“APPLIED TECHNICAL COMPETENCE”

For organizations in the process and manufacturing industries, applied technical competence is the basis for increasing productivity and quality while minimizing downtime and re-work.

The IOP (Institute of Physics) describes competence as: “’the ability to perform activities to the standards required in employment, using an appropriate mix of knowledge, skills and attitude.’ All three aspects must be present if someone is to be effective in the workplace. To improve competence you need to increase not only your knowledge, but also your understanding of how that knowledge can be applied; your skill in applying it; and the attitude to apply it correctly.”

Effective training is the path to successful applied technical competence and, specifically for process and manufacturing companies, knowledgeably designed multi-sensory media instruction will give you the best results. Such courses use workplace situations and terminology, providing an atmosphere of practicality for the employee.

With knowledgeably designed multi-sensory learning, employees understand the course material faster and retain more, allowing them to apply more of their new skills. Such courses allow employees to learn at their own pace which gives organizations the flexibility to schedule training in order to meet individual needs.

Avoid those courses that convey most of their instruction through words, phrases and sentences. As we have well learned by now, more than 40% of our workforce does not read above a 4th Grade level. Rather, the learning culture of their individual lives has, most often, centered around television and gaming screens. But, instead of disparaging television as a learning evil, insightful individuals have adopted the multi-sensory experience of full motion video, audio, graphics and stills to enhance the learning experience for everyone.

In spite of this awareness, both well intentioned trainers and less responsible vendors have converted their written procedures and PowerPoint presentations into an E-Learning environment and, mistakenly, labeled it “training.”

Not true! Not even plausible! That type of E-Learning is “information” at best (and, only for those who read well) — and, charlatanism at worst.

If trainers in the manufacturing and process industries are truly committed to their training initiatives they will choose multi-sensory learning as the best choice for increasing their employees applied technical competence.