Third-party training resources provide opportunities for growth and efficiency

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Third-party training resources provide opportunities for growth and efficiency

19 Feb 2021

Joanie Spencer

Since 2008, Joanie Spencer has covered the retail and wholesale sides of the baking industry.
Serving associations such as the American Society of Baking (ASB) and BEMA, Joanie is also in demand as an industry presenter on bakery operations and trends. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from Rockhurst University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

When she’s not running or playing soccer, Joanie spends her time with her husband and 11-year-old son.

KANSAS CITY, MO — In bakery manufacturing, training is essential. Capital investments are made with things like efficiency and ROI top of mind, but it’s important to remain cognizant of the workers who are not only running the equipment but also have the potential to grow within the company.

During the American Society of Baking’s virtual BakingTECH conference, held Feb. 16-18, Cari Rasmussen, food safety specialist for Commercial Food Sanitation, an Intralox company, shared insight into how bakeries can tap external resources to enhance current internal training programs and ultimately achieve training goals.

Rasmussen noted that, while education focuses on understanding and training focuses on performance, both are equally important. “It’s important that workers know what to do in order to perform their job,” she said. “This is likely an essential part of our training goals; however, it’s becoming increasingly important that employees understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

The purpose of training can fall into several buckets, including onboarding, auditing requirements, and evolution of skills or operations.

“The events of this past year have brought a lot of change to how we work safely, whether in the manufacturing environment or our offices,” Rasmussen said. “Employees needed to be trained to understand new protocols, new communication systems and changing expectations. The jobs haven’t changed, but how jobs are executed may have evolved.”

When executed properly, training becomes an important element of continuous improvement and is essential to keep up in a changing environment. So, why can training programs be so hard to maintain?

Rasmussen highlighted a handful of reasons, including time constraints, staff turnover and a lack of resources. According to a Global Food Safety Training Survey from Intertek Alchemy, just under a third of respondents cited the use of external resources such as online learning, onsite training with an outside instructor, or external training offsite.

“It’s important that workers know what to do in order to perform their job. This likely an essential part of our training goals; however, it’s becoming increasingly important that employees understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

“Overall, the use of external training is growing,” Rasmussen said.

With so many options, it’s hard to know which option is best suited for a specific workforce. Ultimately, training becomes part of the company culture, and setting that comes from the top down, so at the corporate level, it’s important for leadership to consider why the training is needed.

“Ask yourself, ‘What is the end goal? Are we looking for performance? Are we looking for understanding?’” Rasmussen suggested. “You also need to understand the challenges with conducting that training when using your own resources and considering if it makes sense to do externally.”

With the ever-widening workforce gap, outside resources make training a little easier for positions that have a high turnover. “External resources can alleviate challenges by having materials available on demand,” Rasmussen said. “Prerecorded sessions can help, especially when the motivation is to have an associate ready to work on a moment’s notice.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the right types of external training can be beneficial to leadership development as well, especially when the there are opportunities for deep-dive learning and networking with industry peers or mentors.

“The more engaged people feel through training, the more it will help alleviate staff turnover,” Rasmussen said, adding, “They could feel more inclined to stay with a company where they can continue to develop and grow in their career.”

Although the pandemic is limiting options for external training, Rasmussen emphasized training that’s delivered safely and effectively must remain a top priority.

“We can’t put training on hold,” she said. “We’re challenged to think about how to engage with participants, create interactive experiences as much as possible and ensure that training remains effective.”

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