ON-THE-JOB TRAINING Moving Beyond “Shadowing” – Supercharging OJT By Michael France M y last Aviation Business Journal article discussed the challenges that new frontline supervisors face as they transition from frontline team members into leadership roles. These challenges range from being “caught in the middle” between management and front line to handling rela- tionships that can be strained due to new supervisor responsibilities. Frequently, employees are promoted because of qualities demonstrated in their current posi- tions—great line techs are promoted to supervisors and great supervisors are promoted to managers, and so on. At each step, individuals must navigate a new set of challenges and hone a new set of skills. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for new supervisors/managers is training and employee development. Unless provided training and education themselves, most new supervi- sors and managers train and develop their teams the way that they themselves were trained. Depending upon their early career environment, this could be a good or bad thing. In our competitive service environment, however, leaving that to chance is unacceptable. While there are many different components to training and employee development that can be addressed with new supervisors and leaders, one of the most beneficial is in On-the-Job Training (OJT). Approaches to OJT can span a wide spectrum from laissez-faire “shadow- ing,” where the employee simply follows an experienced employee around watching how they do their job, to over- bearing, high pressure situations where new employees are thrown into situations for which they are unprepared. Fortunately, effective OJT techniques are not dif- ficult to understand and practice. The NATA Safety 1st program, which incorporates OJT as a key part of all learning, utilizes what we call the structured model of OJT. The structured OJT model consists of seven steps that provide trainees with an orderly approach to learn- ing that touches on all the most common ways people learn: Prepare, Explain, Demonstrate, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Debrief, and Assess. Let’s take a look at each phase in a bit more detail. Prepare If our goal is professional, customer-focused, and detail-oriented employees, then we should expect no less from ourselves. All too often, OJT sessions are proceeded by little to no preparation and are conducted in an “on- the-fly” manner. Frequently, work schedules, customer schedules, and business schedules place an insane time demand on trainers, supervisors, and other leaders, but this cannot be an excuse to be ill prepared. New supervi- sors need to be shown that preparation for OJT sessions can be an ongoing process, rather than just something that occurs directly before the session begins. Prepare 28 Explain Demonstrate Aviation Business Journal | Spring 2020 Guided
