An HR leader at an industrial services company called us this year. Her company operates large processing plants in several states, and its regional SVP made bench building his top priority.
Her chief engineers maintain the machines in those plants. She told us a new hire with the right aptitude needs "a year to two" to learn the machinery. The chiefs learned to manage on the job. The company loses most of its people one level down, among the hourly maintenance technicians the chiefs train. Departing technicians usually cite pay or another offer, but she looked further and found friction with the chiefs. The technicians want to develop, and they want a career path.
Who Belongs in Maintenance Leadership Training
She picked about 25 people: the chief engineers, plus the high-potential technicians the company wants to move into supervisor roles. She asked whether the program fits technicians who lead a crew before the promotion.
We told her, "It becomes more effective if they learn it ahead of time." A technician who learns to communicate and motivate starts practicing those skills before his promotion. Our facilitators draw on that experience in class. They ask the group for times each person led a job before a promotion, and the technicians answer with their own examples.
Cover Every Skill on the List
She listed communication, teamwork, trust, conflict, time management and delegation.
We recommend all 10 Front Line Leadership modules. They build in order, and the later modules draw on the earlier ones. The 10 modules match her list this way:
- Module 1, Role of the Leader, walks the participant through the move from doing the work to leading the people who do it.
- Module 2, Managing Different Personalities, assigns each participant a DiSC profile.
- Module 5, Communication Effectiveness, teaches him to talk with each person on his crew in the way that person listens best.
- Module 3, Motivating and Engaging, teaches what drives people besides pay and how a leader builds trust. For some chiefs, we told her, "it's going to be like seeing a new color."
- Module 4, Teamwork and Collaboration, teaches the chief to turn a group of technicians into a crew.
- Modules 6 and 7, Managing Performance, teach clear work direction and our Employee Development Model, which moves a skilled technician from coaching to delegation.
- Module 8, Coaching for Commitment, teaches the coaching conversation.
- Module 9, Managing Conflict, draws on those DiSC profiles to teach the chief to settle disputes on his crew.
- Module 10, Managing Change, teaches the chief to lead his crew through change.
Graduates move into Advanced Leadership Skills, which teaches time management and delegation in full.
Fit the Schedule to Hands-On Learners
She told us her technicians "prefer doing, being very hands on." We built our virtual sessions for that kind of learner.
Each participant completes 30 to 45 minutes of pre-work before a live session of about two and a half hours. After the session, he finishes about 30 minutes of post-work. The facilitator spends about a quarter of the live session on content. The participants spend the rest practicing with each other and the facilitator.
We schedule two to three weeks between sessions. Each module ends with a Putting the Skills to Work exercise that the participant completes with one of his own employees back at the plant. When an employee calls in or the week fills up, the participant moves that conversation to another day. The extra weeks let him finish it.
Before the first session, the facilitator meets with HR or the local operations lead. The facilitator learns the plant's challenges and the words the crew uses. We call that personalizing. We teach the same core material everywhere and pull the examples from your plants.
Questions to Ask Before You Choose a Program
- Where do you lose people, and who trained them?
- Who belongs in the first group?
- Does the program teach every skill on your list, and what comes after it?
- Does the schedule allow each participant time to practice with his own crew between sessions?
- Will the facilitator meet with your operations lead before the first session?
We keep the material to what we told her on that call, "very basic blocking and tackling," so a chief can apply it the day he leaves class. See all 10 modules, or book a 30-minute call and we'll tell you whether it fits your maintenance team.