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Training and other stuffs... 6

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rotw

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May 25, 2013
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I know this is subject that has been heavily discussed ; still I feel today a real frustration observing how things are done when it is about training employees;
It looks like some people or management look at training as if this is some sort of bonus or extra.

It is certainly possible to learn things from our own, means by putting efforts and hard work somehow we can educate ourselves.
But training is to me something different. First it is before anything else a signal from management to anyone part of a work team saying that management is willing to do things right. Because things can go wrong they have to be handled responsibly and seriously. "Seriously" looks so easy to say but it really means a lot.

So at first this what it is about : an attitude and a culture of working. And yes managers have to live with the idea that some people will be trained and might leave the company.

Second aspect and that's from an effectiveness view point, training is quite different then self learning. The reason is that it provides a more structured way and the building blocks. So later on when things gain in complexity it differentiates between people facing same level of challenge. Sometimes what it leaves behind is just simple clear rules that might save longs hours of debate and speculation so that people could move on with things.

Then another point is the duration of the training sessions. In general, the "one day session thing" appears to me often not enough.

Of course no one can afford to train everyone on every topic. But certainly there are key topics for a business that requires a commitment in terms of development of people. As I see it training has really deep implications of how people are valued and how humble management attitude is when it comes to technical challenges.

So I wanted to learn about experiences of others on this topic ; For people that have been long enough in business could you please share your perception on how things have evolved in the last years/ decades? Do you notice a specific trend - in other words is it really getting worse...?
 
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While I don't think the mean is anything like what you describe, the variance, company to company, varies so much that it's hard to discern what the mean behavior really is. Generally, the larger the company, the more likely it is that there is some vestige of a notion of training, insofar as technical training. What has definitely shifted to more training, are the mundane sorts of ethics, sexual harassment, ITAR, etc., training that are all on canned video courses now.

Even within a company, the variance in training is large, particularly over time, since training is non-profit generating, so the health of the bottom line often drives that.

TTFN
faq731-376
7ofakss

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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
 
central europe, smaller companies though: usually no training. at my previous job i've been promised solidworks (2 days i think, advanced modelling), but nothing ever came of it.
bigger ones do send you though, but i doubt it's much more then CAD usually (or ethics :) ). or QA if you are in that line of work.
some foreign-owned are different though, like Hella. they can send you for a month to germany on training if you are good.

that's for design engineers though.
for QA smaller companies usually expect the knowledge and exp, while bigger send you to training.
 
I agree with what IRstuff said. Training doesn't earn value for the company in the short term. This creates a vicious cycle of semi-experienced engineers leaving because they don't get enough training and then the company gets a new crop of young engineers that they won't train.

Semi-related anecdote. At a previous job they had a training program for "high performers" that showed potential for leadership. It was a good program and they did spend some money on it.

One of the tasks for this group was to develop "Engineering 101" courses for new hire/young engineers. So they paid for the training of a few, who then developed training for many...a pretty shrewd business move if you ask me.

Kevin Connolly, PE
 
Personally I find the term training somewhat offensive. You train animals. People should be educated. But I realize that is mainly a perception issue. I really get irritated by people who complain that they need training. If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill. Observe and talk to coworkers. It is a matter of expectations and personal responsibility. Some people expect knowledge to be given to them when and as they need it. These same people probably goofed-off in school and made a minimal effort to learn when they were given the opportunity.

Feeling frustrated is a completely useless emotion except as motivation for you to make a change in your life. If you expect other to make you happy you will be sorely disappointed, particularly in a corporate environment. People who add value to an organization are valued and rewarded in the long run. People who are a burden and complain frequently do not get ahead.
 
Compositepro

Some people (academics) say "you learn at school for life" others (Practitioners) say "what you learn at school stay at school".

This means that there is a fundamental difference between knowledge gained from practice (and practitioners) which is rough and based on trial and error process and the one gained from reading books.

I want to be exposed and trained (educated if you like) by practitioner not by a book and I want to take personal notes as much as I can when I have the chance to attend a quality training.

What I have seen is Engineers reading things in books and then claiming to practice engineering and having the arrogance of arguing with you or with others on things for which - in reality - they have no clue when very Senior people with 30 years of practice and evidence of real "organic knowledge" would remain humble and cautious in front of the same technical issues.

The same give you "green light" on feasibility because that's what the book told them. They should have been educated about the risks and how to tackle things appropriately, that's how company defend its reputation and professionalism and also transmit its legacy to young people. That's where my frustration and my complaint come from. You missed the point.

No offense but I found your statement "If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill"
quite bogus.
 
That is a strange position to take, Compositepro. Education comes first, but no school or university can truly prepare engineering employees for everything they will encounter in the workplace, notwithstanding the expectation that some employers have today. What you learn on the job is called training, at least in my book.
 
Guys, look at my new motto (signature)...
Lovely isn't it ? :)

"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".
 
And just to precise, it is not for mocking ... It is adopted.

"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".
 
I'm kinda with Compositepro here. I cringe whenever the pointy-heads think that each of us is nothing more than 200lb of engineer that can be trained to do anything. Or more generally in life, that any random person can be trained for any task. Similarly, "I haven't been trained" is normally a poor excuse for lack of enthusiasm and interest in new ideas.

Just a language thing, I guess. So easy to convey different meanings to different people, using the same words.

- Steve
 
Hokie, I won't argue with you. As I said, feelings about the words "training" vs "education" is a perception thing and semantics. To me, on-the-job training refers to simple tasks like a worker would learn on an assembly line. I would never refer to what an engineer learns during a career at work as OJT.

ROTW, I was worried about being too harsh with you, but not any more. I like your new motto. It is just sad that it is not truly your motto. Your attitude toward taking responsibility for your own education will limit your career and other aspects of your life. You seem to feel that books are only written by college professors who have never actually done anything. Perhaps these are the only ones you have ever read because you only read what you are told to read by others, such as your professors or trainers. In fact, there is not a subject on earth that you cannot learn much about by reading the appropriate books, magazines, manuals, catalogs, advertising, you name it. At what point in your life do you expect to be grown-up enough to not need someone else to tell you what you need to know? Reading alone is not enough, although it is the main thing. (People who do not read much are generally pretty ignorant.) You must practice your knowledge. With practice you become experienced and, perhaps, an expert. All this takes time and, most importantly, effort.

Free trade magazines and their advertising are excellent educational opportunities for professional development. Every product being advertised was developed to solve a problem. Do you understand what the problem the problem is and how the solution works? If not, think about it until you figure it out. That's what engineers do, they solve problems. Glossing over advertising that you do not understand is like reading a book and glossing over words you do not understand, rather that looking them up.

I also mentioned something about talking to and observing co-workers. You must always exercise critical thinking. What co-workers, trainers, experts, and books tell you will not always be correct.

Every minute you are exposed to learning opportunities. It is your responsibility to pay attention and take advantage. The main thing is to have to have curiosity about the world around you. If you don't have you probably aren't going to get it. Training is a poor substitute for curiosity.
 
you seem to have a kind of "know it all" attitude. But that's not the main worry.
main worry is that you break through open doors, all what you wrote is of no big added value or at best just a boring reminder.
I have a collection of 400 books in my own library which I have collected during 15 years...and I have membership card to biggest libraries in my area including universities...and if you want to teach the real values of books...well I am just questioning how internet forums communication can become such insane ? interesting phenomenon.

The subject was completely missed by you. what I submitted is to discuss - at a higher level - how companies approach nowadays the execution of projects and whether or not they (management) invest in training (I continue to call it training) as they often are in a logic of cost saving or models which is definitely a possible source of defects ; If I am mechanical engineer dealing with a complex process thing, I would learn things by my own but getting a session course on the fundamental challenges and the key aspects of what I am going to deal with, from a professional experience person is invaluable and overall , it is to my opinion the proper way to do a run projects in solid manner. Then I was seeking for input from others on this.

"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".
 
I agree with ROTW, The initial subject appears to have been forgotten.

This topic was not about how to take responsibility for your own learning but about how training is perceived in different companies and the importance they place on it. I.e. is training an essential tool to develop employees and progress the company? Or is training seen as just a cost to the business? Do companies place the same importance on training as they once did?

Yes people who want to learn can read books and gain experience in various manners. But training is an efficient way to educate multiple people and to ensure that the knowledge is consistent. A company which organises training events is showing its employees that they are valued - it is investing in them. It is showing employees that they are trying to push the company (and everyone within it) forward. Training is also a good way to impart knowledge on those who would otherwise not necessarily seek it (that is not to say the majority of training is for this purpose).

This topic is actually a perfect example of how one should not rely solely on reading as a way to gain knowledge as it appears the original topic has been misunderstood - perhaps this is a training requirement.
 
"But training is an efficient way to educate multiple people and to ensure that the knowledge is consistent."

The right training may be, but all too often the kind of training that get's given is some out of the box standard course that doesn't directly address the companies' needs, and is done as a 'tick in the box' exercise to show that the person arranging it hit their annual goal of improving DFMA or CAD skills or whatever it may be.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484
 
I think there's a general cultural bias against academic education in the US; which probably stems, amongst a host of things, from the Puritan founding fathers of this country. Academic education, when done well, provides one with the tools, math, physics, etc., for assimilating new things. I think that's why there's such an overemphasis on childhood sports; "sound body, sound mind" which neglects the fact that people need to be even better educated than they were 30 years ago, but most schools can't even muster that.

I try not to collect physical books anymore, for both cost and physical limitations like lack of bookshelf space.

As for training, most companies have fundamental difficulty in that the people that know the subject best are often poor at teaching and disseminating their knowledge. The tends to drive companies to for-profit trainers, who are often teaching to the lowest common denominator, and extract a pretty penny for what they do teach. We sometimes try to do lunchtime seminars, where lunch may be provided, and the employees are learning on their own time (lunch). Sometimes, it works well, other times, not. We just did one recently, but the material was clearly over the heads of about 90% of the audience. In addition to all of the above, creating a 1-hr session that is both informative and meaningful is not something that engineers are experienced in, and it just takes time to create the slides and material.

TTFN
faq731-376
7ofakss

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
 
To counter that, in UK education there is dwindling emphasis on "sound body" i.e. sports, healthy eating etc. and almost no emphasis on "sound mind", while in fact these are key, because without them it's difficult to achieve much else in life.

Balance is crucial; through personal experience I dound that my career only really "took off" when I started looking after my work life balance, exercising etc. and came into work refreshed every day. I'm grateful for my academic education, but I wouldn't knock them emphasis you have over there towards sound body and mind.

NX 8.5 with TC 8.3
 
What if there is nowhere to practice???

I agree with your view. If I want to learn something, I'll find a book/website/something with the information I need and practice it... I learned most programming languages I know like this and began using different processors for the tasks I was taught to use a 8051 for example...

However, other things (especially in some fields of Engineering) are not feasible to practice by yourself. Imagine you are responsible for the maintenance of automation systems in a 24/7 plant... would you invest the cost of a fully redundant PLC + field network to learn about that specific system? Or wouldn't it be better to have some training (or practice) in that system to acquire some experience?

What gets me the most is companies pouring money down the drain with "training" on people that don't have any skill to make use of that training to begin with just because they have to show they are working towards the development of their people. That is both irresponsible and dangerous as the person will think they know and who knows what'll come out of it.

I'll be going for a course in High voltage VFDs in a couple of months... I know how a drive works, I know how a PLC works, but I cannot afford to buy one of those drives to learn by myself and the company I work for cannot invest that money compared to the cost and easiness of sending me to a course. Obviously, I would prefer to learn by myself, but we have to look at it from all sides.
 
I have enjoyed this discussion.

I tell my trainees, "I need to teach you how to think and not what to think." Artisans get trained on what to think. If this happens, do that. If it doesn't work, try this. Engineers should look at the challenge (as we don't have problems) and break it down to the fundementals and construct a number of solutions and then choose the best to impliment understanding all the risks involved.

Quite often I find people coming across a challenge and then pulling out some previous, similar example and then manipulating it to fit the current challenge. This is not thinking. Read some of the stuff De Bono has put out.

I still believe that you have to train methods but educate principles.
 
I think there's a general cultural bias against academic education in the US; which probably stems, amongst a host of things, from the Puritan founding fathers of this country.

"american ingenuity"
 
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