Development from novice to expert is something we need to go through multiple times in our working career. So, why do organisations still struggle with refining this process and what still needs to be done? Martin Summerhayes writes...

 

 

Novice?

Let me ask you a question, when were you a novice? 

Likely as not, you are currently an expert in your field of service, having worked across a number of companies and business sectors over a number of years. Your experience and maturity mean, that you may be considered an expert in your field. Whether it is supply chain, reverse logistics, inventory management, field planning, field service, engineering, remote support, or repair operations. You get the picture.

The spectrum of support areas that make up an end-2-end service model are extensive and require people to understand both the individual complexity, as well as how that whole service lifecycle fits together.

How often are people “pigeon holed” into a particular part of the service landscape, gaining experience in one area, but not understanding any other?

So, back to the question, when were you a novice?

For me, it was last Autumn, when I started a new role in a new company. Despite the many years of experience that I have in the services business; taking on a new role, in a new company, brings the feeling of being a novice and having to learn from scratch, numerous things. How the company operates; what in reality my role is verses the role that is advertised and interviewed for. The clients

and partners that I have to engage with and serve. All of these aspects take time to master and I challenge anyone to say that they are fully productive and adding value within a short period of time. Even someone with the length of experience that I have, it takes weeks and possibly months to fully embrace the diverse aspects of the role that you take on.

 

"I really do not like the word apprentice due to the meaning that it has..."

 

So, let’s turn to one of the biggest challenges in the services business today that is directly tied into being a novice and getting novices into the service world.

I have played slightly with words here, as most people would call a novice, an “Apprentice”. However, I really do not like the word apprentice due to the meaning that it has. If you check the google dictionary, the word apprentice means,  “a person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed period at low wages.” Now, I know that is what the definition means, but for those who take on these roles, it can feel negative in its meaning.

I recall starting out as a field engineer, many years ago. Yes, the salary was low compared to the other engineers in the team I was joining. However, they were all more experienced than me and had been trained on a broad range of technology. Me, I was straight out of college; had masses of theory; but no practical experience at all. I was paired up with a senior field engineer for my first month and together we travelled across greater London, resolving numerous service issues. He was kind, thoughtful and helpful in explaining both the problems and how to resolve them. He taught me the technical aspects of field service, but more importantly, he taught me how to engage with customers. How to ensure that they felt that they were important. That their issue was managed well and resolved.

More important that both of those aspects were the end-2-end views my supervisor gave me. He organised for me to sit with the field despatch team, seeing how field calls were organised. He made sure I spent time with the parts storeman, so I understood the importance of returning parts in a timely manner and finally, he let me sit with the bench repair team, so I could learn some of the techniques of component repair.

"It gave the novices the freedom to experience as many different roles and aspects of service as possible..."

That early set of experiences has always stayed with me. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to mentor and support a group of novices as they started their service careers after leaving education.

I organised their joining based on a double rotation basis. A week spent with each key aspect of the services lifecycle within the business (a lot more complex than what I had experienced when I started). This meant, starting with Service Introduction, with the technical take on of new services. Then to Remote Scheduling and Partner Support. Then into the field, across the multiple different field models – High End Systems, Break Fix, Volume Repair, and Deskside. Then into Warehousing, Logistics and Repair. This was to give them a small understanding of the services model we operated.

From there, the novices were then rotated through each department again on a four to six-week rotation. The idea being that they would deliver a specific project during that time to aid that part of the business. Finally, there was 360-degree feedback from the department heads and the novices themselves as to which department that would like to be based in for the next year. At the end of the two-year programme, they were allowed to take up permanent roles or apply for other roles in other parts of the business.

Was this approach affective? Yes, highly.

It gave the novices the freedom to experience as many different roles and aspects of service as possible. It enabled them to understand the board picture and how services fitted together. It also allowed us to understand their strengths and where they worked well and for them to understand whether service and a particular role was right for them. Some stayed and some left, but every one of the novices appreciated the effort we had put into the scheme.

So, what scheme do you have? Do you even have novices in your business?

It does not matter whether your business is massive or small, there is always an opportunity to bring on new people. Let me give you two current examples.

 

"I challenge everyone in the services world to embrace the idea of novices..."

 

The client I am working with at the moment has 40,000 employees. Yep, 40,000, across the whole of the UK. They have a novice programme and operate very similarly to what I ran previously. The cohorts are grouped together in groups, to give them peer support and so that they do not feel isolated. They do a four week rotation and work on projects designed and supported by the departments they are in. They get regular support, feedback and guidance. Each novice has a mentor that they can work with. Speaking to a number of them recently, they felt positively engaged, valued and part of the organisation.

For my own organisation, which is much smaller, we too are looking at bringing on a couple of novices this year. To support the expansion of the business and also to provide resilience by cross training them in a couple of technical areas.

So, I challenge everyone in the services world to embrace the idea of novices. Bring them into your organisations, but more importantly, have a plan and a roadmap of what they are going to do. Don’t just dump them into an area of your business and expect them to thrive, proposer and grow. Look after them and in the medium term, they will grow into roles that will add significant value to your business.

I leave with the following quote:

“In most every business, you learn by doing. The apprenticeship model is much more effective than the classroom for cultivating entrepreneurs.”

Andrew Yang (American entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, lawyer, and former candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 election

As apprentices learn the strands of Industry 4.0 will knowledge be a clean break from what’s gone before or will the past also influence the future? Mark Glover finds out more...

As we navigate our way through industry 4.0, discarding maps for GPS, we walk roads fizzing with IoT. Our watches, homes and cars are now ‘smart’, working together to streamline our experiences, where real-life merges with a virtual interface. The revolution is here and all areas of commerce are being affected by this shift, most notably manufacturing. But is industry 4.0 as much as a revolution as the three that preceded it? 

Arguably, the period between 1760 and 1840 was the most fundamental in terms of changes to the sector, where hand or animal-based methods were cast away in favour of more productive mechanized factory systems. This shift, one could argue, mirrors today's digital landscape, where in its simplest form, digitization is making paper-based, heavy manual-led procedures obsolete.

Today images of grey chimneys pluming grey smoke from grey factories are still commonplace in some places, but for those working inside factories of yesteryear conditions were harsh. Long shifts and few breaks pushed workers to the extreme on a shop floor where health was obsolete and productivity the priority. In short, money-led mill and factory owners had no time for wellbeing. 

That said, the period did bring a wave of advantages including a surge in work for regions where unemployment was high, however impatient owners provided little to no training on operating these new machines, which, to those fresh employees, must have seemed like something from another world and not a little daunting. Employees’ rights were all but nominal so failure to pick up the complex workings could see you back out on the cobbled-streets just as quickly as you came in. 

An apprenticeship differed substantially to what we know today. Owners took advantage of the many poor, orphaned children of the time drafting in a swathe to work the machines. In return, the children received no remuneration but were afforded lodgings and food instead, which, to some, was just as valuable.  

Three revolutions on much has obviously changed, including the modern apprenticeships. Today, young people learning this fourth manufacturing cycle learn data and digitalisation; algorithms and AI. The workings of a coal-powered furnace are skills less called for. Data is the new fossil fuel. 

In the UK at least, apprenticeships took a hit in the 90s when the government removed the levy for employees taking on trainees. I’ve written much about the impact this is having on the manufacturing workforce, particularly as workers age and eventually retire leaving a vast chasm of knowledge in their wake. Running alongside this is a general attitude from young people, the next potential generation of engineers, who see the sector – particularly service - as a dirty, lonely and tough environment with little reward.  Sound familiar? 

 

"A nod to the past might just enhance the future..."

 

 

Now you’d expect large companies to be on top of this. To be fully aware of the importance of having young people fill their shop floors. Much like a successful sports team has a strong academy programme, companies like Siemens are recognising and instigating strong apprenticeship placements. 

Last year the company announced a digital apprenticeship scheme to compliment the evolution of their own digital factories. The scheme pays selected students £3,000-a-year from the second year of university as well as up to 12-weeks paid summer placement throughout the duration of their studies within a Siemens business. At the end of their degree they will be given the chance to join one of the firm's many graduate schemes 

When the press release went out showcasing the scheme a quote from Brian Holliday, MD of Siemens’ Digital Industries, outlined its intentions. "By strengthening links between business and our world-leading universities," Holliday said, "we can inspire and nurture talent to support the UK’s leading role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” 

So how do you inspire and nurture the next wave of the modern workforce? To find out more I spoke to the Head of R&D at Siemens’ digital factory in Congleton, Ian Donald to discuss the origins of the programme and how ties to the past will form the future. 

“We wanted to create an academy that takes the traditional courses that people are on." he tells me over the phone, "and we want to add a digitilisation and a data analytics element to that.”  

Siemens run a UK Engineering Directors’ and Manager’s Forum where senior employees discuss strategic action points potential initiatives. One of the forum’s sub-groups focuses on skills, which Ian leads on and its this group that identified traditional engineering courses in manufacturing, electrical and mechanical were failing to focus on digitilsation and future digitilisation skills. 

A firm understanding of big data, data mining and AI are all necessary but Ian pinpoints the digital twin, a way of replicating from the virtual to 

 

the real-world, as an important learning curve as it incorporates elements of modern and traditional engineering. “You need an understanding of simulation and data,” he explains, “but you also need the hands-on experience of a traditional engineering role such as problem solving. So it’s about bringing these worlds together.” 

The word revolution in industry suggests drastic change, where the old ways become extinct, replaced by modern more efficient processes. However, can such a process be a clean break? Surely its more evolution than revolution? No change management project rips up what’s gone before and leaps blindly.

Perhaps more than previous industry revolutions, industry 4.0 is going to look back before it moves fully forward and to take the workforce with it. For apprentices, this is an exciting time as they grapple with exciting concepts like digital twins and data mining, however a nod to the past might just enhance the future.

What is the future of the service workforce? The knowledge gap remains worryingly vast with little action being taken to close it. Mark Glover wonders if a youth revolution will help.

Having addressed service leaders at a conference recently, Cheryl- Anne Sanderson felt something was missing from the sector. Here, she outlines how mentors and leaders can work together to approach the issue of the ageing workforce...