How to get 100% completion of your refresher training and certification updates
Are you having a hard time getting your operators to complete their training and certification updates on time? Here are a some tried and true methods used by other SMB Manufacturers like you:
Visibility: In meetings, show reports to managers that illustrate training completion rates. Or take it further and publish training completion reports and skills gap reports on a bulletin board. MakerComply can give you these reports in minutes.
Let operators (and supervisors) know, that if they haven’t completed the relevant training or certification, for example for LOTO or confined space work, they can’t be authorized to do that work. Managers will care because that imparts production and sometimes has legal consequences.
Numbers 1 and 2 help you get buy-in for Number 3: Reduce workers’ daily production quota to make up for the time they are away from the line. Otherwise, training is stealing time from the metric that keeps them employed. That means training is seen as punishment.
Chunk training into micro learning that is 5 or 10 minutes long. For example, use a cellphone to record a video of your most experienced operator setting up a machine, A good training tracker app will let you link directly to the recording and send it to trainees along with automated reminders.
Make sure Is your training built for the device they are viewing it in. If workers are on mobile, is it mobile friendly?
Stagger the trainings so you’re not overloading anyone in a given month. That’s easy to do with training scheduling automation apps like MakerComply.
Analyze the training you are doing: is everyone getting need-to-know content, or are they getting trained on anything that’s irrelevant to them? That adds to overload and that in turn leads to less than 100% completion.
Ask your front line: what’s stopping you from getting the training done on time? You might find out that it’s something you can easily fix. Are training materials confusing – re-work it until you hear it’s easy to follow. Is a course on offer failing to load on their devices – swap it out for a lightweight course.
Send gentle nudges – or better yet, get an app like MakerComply to do it for you, so you don’t lose hours a day chasing people, or worse, forget to let them know they’re due for a refresher soon.
Make those nudges go them them as text messages (see next point) which in turn go straight to the specific training or certification required. That way they don’t have to remember a login and navigate through an app.
Make sure your reminders get to them where they live. Lots of training apps fail on the shop floor, because they don’t acknowledge manufacturing realities: workers don’t have desktops they can use on the floor and they don’t have work emails where they can receive training notifications.
For group face-to-face training sessions, make them happen during a company-paid pizza lunch. Nothing brings people together like (free) food.
Offer rewards for operators who have stellar training completion rates, whether that’s in an app like MakerComply, with public acknowledgment, or some kind of non-cash bonus.
Give them a self-service portal like MakerComply that enables them to upload their training proof and certification in less than five minutes, and without remembering a password. Reduced friction = improved training turnaround.
