Training - The Backbone of Cultural Change
Daryl Mather
During the current time globalisation and the forces of competition
are causing many of the worlds industries to change frequently
in order to either remain in the game, or to try to gain advantage
in some manner. Organisational structures are becoming transient
things used as a tool to facilitate change. For example people
often are required to do project work for short periods in
order to maintain the continuous improvement focus that an
organisation may wish to achieve.
As a result here are many and regular changes occurring within
the fields of maintenance as well. A CMMS system may be implemented,
maintenance strategy review undertaken, business processes
reviewed or even the regular addition of root cause analysis
projects. TPM and lean maintenance programs have also now entered
the landscape as part of the changes open to maintenance departments.
All of these forces can cause the organisational culture
to shift somewhat. The organisation of the early twenty first
century finds itself in the situation where it is always breaking
paradigms and accepting new ones only to break them again as
their advancement continues.
However much if the continual change within some organisations
is due to the lack of success of previous programs. The “Program
of the Month” phenomena. I feel that there is somewhat of a
misunderstanding of this issue. Mindsets such as these are
often attributed to the fact that management are not fully
behind the concept, or a coping mechanism for a workforce that
has reached a saturation point in terms of the continual changes
that they need to endure.
While there is, of course, some validity in these arguments
the prime reason, the reason that proven programs fail is generally
due to the lack of adequate communication. There needs to be
an understanding created of:
- The overall concept that is being attempted
- The detail in how it is to come about
- How it is to be measured and what the results are expected
to be
- Many proven programs have passed all of the criteria of
successful ventures. They have been well defined, goals sought
out and highlighted, teams selected for various tasks and
the project plan laid out in a great deal of detail. However
without the communication to all those involved and to the
organisation in general all of these efforts can easily be
in vein. The principle tool for communication of issues under
these circumstances is Training.
Role specific training is the missing ingredient in most
projects, changes or implementations. Quite often the scope
of a project will include training but this is generally ill
defined or misdirected. In short without a well-defined and
planned training regime any cultural change WILL NOT FULLY
SUCCEED. It is vital to the smooth flow of continuous improvement
through an organisation.
To clarify what is meant by well defined training regimes
we will look at the example of implementing CMMS in an organisational
structure. This is one of the more far-reaching and dramatic
changes that can be undertaken. As such it will serve as a
good example.
Training must, by necessity, be targeted at the needs of
the organisation. As such there are a few steps required prior
to embarking on a training regime.
- Establish the responsibilities of each role.
In the example of a CMMS implementation we need to
look at what responsibilities each role will have in
relation to the changes being made. For example:
- Does a supervisor need to know how to administer
the system?
- Does the planner need to know how to program work
orders?
- Do the craft teams need to know how to raise work
orders?
- The answers to these will depend almost entirely
on the organisational structure in place at the installation.
However for this example what we are trying to define
is the need for the development of a Training Matrix
to determine which roles will receive which training.
Again this needs to reflect and to be reflected in
the role descriptions of each of the participants.
The matrix below is a possible matrix for various roles
when implementing a CMMS. Of course each site will
vary greatly depending on the needs.
- Conducting the needs analysis survey.
Once the responsibilities and duties
of each role have been established
and the training for each in the use
of the system has been created then
there is a need to analyse the specific
skills of each incumbent of each position.
For example it has been my experience
that the closer you get to the front
line of maintenance the lower the computer
management skills are. Therefore a
brief course on navigation of a computer
may be of use.
Other areas that may need to be addressed
are generalities of maintenance management,
generalities of stores management or
even training in deciphering analysis
and or KPI’s that are in use.
- Course
Creation
and
Delivery
This
can be a very laborious time.
Requiring time for creation and
review of the courses themselves,
scheduling of time for each of
the participants to attend and
to be tested as well as scheduling
a review period after they have
been required to use the skills
for a short time. In the review
period there will be a great
deal more information required
by the users, as they are now
familiar with the system and
concepts that they were originally
taught.
Another
approach, which builds on the
approach above, is to use key
users as training people. In
this example the key users will
best be described as the system
administrators. Those people
who will be the ultimate owners
of the system for a given area
or department. This has the added
benefit of early transition of
ownership from the original trainers,
possibly representing the contractor
or system, to the end users through
a stepped progression.
Whatever
approach is taken it needs to
be remembered that without a
full and thorough training program
no system will live long past
the “Program
of the Month” status
and will ultimately disappoint
in terms of realised versus proposed
gains.
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