CIPD - On-the-job training

Learning, training and development

Revised November 2008

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

defines on-the-job training
discusses its place as a development tool and how it can be delivered effectively
provides a case study example
includes the CIPD viewpoint.

What is on-the-job training?

On-the job training is an important way in which people acquire relevant knowledge and skills at work. Here it is important to make the distinction between training and learning – this is critical to the effective design and delivery of training in organisations. In our Training to learning Change Agenda, the terms were defined as follows:

Training is an instructor-led, content based intervention, leading to desired changes in behaviour.
Learning is a self-directed, work-based process, leading to increased adaptive potential - for fuller details see our Helping people learn web area.
- Go to our Helping People Learn web area
- Go to our Training to learning Change Agenda

In a sense therefore, we are more interested in promoting on-the-job learning than on-the-job training. However, using the well-established term, on-the-job training (OJT) can be defined as an activity undertaken at the workplace which is designed to improve an individual’s skills or knowledge. OJT is a well-established and well-used intervention designed to enhance individual skills and capabilities with the characteristics of:

being delivered on a one-to-one basis and taking place at the trainee’s place of work
requiring time to take place, including potential periods when there is little or no useful output of products or services
being specified, planned and structured activity.

OJT used to be colloquially called ‘sitting next to Nellie’ – learning through watching and observing someone with more experience performing a task.

Who uses OJT?

It is difficult to be precise on the extent or incidence of OJT in the modern economy as different definitions are used in different surveys. Fine distinctions (for example, between OJT and informal learning) may not be immediately recognised, or seem important, in the workplace. Additionally much OJT, taking place as it does as part of day-to-day activity at the trainee’s workplace, is not recorded centrally.

However, the largest survey ever undertaken in the UK¹ indicated that about half of the total training delivered across all industries and sectors consisted of OJT. Our surveys on the theme Who learns at work? showed the value placed on OJT by learners.

OJT was the preferred method of learning.
46% of the respondents of the most recent survey indicated ‘being shown how to do things then practising them’ as their best method.
Hardly anyone found OJT and learning from colleagues the least appealing method.
Generally learners prefer active rather than passive learning and few people prefer learning in isolation.

Virtually identical results were recorded in the 2002, 2005 and 2008 surveys. In the 2008 survey, we also asked questions about the use of electronic equipment at work. Here ‘self-taught – no training received’ was the answer from almost half the population of those who used such equipment. However, it a reasonable assumption that if they face difficulties in using equipment, they will turn to colleagues for advice. This can be viewed as another form of OJT.

See our recent Who learns at work? surveys

Similar findings have emerged from out annual learning, training and development surveys in which OJT was perceived as a more effective means of learning than any other method.

View our annual learning and development surveys

OJT is dependent upon the trainer having sufficient knowledge and expertise to impart to the trainee. OJT is important and the quality of OJT can be considerably improved through effective design.

The advantages of using OJT

Training can be delivered at the optimum time: for example immediately before a job is to be performed ‘for real’ in the workplace.
The trainee will have opportunities to practice immediately.
The trainee will have immediate feedback.
Training is delivered by colleagues and can go someway to integrate the trainee into the team.

The disadvantages of using OJT

There is a tendency to fit OJT in when it is convenient for office routine rather than at the optimum time for learning.
The training may be given piecemeal and not properly planned, and the trainee gains a fragmented picture of the organisation.
Too much training can be delivered in one session leading to ‘information overload’ and trainee fatigue.
The trainer may not have sufficient knowledge of the process or expertise in instructional techniques (a ‘train the trainer’ course may be appropriate).
If immediate practice is not accompanied by feedback the trainee can feel abandoned after the initial experience.

The elements of OJT

Preparation: there is nothing worse than trying to demonstrate how to use equipment where the OJT trainer has forgotten the password that gives access to the computer programme or the key to the equipment cupboard. Good preparation is essential, and the best OJT trainers have useful examples or practice exercises ready in advance.
Start with the learner: begin by assessing how much the learner knows already. The most straightforward questions will elicit the answers and save time. ‘Have you used spreadsheets in previous jobs?’ can save a lot of both persons' time when OJT training in MS-Excel.
Pick the best time: it can be very frustrating to spend Monday afternoon having the procedure for completing time-sheets outlined to you when you will fill them in on Friday (by which time you will have forgotten).

A case study: Piccadilly Supermarkets, Bulgaria

Most case studies on OJT describe situations where training is delivered by the trainee’s immediate line manager. This case study is describes how a new organisation undergoing rapid expansion needed to develop workforce skills against a tight timetable. The term they used was ‘coaching’ but, using our definition, it is recognisably about effective OJT.

The business challenge

In 1994, the Boliari Limited, the holding company for Piccadilly Supermarkets, was incorporated. The first supermarket was established the following year in Varna, a resort town on the Black Sea coast. Subsequent growth has been rapid. By mid 2006 Piccadilly operated six supermarkets in Varna and two in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, together with six separate smaller format ‘Mambo’ convenience stores. Plans are in hand for expansion across Bulgaria with another two stores due to open shortly in different towns in the country.

Piccadilly’s size and growth makes it a significant force in the local economy and the company intends to be the leading supermarket in Bulgaria. Its emphasis is on quality and it seeks to offer a wide range of goods in an attractive shopping environment (to provide shopping experience). The company motto is ‘load high spirits’ and the aim is to sustain the high level of service achieved throughout the chain.

Currently some 1,500 staff are employed by Piccadilly and all but 100 work in the supermarkets. A very flat management structure is in place, with three levels: store managers, supervisors and operatives (cashiers, warehouse workers, storage workers and sales assistants). The largest supermarket employs some 180 people and most employ on average 120.

The average age of the staff is under 30 and the company targets the recruitment of young people and students – over 50 per cent of the current workforce are engaged in some form of university or college studies. Bulgarian higher education allows students to study for a limited number of hours in the day and to live at home. Inevitably this approach to recruitment produces some challenges: for some of the staff it is their first real job and some of them face difficulties adapting to a pattern of regular work. Some have the option of seeking parental support for their studies, so attrition rates can be high, especially in the early stages. Moreover the company has a policy of growing its management from within so the management staff have not always gained the breadth of experience that comes with a mature workforce. Set against this the staff are intelligent and many are willing to commit if the organisation treats them fairly and offers them promotion opportunities.

In-store coaching

One key element of Piccadilly’s policies has been the development of a cohort of in-store coaches – experienced, excellent work performers, ready to pass their knowledge to the large number of newly selected company employees.

Coaches were nominated by the store manager in agreement with the managers responsible for purchasing goods. They were then trained by the central HR team in two critical aspects of induction:

How to pass to the new people the hard skills and product knowledge: the company standards and the basic procedures – for example, how to cut cheese or operate a till.
The softer skills of selling and the psychology of customer relationships.

This training took the form of one day courses spread over intervals.

The trained coaches were then responsible for managing the induction and on-the-job training of new joiners at store level. Using material designed by the HR department and by the Company Standards department, procedures for OJT were put in place. For one week the new joiners worked along side the coach, shadowing the job. In the next week the trainee worked by themselves but was observed by the coach. At the end of this second week there would be an evaluation or assessment meeting between a representative of the HR department, the coach and the trainee. At this meeting any problems were discussed and the coach would offer recommendations for improvement. The trainee then worked closely with the coach for a further week and this would be followed by a final week of almost independent work and assessment. This whole process was seen as the only effective way of ensuring that the large number of new staff could meet organisational requirements. In Piccadilly’s Head of Human Resources view:

‘This coaching project was necessary because our goal was not only to train quickly and efficiently this large number of new people, but also make them part of Piccadilly culture. We wanted to transfer the specific atmosphere Piccadilly has in our new supermarkets. This project worked because it gave a chance to many employees at all levels to be personally involved in the company growth and success. The joined utmost efforts of our best people, both management and staff made it work.’

In a supermarket employing 150 people there can be as many as 25 trained coaches. Following internal discussions, in recognition of their importance to the company, it was decided that the coaches should receive extra bonus to their salary on a regular basis.

For more on coaching, see our factsheet on that topic.

Go to our factsheet on coaching

CIPD viewpoint

An effort to improve the effectiveness of OJT will always be worthwhile. Training and learning professionals should ask themselves the following questions:

Where is effective OJT likely to be of particular benefit to the organisation?
Who delivers the OJT; who are the trainers?
Have these OJT trainers received appropriate training themselves?
How, otherwise, can the effectiveness of OJT within the organisation be improved?

References

TRAINING AGENCY, DELOITTE HASKINS AND SELLS and IFF RESEARCH. (1989) Training in Britain: a study of funding, activity and attitudes: the main report. London: HMSO.

On-the-job training