Employing Active Training that Results in Education

I had planned to write an article about training programs and all the elements that are needed within that, but, in doing so, realized that training is only part of the program. I also determined that, if you’re reading this far in the magazine, you already know the elements of a training program: You know that you have to have a plan to train—it’s required by regulation and GFSI. You have to include all the appropriate elements like GMPs, pest control, sanitation, HACCP, and individual work skills. You know you must have some sort of proof that you conducted the training (SQFI calls it the ‘“Training Skills Register”). To me, all this is the easy part—set up a program, then execute it. The hard part is making sure the training has sunk in; that there was education that truly took place. So this article, instead, focuses on education.

What is the difference between training and education? Dictionary.com (one of my favorite websites) defines training as: “intended for use during an introductory, learning, or transitional period.” Education is defined as: “the result produced by instruction, training, or study.” From this, it’s fairly easy to see that one is the action, the other is the result.

As quality professionals and operational leaders, we complete the action—we train. But how much effort do we expend checking the result? How do you check the result of training? How can we successfully assure that the action resulted in education and that the education is applied? I believe there are several ways to assure that education took place. These include goals, metrics, active involvement, and trainee interaction after the training.

1. Have a training goal. Tell the trainees what they are expected to learn and have a rubric to measure it. The expectation should not be simple, it should be full of depth. I prefer to have the trainees know that more is expected than less. For example, instead of setting a goal as being: “Know the major allergens in the U.S.” Set an expectation such as: “Demonstrate, in your work area, how you know what ingredients are allergens, and discuss how you prevent cross contamination between materials.” This ensures the trainees know that they can’t simply recite the training and pass a quiz immediately after the training. They truly have to “get it”; they will need to be able to show in their work that they know and apply the steps needed to ensure safe food.

2. Set metrics for the operations team that prove how the training results in improved performance. Create the measures, then keep the results in front of the appropriate teams. Everyone typically wants to see improved performance. Getting management buy-in to these measures is important as well. Some measures of successful application of training could be:

• Score on certification audits.
• Score on internal audits (GMP audits can be scored).
• Number of hold incidents.
• Amount of rework created.
• Number of issues noted on internal audits.

The goals would, of course, be increasingly higher numbers on the first two and lower numbers on the last three.

3. Include active involvement. Think back to some of the trainings/seminars you have attended— what have the good instructors done to ensure you learned what was trained and that you could apply it? Have you tried role-playing? Put the trainee in a position where she gets to make the decisions and see how she does. How about providing an assignment? Give the trainees a quick project that will provide an opportunity to show that they can apply what was trained. Think back to your algebra homework. You had homework every night to ensure the concept was understood and could be applied—right? This can be done at work too.

4. Post-training interaction. Finally, training and education don’t have to stop just because the session is finished. Rather, there are things you can do on the plant floor to assure training resulted in education. In the midst of an issue, gather the trainees and ask them to apply what they were trained on. For example, if you have a CCP failure, gather your team and ask them what the protocol is, then ask them to make the decision of what to do. This assures that they can remember and apply what was taught, and it also builds your team so that you can take a vacation day and know that things will go well. There are many other such examples of implementing this team building, and I have found it to be tremendously helpful in assuring the team knows the material on which they were trained.

Additionally, the bottom line for education is routine discussion of the training with employees. To ensure that trainees understand and apply what was taught, we have to be diligent, and we have to follow up. We cannot interview employees with simple yes/no questions. We must ask better questions; questions that lead them to demonstrate their education. Ask questions like: What would your actions be if… ? What is the procedure when this happens…? How would you react to this problem…?

If we have high expectations, both written and provided with the training; and we then follow up with metrics to measure success, have opportunity for the trainees to apply what they were taught, and routinely ask conversational open-ended questions—I believe we’ll know if the action of training had the desired result: education.