Does the training in your organization actually help participants do their jobs better? Could it do more? And if the training programs were more relevant to the participants, would they change their attitude about coming to training?

If employees don’t care about training, whose problem is it, and can you do anything to change their attitude about training?

This is the dilemma Andy Pullam faced when he sat in on his first training class at the nuclear power generating plant. It was crystal clear there was a problem. Maintenance technicians, some of whom has been in the position for twenty years, were sitting through yet another lecture. Pullam explains, “These people spent their days in a hands-on, get-dirty work environment that clearly had no relation at all to this training classroom experience. The technicians couldn’t relate the lecture to their jobs.” Pullam could see immediately why there was such a major disconnect between the technicians and the training staff.

Pullam stopped the class right there. “What do you want? What do you need?” he asked. That was the beginning of a new relationship that today is “180 degrees” different.

The Criterion-Referenced Instruction (CRI) methodology is the foundation for the partnership. The methodology provides a systematic process that enables you to guarantee instructional results. With CRI-based training, you can guarantee that people will have the skills required to meet performance expectations on the first day after training.

Using CRI, Pullam first designed and developed a compressor training course. Pullam was able to convince management to invest in equipment and tools so that, for the first time, the technicians used training to practice actual job tasks just as they would on the job. The training was self-paced, so the technicians with more experience could get through training more quickly, while the newer technicians had the time they needed for additional practice. Notes Pullam, “The technicians were required to actually demonstrate the ability to perform as part of training. They had never done that before.”

Management was extremely impressed with the $800,000 in cost savings they saw as a result of training. So impressed, that they did not need convincing to then invest in more equipment and tools for another course Pullam developed to solve a performance issue the plant was having with pumps. “Because our management now sees the financial benefits of what we are doing, they are willing to spend to help support us,” explains Pullam.

The maintenance technicians have new-found respect for the training staff. Pullam says, “We have a true line ownership of training now. A partnership has developed that wasn’t there before. Technicians will even call us for help when they have a problem on the job.”

The technicians themselves speak about the impact that the CRI-based training has had on their own performance. As one technician explained it,
“ The new self paced training developed by the training department is better than I thought it would be. I was skeptical at first until I saw how the training allowed each student to study at the pace he learned best at. Having separate stations for the students with their own toolboxes to practice was really helpful. I was especially doubtful about the radiation work area that training had set up for us to train in. But after I viewed the videotape the training people took of me disassembling a valve, I was amazed at what I saw. I did not realize that I was taking a long time to pull on gloves, and therefore I was exposing myself to an added dose of radiation—a major safety issue. I also gained more knowledge by having the instructor play a role as a facilitator and coach rather than standing in front of the class and lecturing.”

With the success of the maintenance training, word of mouth is spreading through the operating plant and other areas are approaching training for support. It is a new day for the training staff; a demonstration of how the right kind of training—training that is job-relevant, that delivers skills, and that respects the needs of the learner—can change employee attitudes toward training.

For more information on how you or your staff can gain the skills to develop training using the Criterion-Referenced Instruction methodology click here.