Reinventing the Wheel at Apex Door Company
Jim Delaney, president of Apex Door Company, has a problem. No matter how often he tells his employees how to do their jobs, they invariably “decide to do things their way,” as he puts it, and arguments ensue between Delaney, the employee, and the employee’s supervisor. One example is in the door- design department; the designers are expected to work with the architects to design doors that meet the specifications. Although it’s not “rocket science”, as Delaney puts it , the designers often make mistakes- such as designing in too much steel- a problem that can cost Apex tens of thousands of wasted dollars, especially considering the number of doors in, say, a 30-story office tower.
The order- processing department is another example. Although Jim has a specific detailed way he wants each order written up, most of the order clerks don’t understand how to use the multi page order form, and they improvise when it comes to a question such as whether to classify a customer as “industrial” or “commercial”. The current training process is as follows. None of the jobs have training manuals per se, although several have somewhat out- of- date job descriptions. The training for all new employees is all on the job. Usually, the person leaving the company trains the new person during the one- or- two week overlap period, but if there is no overlap, the new person is trained as well as possible by other employees who have occasionally filled in the job in the past. The training is basically the same throughout the company- for machinists, secretaries, assemblers, and accounting clerks, for example.
Questions
1. What do you think of Apex’s training process? Could it help to explain why employees “do things their own way,” and if so, how?
2. What roles do job descriptions play in training? What would you do to improve the training process at Apex? Make specific suggestions.
