A supervisor was disciplining a recent recruit for the third instance of unexcused absence. In frustration, the recruit blurted, "I am only 21. Do you expect me to come to work EVERY day?" This small incident vividly demonstrates the adage that is now gaining widespread acceptance among many of my clients - namely "Hire for attitude, train for skill."

This adage makes two demands on employers. 1.) Find a way to measure an attitude to determine its suitability, and 2.) Develop the training necessary for the employee to acquire the necessary skills for the job.

Attitudes
Although there are many approaches and tests that claim to measure attitude, my clients have had limited success with them. First, the employer finds it difficult to develop a profile of the desired attitude. The problem is that attitude is so abstract and the elements difficult to define that the relationship to the manifestation of the attitude in practice is often difficult to recognize.

Rather than become involved in extensive testing, clients often select a group exercise, such as "Lost at Sea." In this exercise, the group needs to reach consensus as to the importance of items to load into a lifeboat. The supervisors then watch the potential recruits as they attempt to solve the problem - evaluating the individuals' ability to interact with potential colleagues. However, this approach has limited success because the evaluators only measure the recruits' capacity for interpersonal interactions.

In desperation, some clients make use of the 90-day probationary period to observe the prospective employees' performance and to dismiss them at the first instance of a violation of a desired trait. Although doable, this approach can result in a huge investment in recruiting time. I know of a case where a company had more than 120 probationers to fill 4 positions!

Training
Acquiring what many companies refer to as "our most valued asset, our people," is merely a first step. The next challenge lies in effectively training those people to ensure that the organization gets the highest return on its investment. While the traditional concept of the training process involves placing candidates in a room to imbibe information from the instructor, it seems that more effective approaches might be to provide training aimed at filling in specific skills which the trainee needs on the job. For this to happen, the skills necessary for the job have to be determined and training activities developed, to impart these skills to the candidate. Training in this manner overcomes the possibility that individuals begin forgetting material. Experts have indicated that people forget what they've learned within 8 to 16 hours after instruction if they fail to use the newly-acquired skills in that time.

Less traditional approaches to training involve coaching and using process simulation exercises. In the latter situation, trainees are allowed to experiment with alternative processes to see for themselves how modern manufacturing methods can help them complete their tasks more quickly and efficiently. On return to the workplace, trainees are allowed to experiment with their work method to determine whether they can achieve the desired results in practice. Indeed one of our clients was able to use simulation to encourage employees to drop their traditional batch manufacturing process and move to single unit manufacturing.

Training courses which enable employees to interpret operational and financial information may be offered once employees have acquired the necessary job skills. In this way, training becomes a vital element of a thrust toward world-class. Aubrey Mendelow is a WINOC Senior Advisor with more than 30 years of experience advising senior and middle-level managers in strategy development and deployment.