentices can spend their apprenticeships
with no exposure to either maintenance or high-voltage systems, and yet
be hired as maintenance electricians in a high-voltage environment with
the expectation to learn by experience, supplemented by occasional
training.
Most industrial electricians have probably only ever received a total
of 15 to 20 days of dedicated high-voltage training in their entire
careers. There’s no way this process can produce experts (despite the
many who feel that they are); in fact, the lack of proper development
makes them, quite possibly, more dangerous.
This situation forces facilities to rely heavily on their most
experienced personnel for general high-voltage system operation, and
external contract specialists for testing and maintenance. This
retirement trend is happening now, and the most astute companies are
mapping their people and systems to determine the most proactive
processes for avoiding the impending loss of hundreds of years of
hard-earned experience, and the resulting extraordinary losses.
Until next time, be ready, be careful and be safe.
Dave Smith is president of CANADA TRAINING GROUP and has been providing consulting services to industry since 1980.
