THE FOUR-STEP PROCESS
For years professional instructors have followed the four-step teaching process that is best used in practical on-the-job situations. You may wish to view this process as a baseball game, in that you have four bases to cover before you can score. In other words, you (the instructor) will take the employee (learner) around four bases, one at a time. What follows will show you the moves you should make, the dangers you face, and the signals you should follow.
First Base: Prepare the Worker
Because it is difficult to learn until one is psychologically and emotionally ready, your first responsibility is to help the new employee prepare for what you will teach. Here are four tips:
Put the learner at ease. Give the employee time to adjust to you as a person before you move into teaching the job itself. Find out a little more about the employee, make small talk, and try to put the person at ease. Make the effort to establish a relaxed learning climate. It is time well spent.
State the job you are going to teach and find out what the employee already knows about it. Do not waste time (or insult the employee) by teaching something he or she already knows. You may discover that a quick review is all that is necessary.
Motivate the person to learn the job. Give the worker some reason to learn. You might suggest that it could help the individual earn the respect of others, or you might talk about the personal satisfaction and pride that can come from learning something new. Make it sound exciting. Your job as a teacher will be much easier if the worker wants to learn.
Place the worker in the correct learning position. Just as a baseball player must have the right stance to hit the ball, it might be best for the worker to be at your left side instead of your right or to stand instead of sit. Determine the best physi- cal position for the learner in each job you teach and be certain that he or she is located properly before you start. Attention to this factor will make the job easier for both parties.
Second Base: Present the Operation
Preparing the worker is comparable to reaching first base, and now you are ready to try for second. The following suggestions will take you there with little difficulty:
Describe, illustrate, and demonstrate one important step in a task at a time. Do not give so much information at once that the learner becomes confused. This careful instruction is not easy to do because you know the job so well that it is hard for you to remember how long it took you to learn it.
Tell the worker how to do the job, speaking clearly and slowly. Use simple words. If you must use a technical term, be sure to explain what you mean.
Whenever possible, follow up with an illustration. Take out your pencil and sketch the process; it need not be a work of art to convey the message. Show the learner by actually performing the job yourself, one step at a time. Be sure that you perform in complete detail so that your actions are easily observed.
Stress each key point. Determine and then stress the one key point in each step of the operation as you go through the process. This emphasis will help the learner recall each step later by remembering the key points, and the process will thereby become easier. When a given job takes more than five steps, this procedure becomes increasingly important.
Instruct clearly, completely, and patiently, but do not give the worker more than can be mastered. The greatest error that most supervisors commit is trying to teach too much too fast. They overestimate their teaching abilities and the employee's learning ability. If you try to teach too much at one time, you will only confuse the learner, and you will have to start over. Break the total job into separate steps and present them in sequence. Do not start the second step until the first has been mastered. If necessary, permit a lapse of time between steps. Focus on teaching the material thoroughly, even though time is at a premium.
Third Base: Supervise a Trial Performance
Give the new worker an immediate opportunity to do the job on a trial basis following this three-step procedure:
Have the learner do the job so that you can correct errors quickly. Few new workers perform jobs perfectly the first time, and the only way to spot errors is to have the worker try out the process under your direction. Of course, errors should be pointed out and corrected quickly without showing impatience.
Have the employee explain the key points of the job. It is important that the key points learned in the second step be repeated verbally by the learner during the first performance. Explaining each one makes it easier to remember.
Make sure the worker understands. It is vital that the learner understand why it is best to do a job in a certain way and why the job is important to the total efficiency of the department. Give the employee the opportunity to ask questions.
The idea of this third step is to continue until you know the learner knows. If necessary, continue the dry runs until the skill is mastered.
Home Base: Follow Up the Performance
Tell the worker where to go for help. If you are not easily accessible to the new worker, find a co-worker to help the employee achieve and keep a high level of productivity. In short, appoint a co-worker who will be compatible with the new employee and willing to help when needed.
Check frequently to see if all is going well. Take time to check with the worker as well as the sponsor. Nothing can replace your own interest during the employee's first critical days of learning.
Taper off coaching so that the worker does not feel oversupervised. After a certain point, the employee deserves the satisfaction and freedom of going it alone. Stepping back will provide the worker with the confidence needed to assume further responsibility at a later date. Oversupervising can destroy initiative. Pull away when your job performance standards have been met.
If you successfully follow these steps, your chances of success will be greatly enhanced. The new worker will know how to do the job, will do it right the first time, and you will have the confidence to be a long-term, productive member of your department. You will have begun to establish a solid relationship with the new worker.
If you have tried the four basic steps and still feel that you have failed in your efforts to train a new employee, the cause could be one or more of the following three errors: