Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1288481
34 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2020 Dill: Definitely. If I'm meet- ing with the company's top executives, there might be HR folks, training man- agers, etc. What I see most often is a lack of commu- nications internally and a commitment that does not reach all the way to the top. The HR folks and training managers are serious about developing a comprehensive training plan and sticking to it, but that mes- sage is not always supported at the top until that pain arises again. Then, the arrows point back down again, and management says, "Fix it." It depends on internal buy-in and a top- down commitment to make sure this happens and that all your people have the opportunity to do the job right. One of your questions was, "Who's the customer here?" In my opinion, the customer is the customer. The customer is your compa- ny's customer. We're all in this to make sure that we deliver good products and services on time. The end-users suffer if that doesn't happen. I've been at the executive level in some larger companies, and I'll admit that I've been guilty of that, too: "Just get that product out. Let's get our quantities built and make sure we're on schedule," and then all of a sudden, you get it right in the butt when your quality suffers or your profitability goes down because you're not building a great product or your services aren't where they need to be. It's a top-down commitment. We see more and more of that as companies and executives are learning. But it's still a chal- lenge out there. Montana-Beard: There are things that human resources need to do. For example, with a new employee, what do they need to know? When they join the production floor, they should be ready. It's not the floor supervisor's job to teach them about time clocks, benefits, the lo- cation of the nurse's station, ISO compliance, etc. I could name 20 things that a new em- ployee needs to know before they come to the production floor. Johnson: If you're a manufacturing firm, every- body's there to support the manufacturing pro- cess. Training is an investment, so there needs to be a return on investment for the training process. From an executive perspective, it of- ten seems that the measure is how long the employee stays with the job. It's the length of service that pays back the training investment. How do you talk to your customer about the value or ROI of training programs? Dill: It's an art to understand how to accurately calculate return on your investment for train- ing. There are so many different factors along with that. There's a basic formula, where your net profit change is divided by your training, but that doesn't cover everything. There's no exact formula to calculate ROI. It's a combina- tion of a lot of different factors. For example, a few years ago, a company came to us and said, "Apparently, we have some training problems that we need to fix to be able to positively affect some of these key factors. One of those factors is our turn- over. We have so much turnover right now— about 200%. We think a lack of training is the cause." They also looked at some other factors, such as quality. But the bottom line, in that case, was there were key elements missing in training. Morale becomes a big factor because when people aren't prepared, and they become frustrated, they end up leaving, which leads to high turnover. Years ago, when I was on the floor at one of our larger customers, they were using a staffing firm for a lot of their employees. The staffing agency was responsible for making sure they were prepared before the new employees took a post on the floor. I happened to be in there watching some SMT equipment when the shift changed. The second shift folks came in, and this young fellow walked up to one of the ma- chines. The previous operator welcomed him, said, "Have a good night," and left. It turned out that was the gentleman's first night on the job. He looked at that operating manual, closed it, and walked out the door. I followed him because I was curious and said, "Where are you going?" He said, "I don't know Al Dill