You already know training roofing workers is essential. They, of course, need to learn how to install roof systems, use proper safety measures and behave appropriately at job sites. But conducting training isn't easy—to do it well, there are many issues you need to consider. Helping employees learn new skills, gain knowledge and improve attitudes can be challenging and requires creativity, flexibility, insight, knowledge and patience.
It helps to have a framework you can use to approach training. ACTIVE training can increase the likelihood training will result in employees' improved job performances. ACTIVE training is effective because it is matched to a group's characteristics (appropriate level); understands and overcomes cultural and language barriers (culturally sensitive); enhances the transfer of training to the workplace (transferable); establishes its importance for employees and focuses on topics' most critical aspects (important); uses a mix of teaching methods (varied); and requires employees to be active (experience-based).
Appropriate level
When planning training, it is important you consider your employees' backgrounds. For training materials to be effective, your employees must understand and be comfortable with them, so knowing your employees' education and literacy levels is critical.
Training resources should be made available for employees at various reading levels. Individuals with higher literacy skills are comfortable reading and easily understand what they read. These individuals can be asked to read to themselves or aloud during training sessions to get some of the information. They also can be asked to complete written exercises—such as computing wind-uplift calculations or working through case studies to practice budgeting skills—on their own or in groups. Individuals with midrange literacy skills can comfortably play word games to review new terms.
For unskilled and semiskilled employees who work primarily with their hands, audiovisual and live demonstrations are the best methods for teaching new tasks. After watching a procedure and having the opportunity to ask questions, employees should practice the skill.
For example, after an instructor demonstrates the step-by-step mitering of a cant strip, employees should duplicate each step—and they should keep attempting the procedure until they perform it correctly. Then, they can practice the technique until they master it.
During hands-on training segments, pairing an individual who is likely to catch on quickly with someone who may take longer to perform a task correctly can benefit both students. It allows the quicker individual to model the correct procedure for the other trainee to help him or her perform the procedure correctly. Working together also gives the more advanced student an opportunity to reinforce the new skill and keeps the student active in a situation where he or she might otherwise be bored waiting for other students to catch up.
Before using this training strategy, an instructor should assess whether employees are likely to be comfortable working together and explain to the class that as each person practices the new skill, his or her partner should observe and provide feedback.
In addition to considering employees' education and literacy levels, it also is important to think about employees' experience levels. How long have they worked in the industry? Do they require new training or retraining?
Many cognitive psychologists believe people use schemata to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding. Schemata are mental structures that represent some aspect of the world and the way it works.
Identifying an employee's schemata can help a trainer use teaching methods that challenge biases.
For example, when an instructor knows some employees have worked for years without using proper safety equipment, the instructor can anticipate that those individuals may have a "safety isn't important" perspective and lack interest in—or even resist—safety training. In such cases, trainers should be prepared to help employees overcome those barriers.
To do so, a trainer must clearly communicate that he or she believes in the importance of safety training and safe behavior on the job. If employees believe safety training is done simply to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements, they may ignore the training.
To motivate employees to focus on information, an instructor can begin safety training sessions by asking employees whether they know anyone who has been seriously hurt or killed on a job. Discussing the details of such incidents can generate lively discussion that relates directly to the upcoming training. Also, many safety training videos present stories about accidents or near-accidents that can change an individual's views about safety.
Another reason it is helpful for instructors to know something about trainees' backgrounds is trainees often have interests and experiences that aren't directly related to the training that can help them understand new ideas. Analogies and metaphors can be powerful tools for explanation.
An analogy likens something new to something familiar. For example, personal protective equipment (PPE) protects roofing workers from burns, cuts and head injuries in the same way a football player's equipment protects him from injury during a game. A professional football player wouldn't do his job without protective equipment and neither should a roofing worker. This analogy may help employees who are familiar with football understand PPE's importance.
A metaphor is a figure of speech used to demonstrate how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in one important way. Examples of metaphors commonly used in business environments are calling a work group a "team" or referring to employees as a "family."
Instructors can create their own analogies and metaphors to help students make connections between important or difficult ideas and familiar concepts.
Culturally sensitive
Non-English-speaking employees are at a higher risk for on-the-job injuries.
According to research conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization that chronicles the U.S. Hispanic population's effects in the U.S., the construction industry added nearly half a million jobs between the second quarters of 2005 and 2006 and a majority were filled by foreign-born Hispanic employees.
Although the construction sector's economy has slowed recently, the Pew Hispanic Center says the ratio of Hispanic construction employees hasn't decreased. And in 2006, fatal work injuries involving Hispanic employees increased to the highest levels since the fatality census began in 1992. (However, because of increased employment, the fatality rate for Hispanic employees was lower in 2006 than in 2005.)
According to OSHA standard 1926.21(b)(2), "Safety training and education," employers must instruct all employees to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions they may be exposed to on jobs. OSHA also requires training to be conducted in a manner in which employees understand. And training that overcomes language and cultural barriers can pay off in several ways.
First, well-trained employees are more productive, and training can help new employees avoid picking up bad habits they observe in co-workers.
Also, well-trained employees are less likely to suffer injuries. Research conducted in 1984 on behalf of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health demonstrated that training operators of industrial-powered trucks reduced operators' error rates and that operator training combined with feedback further reduced errors that could lead to injuries. OSHA considers these studies among the best for demonstrating training's effectiveness.
And minimizing workplace injuries can reduce workers' compensation claims, lost workdays, and pain and suffering, as well as improve morale and productivity.
Raymundo Jimenez, a project manager and trainer for Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based D.C. Taylor Co.'s Concorde, Calif., branch, says conducting training separately for English- and Spanish-speaking employees is more effective than using a translator to train the groups together.
"It takes twice as long or longer to conduct a class where you translate everything, and sometimes you run out of time and can't cover all the topics," Jimenez says.
Jimenez also says that when some of the class is speaking Spanish, English-speaking participants lose interest and vice versa. Training then becomes a constant process of trying to re-engage the groups.
But there is more to training a diverse work force than simply conducting training in participants' native languages. For example, Hispanic culture discourages employees from challenging authority and asking an instructor for clarification. For this reason, it is important to have an instructor who shares the employees' culture. This creates a safe environment where employees can feel comfortable.
A culturally sensitive approach also can encourage employees and employers to understand and respect each other.
Transferable
Training is effective to the degree it translates into new behavior on a job. This conversion process is called transfer.
Many things influence transfer, including issues relating to appropriateness and cultural sensitivity. Other ways to increase transfer include:
Important
Learning is strongly affected by motivation. Adults are motivated to learn when they recognize needs that learning will satisfy—they want to know how they will benefit from learning something new.
Trainers can demonstrate relevance by revealing gaps between an employee's actual abilities and the abilities the employee should have. One way to do this is by beginning training sessions with a challenging question.
For example, to start a sales training session for new roofing salespeople, an instructor could ask: "How do you know whether a prospect you are working with is the decision maker?"
When an employee recognizes gaps in his or her ability to respond to situations he or she may encounter on jobs, the employee is more likely to consider training important. If employees don't view training as important, it can be difficult to keep their attention and gain their commitment to using new skills.
Another aspect of training importance is that people can remember only a limited amount of information. Highlighting and repeating a topic's most important aspects will help employees focus on and remember those critical points.
Varied
Each training method has advantages and disadvantages. When planning training, one question to consider is: Do the teaching methods offer variety? An instructor should use every tool at his or her disposal to communicate important messages to employees. There are many available from low-tech tools, such as flip charts and chalkboards, to electronics, such as televisions and computers.
When choosing teaching methods, a key thing to remember is the more closely the training activities match the skills required on the job, the more likely the desired behavior will be used in the workplace. But variety is important, too; using various teaching methods and presenting information in different contexts maintains interest and enhances learning.
You should consider several additional things when choosing teaching methods, which are highlighted in "Selecting teaching methods" on page 26.
Experience-based
The goal of training is not just to transmit information but to change employees. Concrete experiences such as working through case studies, participating in role playing, solving calculations or practicing new procedures can give employees the opportunity to apply the information they are learning in training and receive feedback before performing learned tasks on the job.
Classroom discussions also can be important when they prompt trainees to think about how information can be applied on actual jobs. During these discussions, employees and instructors can collaborate to solve difficult problems.
When trainees practice new skills and receive feedback, they are more likely to use these skills successfully. Sometimes, feedback comes in the form of a trainee observing the results of his or her actions.
For example, if an employee practices mitering an outside corner for a gutter installation during in-shop training, the employee will realize something is wrong if the corner doesn't fit. By observing this result, the employee may be able to determine what he or she has done wrong, or the employee can seek guidance from the trainer or another employee.
Experience—whether through discussion or skill practice—has to be relevant and interesting to keep trainees engaged. Presenting realistic scenarios reflects an employee's day-to-day experience and promotes thinking about different approaches to solving problems, which prepares the employee to confidently approach similar situations encountered on jobs.
Get ACTIVE
A quote attributed to Confucius is especially relevant to training: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
Learning is enhanced when instruction is in the context of real-world tasks and learners apply their newly acquired knowledge or skill in a way that is consistent with the objectives. And application is even more effective when trainees receive feedback.
If you want to significantly increase the value of training in your company, a good first step is to shift the focus from using words to relay information to using them to provide corrective feedback and encouragement for employees practicing new skills.
Jeanne Schehl is NRCA's director of education program development.
ACTIVE training
A—appropriate level
C—culturally sensitive
T—transferable
I—important
V—varied
E—experience-based
Learning theories
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or cognition based on experience—in contrast to changes that happen through natural development and growth processes. But how do people learn?
Many credit American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike with being the first to apply scientific methods to the study of educational problems beginning in the late 19th century. Since then, many theories about learning have been developed. The most prominent include stimulus-response theory (commonly known as behaviorism), cognitive theory and constructivism.
Although these theories vary significantly, there are principles from all three that are acceptable to most learning experts:
Selecting teaching methods
When choosing teaching methods to use in employee training sessions, consider the following.
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