Human Factors: A Necessary Ingredient for On-the-Job Training

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for April, 2004

Have you ever asked yourself, "What factors adversely affect getting my job done in the most efficient and effective way?" Chances are your answers will include one or more of the following human factors:

• Your own individual capabilities and limitations
• Interactions with other people
• The information available or not available to you
• Some aspect of the work environment itself
• The equipment, tools or parts you use

A human factors approach to training concentrates on individuals and the interfaces between people and the other system elements: the interfaces between people; between people and information; between people and the environment; and between people and the equipment, tools, and parts they use to perform tasks.

On-the-job training (OJT) must be considered part of a dynamic system within the context of the whole organization. Many employees who process forms or run machines are unaware of how their actions affect other aspects of the system or how the system itself may affect their individual job performance. To improve job performance, human factors must be permanently integrated into all aspects of training and operations. Employees who conduct team job task analyses and write and verify training modules embed human factors directly into the training materials. Let's consider the four critical interfaces.

People-People Interface

The interface between people is concerned with communication, teamwork, decision making, conflict resolution, and workload management. For example, design teams in a publishing business encountered several situations where efficiency in task accomplishment required team coordination. In their press and bindery departments, a task required that one person run the first job while another person entered data for the next job into the computer. Another task required that someone load the paper stock in the stand so it would be ready to splice at the same time that a different operator was ramping down from the previous job. This coordination was written directly into their training modules.

People-Information Interface

Training modules need to take into account the information available to the employee, written or verbal. This includes rules, job instructions, log books, procedures, training materials, and software. For example, if the information required for task accomplishment is incorrect, hard to understand, cumbersome, or not available, the employee most likely will learn the task incorrectly and probably continue to perform the task incorrectly long after training ends.

Organizations often find that training documents refer the trainee to other sources rather than including the information right in the training document itself. This can be a problem because the trainee probably won't bother to look it up or will be so encumbered checking references that the focus on the task will be lost. You may not always be able to include all the information necessary to accomplish the task, but try to do so whenever possible.

People-Environment Interface

The environment consists of both the physical and organizational framework with which people interact. If the environment is hazardous, such as where there are loose planks on scaffolding, toxic substances, or excessive noise, the employees will have a much more difficult time learning and performing tasks. Employees often are so concerned with the safety aspects of the environment that they take shortcuts, rush through jobs, and do a sloppy or inaccurate job. Likewise, there may be organizational constraints, such as conflicting departmental goals or procedures that affect task accomplishment.

People-Equipment Interface

The quantity and quality of work that is done is also affected by the equipment, tools, and parts that people use in performing their jobs. If the equipment is faulty or the correct parts and tools are not available or not in good working order, the employee might learn the task incorrectly and reinforce existing bad practices. It is common to hear employees complain that they can spend half a day just looking for the correct tool or part. Meanwhile, no work is getting done.

Problems with any of these four interfaces send to workers the wrong message about timeliness and the seriousness of making mistakes or doing poor work.

 

 

Copyright © 2001-2008 Human Performance Applications (HPA). All rights reserved. TeamOJT™ is a trademark of HPA.