Competency Based Training Is Critical To Productivty
What is the difference between traditional training and competency based training? Competency based training and the traditional approach to training differ in four distinct areas:
1. What the participant learns
2. How participants learn
3. When participants proceed from task to task
4. whether or not the participants learn each task
Perhaps the most fundamental difference; however, is that competency based training is a very systematic approach to training while the more traditional approach is not. What the participants need to know is based upon precisely stated work outcomes that have been verified as being essential for adequate performance of the job for which the participant is being trained.
The program is designed so that it provides participants with high quality, carefully designed participant focused learning activities that will help them master each task. Training materials are designed so that each individual participant can stop, slow down, speed up, or repeat instruction as needed to learn effectively. A critical part of this type of instruction is periodic feedback throughout the learning process with opportunities for participants to correct their performance as they go.
Competency based training provides each participant with a reasonable amount of time to fully master one task before being allowed or forced to move on to the next one. This type of training requires each participant to perform each task to a high level of proficiency in a job-like setting before receiving credit for attaining each task. This is often incorrectly viewed as just the latest fad in the long line of “Fix-it” cures for improving performance. The concept behind competency based training is not new - it has been around for a long time. The ancient apprenticeship approach was based upon it.
Hundreds of years ago training was carried out as follows:
When an apprentice blacksmith was being trained to perform a new task, he was told exactly what he was going to learn. His words were probably something like this: “Today, I am going to show you how to make a nail.” Unlike the modern approach, the apprentice was not given a reading assignment on the history of nails.
The master blacksmith showed the apprentice very slowly and very carefully how to make a nail - how to cut a blank, how to pound the head into the proper shape, how to shape the point, and how to heat treat it for hardness. Next, the apprentice was allowed to try his hand at making a nail - under the direct supervision of the master blacksmith. When he made a mistake, he was stopped and helped to correct his error - as soon as he made the error. When he did well, he was rewarded with encouragement or a pat on the back. After sufficient practice, the apprentice was allowed to hammer out nail after nail until his quality approached that of the master.
Only then did the master move on to another task such as making horse shoes, etc. The master never moved ahead to the next task until the one being taught was mastered.
Contrary to the though that it is just another new flavor of the month, it is more of a way of returning to a more personalized and individual approach to teaching critical skills to a new hire. If you want to improve performance at your facility, you need to consider implementing a competency based training approach. Improved performance comes when people are performing their jobs in a competent manner. If you do not define what competence is, you’ll never know if your people are performing in a competent manner.
Brice Alvord has over thirty years experience as an internal and external performance improvement consultant. He holds a BA in Sociology/Psychology from Central Washington University and an MBA degree from City University of Seattle. He is the author of over two dozen books on continuous improvement and training.
For more information on this topic. visit the ALERA Group website at: http://www.aleragroup.com
Tags: competency, improvement, Performance, productivity, training
