One of the biggest problems for logistics firms when they make new hires is that it can often take days or more to get those employees up to speed with how quickly and efficiently the rest of their operations work. Even when in-house training is completed, there’s still plenty of learning on the job that comes as a natural part of working as smoothly as possible, but too often, that’s because training efforts may not be as effective as they could be.
A big part of an improved approach to training could come in the form of more integrated technology, according to Supply Chain Brain. While workers may learn the ropes of your operations with the help of supervisors or coworkers assigned to the task, that takes time away from what they have to do on a daily basis, leading to a loss of productivity a new hire was meant to address in the first place.
With voice-guided technology that tells workers where they need to go with a particular picked order or how to properly navigate a large warehouse setting, they may get the one-on-one assistance they need to hit the ground running after an initial training effort – without affecting your other workers, the report said.
Seeing the value
For major companies like Walmart, the need to quickly onboard more hires so that they can work more effectively at every step of the company’s in-house supply chain led it to develop a training academy with a dedicated purpose, according to the Association for Talent Development. Currently, Walmart has roughly 200 regional training centers – which have combined to train more than 1 million workers in recent years – but that simply isn’t an effective model for the retail titan any longer.
Instead, it is opening a state-of-the-art training facility – measuring some 1.2 million square feet – near Dallas, the report said. This space will consolidate the efforts of 15 training centers in and near Texas under its roof, and Walmart plans to take similar measures to boil down its hundreds of current training centers to 10 or so larger facilities.
Getting the funding
For many organizations, the issue of increased new hire training is certainly a question of money, and to that end, it may be possible for some to seek outside help, according to Feed Navigator. The Grain Elevator and Processing Society Foundation recently reached a fundraising goal from numerous donors to create new training opportunities for those in the subsector’s supply chain and bolster existing options.
The GEAPS Foundation helps generate funding for people working in the grain and oilseed supply chain, with online training and courses for industry professionals, the report said. Steve Records, the organization’s executive director, said the company is looking into the best ways to invest the roughly $4 million in funding – provided by both corporate entities and individuals – in an industry that is evolving even as the scientific processes underlying it stay more or less the same.
Whether training is funded internally or with the help of industry organizations, companies may want to look into the efficacy of new approaches to get a better handle on their onboarding efforts.
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