Operator Training Is a Process, Not an Event

“I train people, but they still don’t know how to do the job.”

“The operator is trained on five stations, but they work on station one 90% of the time and don’t remember training for stations two through five.” 

Sound familiar?

These common frustrations reveal the core problem with treating operator training as a one-and-done box to check for new employees. The reality is that to truly be effective, training must be a process, not an event.

Let’s explore why it’s so important, and what it looks like in practice.

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The False Comfort of One-and-Done

Traditional learning management system (LMS) training models revolve around documentation and completion, without looking at long-term retention or application of skills. New hires are ushered through training checklists, LMS modules, and shadow days, but when that person is asked to flex to a different station later, what happens?

While they may have passed an end-of-module quiz, a cold test of skills three or six months later often reveals that the operator training didn’t stick.

This presents serious risks to quality, safety, and productivity, especially in states like Michigan where a new law around paid sick leave is expected to lead to higher absentee rates. Without robust cross-training of employees, plants will be in a tough spot in terms of being able to shuffle operators to different workstations. 

Another common way of delivering knowledge, especially in industrial environments, is through one-point lessons. One-point lessons are short and focused on a single, specific task (hence the name). What they don’t do, however, is verify comprehension, provide supervisor oversight, or ensure consistent behaviors over time — all of which are essential to make sure problems don’t re-appear and to continuously improve. 

The Real Cost of Ineffective Training

Our recent Pulse on Quality survey revealed that only 52% of frontline operators said they understood their quality processes “very well” — a 24-point gap behind managers. That’s a training failure hiding in plain sight.

Poor frontline training has a number of downstream effects on manufacturers today:

• Higher turnover: When people don’t feel confident in their role and their contribution to the organization, they’re more likely to look for greener pastures.
• Increased quality risk: Training gaps can contribute to higher defects, scrap, and complaints, while also hurting efficiency and productivity metrics.
• More frequent safety incidents: Analysis of worker’s compensation claims by Travelers shows 36% of workplace injuries occur among first-year workers, a problem made worse by turnover issues and growing retirement rates.

When Training Gaps Surface Too Late

In many cases, companies aren’t aware of operator training gaps until they lead to an audit non-conformance or corrective action. Even then, retraining rarely links back to the finding, or is verified afterward.

The key takeaway here: Just because the LMS shows 100% training completion doesn’t mean an operator is floor-ready.

If the information your new team members need is cataloged in physical binders, that’s not scalable. Training has to meet people where they are, using intuitive tools and interactive content delivered at the point of use on the plant floor.

What Training as a Process Looks Like

The training process should be a continuous cycle of observation, training delivery, and effectiveness verification.

What does this look like in practice? 

• Daily plant floor checks: A system of frequent plant floor audits helps identify training gaps and provides one-on-one coaching opportunities. 
• Closed-loop issue mitigation: Corrective actions and retraining are linked to the initial audit finding for full documentation and traceability. 
• Targeted training delivery: Training is delivered in a mobile-friendly format on the plant floor, where operators need the information most. 
• Training verification: After a corrective action, a supervisor confirms that they observed the operator executing the task properly at the workstation. 
• Corrective action validation: Follow-up audits are scheduled under the same conditions as the original non-conformance, to ensure the retraining worked. 
• Continuous improvement: Cold testing is performed at regular intervals to ensure training sticks. When plant floor checks repeatedly identify training as the root cause of issues, the training itself is reevaluated and improved.

Training systems purpose-built for the manufacturing floor can fill those critical gaps left by traditional LMS tools. The new EASE On-the-Job Training capability, for example, is designed to enable the above processes. It doesn’t replace an LMS but fills its critical gaps and closes the loop between training and execution. Built-in, real-time dashboards give managers and leaders visibility into how often retraining is needed, whether issues persist despite training, and where training programs need improvement.

Supporting Flexibility with Continuous Learning

An exclusively LMS-based training model doesn’t work in today’s manufacturing environment, where labor shortages and turnover make cross-training and on-demand training accessibility vital.

Manufacturers that treat training as a process build teams that adapt faster, produce quality products consistently, and are more likely to stick with the company. Equally important, these companies know where gaps exist and how to fix them, creating a culture where continuous improvement is baked into the operator training process.