Incendiary and Explosive Device Training at Cuddly Bear, Inc.

Memo: To All Staff at the Soapsuds Falls Plant

Thank you all for attending our retraining seminar. As you all know, the acquisition of Cuddly Bear Plush Toys by Death From Above, Inc. has necessitated some changes in our plant’s production line. Specifically, instead of children’s stuffed animals, we will be making incendiary antipersonnel devices for use by the military. Management understands the apprehension some of you may feel regarding this change, and we want you to know that safety is our first priority. We want to keep injuries and fatal accidents to a reasonable minimum as our staff is retrained to handle toxic chemicals, explosives, and corrosive materials.

Training Needs Analysis

Senior management has identified three areas in which staff will need to be trained: production and assembly techniques, materials handling, and safety procedures. Fortunately, the first component, production, and assembly will be relatively simple to implement. All of you are familiar with the Cuddly Bear assembly line and it will be easy to adapt your skills to the manufacture of the People Blaster, the Firestorm, and the Crater Maker. What we intend to focus on during the first half of this weekend seminar are the techniques needed to assemble machine parts, check for proper tolerances and torques, and implement quality control procedures.

Most of you have little or no experience handling explosives or corrosives. As it is our utmost wish that casualties be kept to a minimum, the second half of this seminar will be devoted to hazardous materials training. We intend to make our employees fully aware of the potential hazards of the sensitive materials used in the manufacture of our products. As Ayoub (1989) remarked, there exists an ongoing problem of “…devastating cost and human suffering caused by the severity of material handling related injuries” (Ayoub, xi.). Remember, our products are for killing the enemy, not you! We want to impress on you that workplace safety, something you may have not thought much about when assembling Cuddly Bears, is now of critical importance.

To this end, our third stated objective, workplace safety, will be emphasized throughout this seminar. While there have been great forward strides in recent years, employee accidents are still prevalent in manufacturing. Many of these are caused by negligence and/or insufficient training. You should know that due to the changes in our product line, workplace safety will be more critical than ever. It is one thing to have a box of Cuddly Bears fall on you; it is quite another when the same thing happens with a crate of People Blasters! We know the critical role that management and proper training will play here. Christian, Bradley, Wallace and Burke (2009) examined this concept in-depth and found that “As anticipated, safety knowledge and safety motivation were most strongly related to safety performance behaviors, closely followed by psychological safety climate and group safety climate. With regard to accidents and injuries, however, group safety climate had the strongest association” (Christian et al., 1103). What does this mean for us? It means that a climate of safety as Job One will do more to keep our workplace hazard-free that having you all simply memorize safety procedures and read manuals. We want you to understand the “why” of safety before seeing a co-worker disappear in a giant fireball because he/she was careless.

(Schedule omitted for preview. Available via download)

Costs of the Retraining Program

It is to be expected that the cost of this program will be substantial. As this is a compulsory weekend seminar, all employees will be paid 1.5 times their regular hourly wage for attending this training. Additionally, management and training personnel will need to be compensated for their time. Moderate costs will be incurred for training materials such as audiovisual aids, signage, and waste-handling materials, though some of those costs will be absorbed into refitting the factory floor. There will also be an increase in normal plant electrical consumption during the seminar weekend.

Training Methodology

As very few if any of our employees have expertise in machine tools, heavy manufacturing assembly line procedures, hazardous materials handling, etc., management’s emphasis should not be on getting up to speed as quickly as possible. Rather, we should strive to make our employees comfortable with the scope and range of their new tasks. We should all remember that the key to a happy and healthy workplace is the comfort and safety of those who work there. We will, therefore, endeavor to make this transition as smooth and non-traumatic as possible.

Many of you have expressed concern that your skills learned during your tenure at Cuddly Bear will not translate well to this new work. Particularly, our older staff may be worried about their ability to adapt. We freely acknowledge that sewing plastic eyes on Cuddly Bears isn’t the same thing as fitting proximity fuses onto cluster bombs. Yeatts, Folts, and Knapp (2000) remarked on the importance of “…recognizing that older employees have needs, values, and interests that must be met by their jobs for them to choose to remain employed and adapt to workplace changes” (Yeatts et al., 565). The retention of our loyal employees is a major priority for our company, and we intend to make that happen by re-educating all our employees, but especially older staff, so that they feel comfortable with their new duties. After all, Death From Above could have simply fired everyone and hired new staff from some defense plant somewhere. We don’t want to do that; we would rather retain the hardworking employees who have kept Cuddly Bears at the top of every child’s Christmas wish list for decades.

Accordingly, the training you will all receive during this seminar will be of a practical nature and focus on hands-on, self-directed learning. It has been demonstrated time and again, particularly in the manufacturing sector, that the best training is when employees learn by doing rather than being told what to do without practical application. Furthermore, Vincent and Ross (2001) reported that many people are primarily experiential learners in “…an overview of learning style, personality types, and multiple intelligences theories” (Vincent & Ross, 36). Management during this seminar will accordingly strive to individualize training as much as practically possible. We are aiming for a 1:2 trainer-to-staff ratio so that every employee can receive as much individualized attention as possible. This approach may increase the cost of this training seminar but will, we feel, be more than worth it in the long run.

Agenda of Learning Activities

At frequent intervals throughout the weekend, informal seminars will be given by training staff on particular aspects of the transition. These topics may concern only a few staff members or may be of interest to the staff as a whole. These will include Chemical Properties of Antipersonnel Munitions, Monitoring for Radioactivity; Emergency Treatment of Chemical Burns, Gas Masks, Decontamination Suits, and Dosimeters, and Working with Emergency First Responders.

Lastly, in addition to the formal training over the course of this weekend, recorded e-seminars will be available on the internet for the two subsequent weeks. Online certification of completion of training courses will be available, and employees will be paid upon completion. This is an effective way for employees to supplement or augment what they learn during the seminar. Strother (2002) observed that “E-learning is less expensive than traditional classroom instruction. In addition, many expenses - booking training facilities, travel costs for employees or trainers, plus employee time away from the job - are greatly reduced” (Strother, 1). We have already alluded to the need for hands-on training, but much of the supplemental training needed can be done online at the employee’s convenience. As the cost of making such training available is quite low, it has been folded into the estimated cost of training materials in the budget given above. At most, the e-training will add $1000-2000 to the cost of the project.

We hope to make the retraining process as smooth and painless as possible for both our employees and our management staff. We do realize that the changes in our product line will be profound and that many employees are naturally apprehensive about being able to adapt to our new methods. Again, rest assured that your comfort and well-being are our first priority, and that workplace safety is paramount. Our retraining program has been devised with the goal of taking the skills you have acquired working for Cuddly Bear and making those skills work for the new company. We hope you’ll find that you can be just as happy making Firestorm Clusters as you were making Mister Friendly Bear toys. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions.

References

Ayoub, M. M. (1989). Manual materials handling: Design and injury control through ergonomics. Cleveland, OH: CRC Press.

Christian, M. S., Bradley, J. C., Wallace, J. C., & Burke, M. J. (2009). Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1103.

Strother, J. B. (2002). An assessment of the effectiveness of e-learning in corporate training programs. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3(1). 1-6.

Vincent, A., & Ross, D. (2001). Personalize training: Determine learning styles, personality types and multiple intelligences online. The Learning Organization, 8(1), 36-43.

Yeatts, E., W. Edward Folts, James Knapp, D. (2000). Older workers' adaptation to a changing workplace: Employment issues for the 21st century. Educational Gerontology, 26(6), 565-582.