Tailor-Made Training for Industrial Sector Employees

Abstract

The paper deals with the topic of the further education of employees in the industrial sector. Even though Europe today has one of its most highly qualified cohorts of young graduates entering the labour market, approximately a quarter of European Union employees have significant professional skill deficits, their professional skills are much lower compared to those needed by an average worker to be fully proficient in their job. Companies must have employees who are able to quickly adapt to an ever-changing world market. That is why they need to invest in on-going employee training and development in order to both keep their employees and be successful. Academics from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra have a long-term cooperation with the EATON company, a global leader in electrotechnical technologies. Within the framework of this cooperation, the university was asked by this company to assess courses which it offered to its own employees as well as employees of other companies from industrial production practices, and if appropriate to suggest an improved model of the tailor-made courses provided. The authors present a case study, the aim of which was to evaluate the effectiveness and the meeting of the objectives of the training carried out for the particular target groups of participants. They describe the methodology of the assessment carried out and the main findings resulting from it.

1. Introduction

To ensure sustainable prosperity in the market, companies in each sector need to have competent, skilled employees. So, it is very important for companies, and mainly for companies operating in the industry sector, as technology innovation and development grows still faster and faster, to ensure permanent upgrading of their employees’ knowledge, work skills and abilities. This means that a key precondition of keeping the companies’ functionality and prosperity is the factor of human resource development based on offering opportunities for further education to the company employees. According to Armstrong [1,2], the benefits of a company’s employees’ further education can be observed at different levels. In particular, these levels are related to job performance of employees as individuals, job performance of specific groups of employees, as well as with the performance of the whole company. Moreover, a further benefit for a company resulting from ensuring further professional education and training to its employees, to keep them up-to-date with the newest innovations, software and technological applications, possibilities of their different uses, is the high probability of retaining its best employees. This statement means that today it is a challenge for companies to have a highly skilled and motivated staff. Not rising to this challenge can be seen as a barrier to the sustainable success and further prosperity of the company.

The education of employees means consciously undertaking activities aimed at the improvement of employees’ abilities required to perform the work at the moment or at the development of the employees’ potential to perform work in the future [3,4,5]. Through the education of employees, the employers try to eliminate gaps between the present level of employee knowledge, work skills, abilities, job performance, work enthusiasm, views on the performed work or task, and the required or desired one. Its key objective is to create conditions for the effective fulfilment of the company’s tasks through the purposeful and permanent formation of the working potential of the employees. It can have different forms within which different methods can be used.

Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, represented by the Department of Technology and Information Technologies at the Faculty of Education and the Department of Informatics at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, has a long-term cooperation with the EATON company, which is a global leader in electrotechnical technologies, ensuring distribution and energy consumption control, lighting technologies, hydraulic systems, systems and services for industrial and mobile facilities, aviation fuels, hydraulic and pneumatic systems used for industrial and military purposes, systems ensuring production rates, fuel-efficiency and safety of drive unit systems. Within the framework of this cooperation, the university, in particular the Department of Technology and Information Technologies, was asked by the EATON company to assess courses offered by their company to their own employees as well as employees of other companies from industrial production practices, and if appropriate to suggest an improved model of the courses offered by it.

2. Education of Employees

2.1. Why to Educate Employees

The education of employees, or the further education of employees is a precondition for both the sustainable productivity of employees as well as that of the company for which they work [6,7,8]. As progress and development are continuously changing the working environment of world markets, the employees have to be able to quickly adapt to all these changes to keep their work-related competences and performance. That is why their employers face the challenge to find ways which would be the best solution for their on-going training and development, irrespective of the costs connected with its assurance, as maintaining the employees’ success in their work also brings further success and prosperity to the company. Currently, the general trends in the education of employees are to change this education from the unscheduled, occasional form (based on the use of courses and training, the purpose of which is to obtain a given knowledge or experience) to a general approach to education, i.e., to a so-called learning organization [9,10,11,12]. The aim of the learning organization is to achieve the permanent education of employees focused on performance increase immediately but also on a longer time horizon on the basis of continuously provided feedback. Learning organizations purposefully use the learning process at the level of an individual, a group, as well as a system as a whole towards the gradual transformation of the organisation in a direction satisfying interest groups to an increased extent. The 21st century will be favorable to those companies which are able to learn and adapt to changes faster than their competitors.

In some cases, companies are not willing to invest in further professional education and training of their employees, although they are aware of the fact that this may lead to the loss of their best, most successful people. Another case is when the companies are not willing to invest in further professional education and training of their employees because they are afraid that their employees, after upgrading their work abilities or acquiring new competences within the offered education, could move to another (even competitive) firm. However, as some authors warn [13,14], much worse than investing in training and education of employees and then losing them is not investing in their education and development and keeping them. To gain and retain top people in organizations and companies is nowadays one of the key tasks of their management focused on innovations. Investing in human resources through employee education supports not only effective fulfilment of organizations and companies’ tasks based on meaningful and continuous creation of the working environment and conditions but at the same time it also supports overall appreciation by the employees, the loyalty of the employees to their employers [15], and last, but not least, it increases self-realization of the employees, the level of their performance (performed services) and time and financial savings in the positioning of employees [16].

Training increases its participants’ performance in their work (both as to their activity and initiative as well as to the quality of their work). In this way, it increases their general individual subjective evaluation in the company, and at the same time contributes also to efficiency of the company’s goals and objective achievements. However, there is also another aspect of the importance of employee education and training. This aspect is pointed out by The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), which is the European Union’s reference centre for vocational education and training. In 2014, Cedefop carried out the European skills and jobs survey (ESJ) to collect information on the matching of the skills of European Union adult workers with the skill needs of their jobs. This state-of-the-art survey was carried out in all 28 European Union (EU) member states. The data collection was done by means of quota sampling overall 48,676 employees (9154 respondents by telephone and 39,522 respondents online) from different demographic and socioeconomic groups, aged from 24 to 65. The mixed methodology approach ensured that the data collected provided a representative sample of the 24 to 65 working age population in each of the 28 EU countries.

As the results of the Cedefop’s European skills and jobs survey (ESJ) showed, many EU employees have skill deficits and lack opportunities to improve their skills. Since they started their jobs, the need to learn new things and the variety of their job tasks has significantly increased for about 53% of adult employees in the EU. Approximately a quarter (26%) of EU adult employees have significant skill deficits to be fully proficient in their job. Compared to their older colleagues, younger employees are more likely to have higher skill gaps in technical skills and soft skills. Older workers are more likely to have skill gaps in foreign languages, the ability to learn and apply new methods and new technologies, and in digital skills [17,18].

According to the survey results, 40% of employees need only basic literacy skills to perform their job, 58% need only basic numeracy and 33% of jobs in the EU require only basic ICT or no ICT skills at all. This shows that the skill demand in the European Union is low and stagnant for a lot of workplaces and employees.

Even more interesting are the survey results processed separately for the particular economy sectors. Respondents of the survey were asked to state whether there were or were not some changes or reductions in the variety of job tasks since they started their current jobs. The percentage of the employees per particular economy sector who declared no changes or reductions was within the interval from 25 to 40%. The lowest was recorded in the sector of financial, insurance and real estate services and the highest in the sector of accommodation, catering and food services. As for industrial sector employees (employees of the manufacturing and engineering sector), in their case, there was recorded the third highest declared level of changes (i.e., in their case, the third lowest level of no changes or reductions in variety of job tasks was recorded). In more detail, while a total of 47% of the respondents stated that the technologies they use in their work have changed since the time they started their current job, approximately the same number of them (43%) declared changes also in their working methods and practices and 29% of the respondents also in the products or services produced within their workplace. About a quarter (26%) of the respondents thought it was moderately likely, and one in five (21%) thought it very likely, that several of their skills would become outdated in the next five years.

In the international context, Europe is an area with significantly highly qualified young labour forces newly entering the labour market, but at the same time it is characterised by high skill mismatches undermining economic competitiveness and growth, which sustains unemployment and high social insurance costs and affects social inclusion [19,20]. To maintain standard productivity level in Europe, and with that is also connected living standards, needs the continuous promotion of the working skills of the target cohort of employees [21]. Cedefop, as well as UNESCO, has initiated many surveys and research activities [22,23,24]. These are focused on different areas, e.g., on vocational education and training, investment in initial and continuing training or creating strategies supporting the elimination of the skill mismatch (mismatch between the school graduates’ skills and competences, and the skills and competences demanded by the labour market, as well as the skills and competences any enterprise employees have currently acquired and the skills and competences which they should have according to their employers to perform their job on an adequate level). As the results of the Cedefop’s research have shown, although Europe has highly qualified graduates entering the labour market, still 31% of the survey respondents, whose current job was their first, assessed their competence and working skills as insufficient in comparison with the optimal professional profile ensuring them comfortability in their working position. In a similar way, 27% of those respondents who had undergone some kind of further education or training before they started to work at their current job or working position, also assessed their competences and working skills.

Within the European skills and jobs survey (ESJ) organized by Cedefop [17], 31% of the total number of 48,676 employees included in it were STEM graduates (i.e., graduates of tertiary study programs in natural science, technology, engineering, maths, and computing sciences). In general, about half (52%) of the workers employed in the industrial sector are STEM graduates, while about a quarter (26%) are employed in services and a fifth (21%) in public administration. Most (59%) employees in the ICT sector are graduates from STEM subjects as are about half of workers in manufacturing (52%) and construction (48%) sectors. About 48% of employees in the professional, scientific, and technical services have completed a field related to STEM. Within the ESJ, a significant number of STEM graduates (34%) declared that when they started their first jobs, they had lower skills than needed. To compare, the average in the other fields was 30%, which is not a statistically significant difference. However, these graduates are usually operating in jobs relevant to their qualification and at the same time, they feel a relatively high skill insufficiency, motivating them to upgrade their competences and working skills in order to feel themselves real experts for their work positions. Moreover, 54% of them stated that they had to face innovations of technologies they worked with in their job (to compare, the same was stated by only 45% of non-STEM field graduates) and 20% of them were convinced that their current working skills would not be sufficient in the time horizon of even the next five years. The presented numbers point out the need, or even necessity, to provide industrial sector employees (STEM graduates) with further training to empower them with the relevant knowledge and working skills to help them to keep their productivity and feeling of comfortability in their work and working environment. These statements are linked with the employers’ obligation to ensure opportunities for their employees to continue in their professional skills development. However, one could perceive this obligation not as an obligation but as a key pillar enabling the employers to achieve full exploitation of the human resources potential hidden in their employees [25,26,27].

However, it needs to be said here that the mismatch between the competence profiles of the school graduates entering the labour market and the competence requirements which an employee should fulfil for a fully featured performance of the working position which he or she holds, is of a different scope in each of the EU member countries. These mismatches recorded across the whole European Union are related to the quality and responsiveness of the national education and training systems as well as to the level of both the technologies used and the professional competencies required within that particular EU country’s economy. New labour market entrants from Slovakia and the Baltic states experienced the highest skill gaps in contrast to those from Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden. In Slovakia, the proportion of respondents who were previously in education or training and who said that their skills were lower than required at the start of their job is more than twice as high as the EU average (56% compared to 27%). This problem can be eliminated in one of two ways. One possibility is to improve the previous education of the new labour market entrants and the other one—the same, to improve their education, but not the previous one, but crucially, via continuous learning on the job, i.e., through ensuring adequate employee training for them (further education, continuing vocational education and training, tailor-made courses, etc.). To ensure a better match between the professional skills acquired during previous education and the labour market needs (skills required by employers), vocational education and training is recognised at the pan-European level currently as the most significant means [28].

2.2. How to Design Employee Training

The provision of training is an important pillar of European lifelong learning policies aimed at enabling workers at risk of skill obsolescence to upgrade their skills or to reskill [29]. The training of employees is the organized way in which organizations and companies provide development and enhance the quality of both their new and existing employees [30,31]. Training is viewed as a systematic approach of learning and development that improves the individual, group and organization’s [32,33] performance. It is a series of activities embarked upon by a company that leads to knowledge or skills acquisition for growth purposes. It serves as an act of intervention to improve an organization’s goods and services quality in stiff competition by improving the technical skills of employees, thereby, contributing to the wellbeing and performance of the human capital and the organization, as well as society at large.

According to the findings resulting from the ESJ survey [17], most employees engage in training courses to stay up to date with the changing skill needs of their job (57%) or to perform their jobs better (52%) or they are forced to undergo mandatory training (42%). Approximately a third of employees take part in different courses and training to promote their career prospects and 14% of employees are motivated to undergo some courses because of personal and non-job-related reasons.

The further education and training of employees must created and carried out in such a way that it would fulfil the expectations of both the employees (training participants) and the employers. Moreover, the offered educational and training courses should not only improve the employees’ (training participants) performance and productivity but should also be satisfying. If the offered educational and training courses meet these requirements in their creation and realisation, then they will also bring, besides the expected upgraded competence of their participants, different further benefits. Possible examples of these could be: more effective performance from the employees, improvement in the interpersonal and technical abilities of the employees, better preconditions of the employees for successful teamwork, and higher employee motivation and enthusiasm for the work [34]. Educational and training activities carried out by company within the company open a space for employees to become more efficient and successful in their jobs and for the company to become more competitive [35]. A company’s goal is to make full use of the potential of the human resources of their employees and to increase both the quality and quantity of their job performance. The upgraded professional competence of the employees is a key precondition for a company to achieve higher profits and ensure a stable position in the market. That is why it should be an imperative for companies to support the further education and training of their employees and they should permanently allocate the financial means in their budgets for these purposes, as the money invested in this way in their employees is a wise investment with different returns of these funds.

On the other hand, the above stated facts regarding the increase in company productivity, profits and competitiveness is not only a matter for the given companies themselves. These matters help to ensure the sustainable competitiveness of the country within the international market, which has a significant impact on the enhancement of the country’s national living standards.

As stated by Noe [36], in general, some companies invest quite large amounts of money in the further education of their employees. Usually, they make these investments when they follow the company´s development strategies. This means that they carry out educational and training courses to prepare the employees for intended changes or expected innovations which are to be introduced in a company. However, following these costs, companies need to have evidence of the effectiveness of these investments. That means they need to assess the efficiency of the training provided, i.e., to know what learning results are achieved by the participants, what are their reactions, how the completed training influenced the employees’ performance, etc.

When it comes to employee training, one of the biggest mistakes made most often is that companies put together training plans based on training needs, which are the most up to date in their perception. If this happens, the content of the training is designed based on the company managers’ and leaders’ vision of the employees’ skills and skill gaps, and it does not match the real needs of employee development. To prevent this mistake in designing tailor-made training for particular groups of employees, the whole process should start with identification of the actual needs of the target group of the trainees as it is in the Noe’s scheme of the training design process. To develop a training program, Noe specifies seven steps within the training design process [36]. These are:

• Conducting a needs assessment, i.e., to identify whether the planned training is really needed;
• Ensuring employees’ readiness for training, i.e., to ensure that employees have the motivation and basic skills necessary to master the training content;
• Creating a learning environment, i.e., to create a learning environment that has the features necessary for learning to occur;
• Ensuring transfer of training, i.e., to ensure that trainees apply the training content to their jobs, which means that the trainees understand how to manage the skill improvement and that they are supported by their co-workers and company managers;
• Developing an evaluation plan, i.e., to identify what types of outcomes, e.g., behavior, knowledge, attitudes, abilities or skills, the training is expected to influence; to choose an evaluation design that will allow the influence of the training on the expected outcomes to be determined; to plan how to demonstrate how the training affects the monetary benefits resulting from it;
• Selecting a training method, i.e., with respect to the learning objectives and learning environment to choose an appropriate training method, which could be a method of face-to-face teaching or e-learning using web-based training or mobile learning;
• Monitoring and evaluating the program, i.e., to assess the program of the designed training and to make changes in it to improve it so that the expected learning, behaviours, changes, and other learning objectives are obtained.

To measure training effectiveness, Rama and Nagurvali have proposed a four-stage cyclic model, which more or less corresponds with the seven steps given of Noe’s scheme of the training design process. The four stages of the evaluation model proposed by them are the following ones ([35], Figure 1):

• Training needs assessment, i.e., to identify whether the planned training is really needed and where the real gaps in the trainees’ knowledge, skills, abilities or approaches lie;
• Training design, i.e., to prepare a training schedule including necessary breaks during the training program, to choose the training methods, required materials and teaching aids to be used, sources of trainer decisions;
• Trainer performance, this is the neuralgic point of the whole process as even if the training needs and goals, as well as the training design are prepared well, if the trainer performance is not adequate, the whole training becomes ineffective.
• Trainee performance, i.e., evaluation of the differences recorded in the trainee’s performance due to the training undertaken.

The first stage of the cycle, the training needs assessment, should result in the formulation of training program objectives, as training objectives formulated based on a training needs analysis are a crucial factor in determining effectiveness of each training program. At the same time, in this stage, the evaluation of the training objectives should also be designed. This means to propose and elaborate how the learning achievements of the trainees in the context of the stated objectives and level to which the objectives were reached shall be measured.

The training needs assessment should be a three-step process including the following steps:

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Organizational assessment, i.e., to outline company’s visions, goals and objectives,

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Job task analysis, i.e., to analyze specific jobs and tasks that need to be carried out by different groups of employees, to analyze the skills, tools and resources needed with respect to the particular groups of employees and to consider how the capacity of the staff can be measured to ensure each task is being done correctly;

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Individual assessment, i.e., to consider who is to be trained on an individual, team and department level.

The second stage of the cycle, training design, is the outline dictating the fundamental characteristics of the training [37] and creating a platform to achieve to a higher or lower degree its stated objectives. The way in which the training is delivered to the trainees significantly influences the transfer of the training (knowledge and skills acquired during the training) to trainees’ workplaces, as the effectiveness of any training does not depend only on the acquisition of the required knowledge and skills but also on successful transfer of this knowledge and skills to the trainees’ performance environment. This transfer is most significantly influenced by the design factors of appropriately set goals, teaching methods, learning principles and management of the trainees, including their self-management. Additional to these factors, training design also includes choosing an appropriate location for the training, providing the necessary equipment and arranging a convenient time for its particular parts. In the abovementioned way, transfer proves that what was learned is actually being used in the trainee’s job practice for which it was intended.

The issue of the third stage of the cycle, trainer performance, is analogic to any teaching process. The key variable in achieving the stated objectives of any teaching process or learning achievements of any students is the teacher’s personality and performance.

The fourth stage of the cycle, trainee performance, is linked with the evaluation of trainees (employees attending the training), and it is not only their final evaluation but also continual evaluation. This is important for both the trainees to know they have achieved improvement in their job performance and for the trainer to know the degree of transfer of learning to the employees. It is very important to evaluate trainee performance with regard to the needs of the company for which the training is tailor-made. This means that the trainee performance evaluation should also be tailor-made for the company. Moreover, it should be based on comparison of differences in the trainees’ performance. In addition to comparison of differences in trainee performance before the training and after undergoing its program, the difference in trainee performance should be evaluated at regular intervals also while the training is going on. The trainees’ skills should be compared to the predetermined goals or milestones of the training program, and any necessary adjustments should be made immediately. This ongoing evaluation process helps to ensure that the training program successfully meets its expectations.

2.3. Education of Industrial Sector Employees as a Part of HEI–Industry Cooperation

One of the basic preconditions for quality assurance of higher education institutions is their sustainable interconnection with practice. Some researchers point to the fact that there are many factors influencing the success of the higher education institutions’ cooperation with practice, e.g., mutual understanding of the purpose of the cooperation or the working arrangements of the cooperation [38,39,40], others identify a range of barriers acting against successful development of this kind of cooperation, e.g., networking problems, ineffective exchange of human resources and knowledge, inflexibility of the cooperation environments [41,42]. Although this kind of cooperation is important, in general, in the case of all higher education institutions, it is outstandingly important in the case of technical higher education institutions (universities, faculties) and engineering departments. In their case, their cooperation with the industrial sector can be understood as a driver of the technological and economic development of these institutions and at the same time as a driver of meaningful academic research. However, this collaboration is fruitful only if it facilitates or contributes to both industry applications and academic research. Such collaboration retains the distinctiveness of the realms of scholarship and industry and enables connections via interactive links that allow academic input to commercial problems and the promotion of new ideas and new problems for university research.

Higher education institutions should become part of a coherent system that includes industry and government and underpins innovation and economic progress [43]. In this context also the role of academics is shifting. Rather than concentrating on ‘blue-skies’ research, academics are seen increasingly to be eager to bridge the worlds of science and technology, in an entrepreneurial way, by commercializing the technologies that emerge from their research [44,45]. Many higher education institutions have focused their cooperation with industry on providing different services to specific stakeholders from the industrial sector [46,47], which can lead to a shift from basic research towards more applied topics and less academic freedom, as well as to a lower level of research productivity and a slowing-down of knowledge diffusion among academics. However, most academic researchers are keen to retain their autonomy by ensuring that collaborative work with industry is conducive to—or at least compatible with—their research activities. As has been proved by research done by D’Este1 and Perkmann [38], commercialization ranks as the least important motivation of academic researchers for their engaging with industry and what dominates are the research-related reasons, i.e., the academics engage with industry mainly to support their academic research activities. A study of Göktepe-Hulten and Mahagaonkar [48] showed that a motivation for academic researchers to be engaged in common industrial research activities, such as, e.g., patenting, was not the personal financial profit but the motivation was to signal their achievements and gain reputation amongst their academic and industry-related communities.

Besides the aforementioned, last but not least, the motivation for the academics’ (university teachers) engagement in cooperation with the industrial sector is the fact that their engagement can also enhance their teaching competence. This is understood as another very important feature of the involvement of higher education institutions in cooperation with industry.

In practice, cooperative interactions between higher education institutions and the industrial sector occur in different, multiple forms, among which three can be specified as the basic or main ones. First of them is collaborative (or so-called joint) research, which can be described as a formal arrangement of mutual collaboration aimed at cooperation on research and development projects. In many cases, these projects are subsidized by public funding. The second form is contract research projects, which are aimed directly at commercial research relevant to the particular subject field of the industrial sector companies, what means that these are not usually eligible to be subsidized from public funds. The last but not least form of HEI–industry cooperation is the consulting (expert, advisory) services provided by HEIs to their industry clients. These are paid for by the clients and HEIs can use this income to support their research, teaching or other activities, e.g., these funds can be used by HEIs for the purchases of laboratory or lecture hall equipment, or to support academics in their participation at international conferences and other events.

Following the taxonomy of the motivations of academics/technicians for their engaging with industry identified by Göktepe-Hulten and Mahagaonkar [48], according to the significance of the particular motivation items these can be subgrouped in one of the three categories—highly significant (i.e., very important), significant, and of low significance (i.e., insignificant, not important). To the first category belong the applicability of research, research income from industry, research income from government and information on industry problems. To the second category belong feedback from industry, information on industry research, access to materials and becoming part of a network. To the unimportant motivation factors belong access to research expertise, access to equipment, source of personal income and seeking intellectual property rights. These findings also correspond with those presented by Glaser and Bero [49], relating to the academics’ opinions on the financial aspects of their engaging with industry. According to Glaser and Bero, academics highly appreciate the industry sponsorships when funding is indirectly related to their research, disclosure is agreed upfront and the results are freely publicized.

According to Stroud and Hopkins [50], the mutual engagement of higher education institutions (HEIs) and industrial sectors (industry) is based on components such as the collaborative needs of both these sides, their mutual performance measures, mutual policy, practice and procedures and mutual trust and cooperation (Figure 2). As to the collaborative needs, these are usually the needs of teaching and research development and research excellence frameworks (REF—the UK system for assessing the quality of research following the quality of outputs, e.g., publications, performance, exhibitions, their impact beyond academia, environments created to support research) on the side of the higher education institutions, and innovations of technology applications and skills on the side of industry and the industry employees. Other needs could be cooperation on research objectives, to supplement a workforce to undertake specific research projects or provide an industry context for university-led research, as well as undergraduate or postgraduate experience-led learning or research opportunities [51].

To start the cooperation, there has to be some intention (initiation phase of the future possible cooperation) following a specific purpose. Usually, the cooperation between higher education institutions and industry is initiated to meet a need within industry that a higher education institution (university, faculty, department) can fill. Very often this need is a knowledge-related or skills-related matter and follows an expertise that is not common to the industrial partner of this cooperation. Consequently, it is necessary to create and ensure a relevant environment with appropriate conditions for the cooperation. This is the second phase, during which the bilateral agreements are approved. After that, on the basis of the accepted bilateral agreements, the third phase—fund raising and planned activities—can be started (see the phases of the mutual engagement of HEIs and industry in the scheme in Figure 2). Mutual trust that results from such a cooperation precipitates other opportunities for widening support to a company, including applying for further research grant funding.

3. Case Study Aimed at Tailor-Made Training for Industrial Sector Employee Assessment

3.1. Background of the Case Study

There have been many examples of good practice, or good experiences, in relation to the mutual cooperation of HEIs and industry [52,53]. One of the institutions having a broad range of good experiences resulting from long-term mutual cooperation with industry is the Steel Centre of Excellence in Energy Optimisation, By-Product and Waste Management (SCE), which is hosted by the School of Engineering located in the Russell Group of Universities. The Steel Centre of Excellence (SCE) deals with the issue of energy- and material-efficient technologies, contributing to industry companies to become more competitive and better corporate citizens. However, besides that, the Centre also offers programs (courses) aimed at skills development and training. Within this context, in 2010, the Centre (SCE) developed for the Steel Company a tailor-made refresher training in High Voltage Systems and a safety course, Basics of Combustion Course [54] for the target groups of the Steel Company’s electrical engineers.

The provision of further education, special courses, professional training to different target groups of industry sector employees belongs under the consulting services, the third basic form of the cooperation interactions between higher education institutions and the industrial sector mentioned above, which can be very polyvalent [55]. On the one hand, consulting services, similar to the two other HEI–industry cooperation forms (contract research projects and collaborative–joint research), are based on commercial and research-related motivations, as they are sources of additional funding of academics’ activities, based on them the relationships between academics and industry practitioners are established, from which the academics learn about actual problems and innovations in industry, so that they can upgrade their research interests. However, not all academics are inspired to participate in HEI–industry cooperation because of economic profits and possibilities. A lot of academics are motivated to engage with industry because of entirely other norms, profits and values which this engagement brings with it, and which can be covered by the term “learning possibilities”. On the other hand, consulting services—unlike contract and collaborative research projects—are that kind of cooperation which also meet, besides the abovementioned, these specific motivations and their related expectations. So, providing tailor-made training is attractive mainly for academic researchers driven by a learning motivation to engage with industry. At this point, it is necessary to mention that the term “learning possibilities” in the given context has a very broad meaning. It covers the learning opportunities for academics to teach in other environments and conditions than they are used to, other target groups than they usually teach within their alma mater institutions, other topics (or other aspects of the topics which they teach within their jobs), and so to gain new teaching experiences, to enhance their teaching competences, to become more familiar with the taught topics, to transfer the newly obtained knowledge, experiences and skills into their home institution practice, etc.

It has been stressed how important, because of different aspects, is the cooperation with practice mainly for technical higher education institutions and engineering departments. The case of the Steel Centre of Excellence (SCE) illustrates how this cooperation can be carried out, and very successfully in different dimensions. In our case, the case of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, the situation is analogical, but with one considerable difference. Analogically as the SCE, the Department of Technology and Information Technologies is a department of technology, but under a non-technical faculty, a faculty focused on one of the social sciences—education sciences. This means that the Department is dealing with technology but in the environment where the main attention is paid to the phenomenon of education and its different aspects. Faculties of education are perceived as providers of both pregraduate teacher training programs as well as the further (postgraduate) education and training programs. Within this “living environment” of the Department, the Department of Technology and Information Technologies has a special feature, which is the fact that it (being a department of technology) has some contacts also with industrial practice (and not only with education or teaching practice). Among these contacts, it has also some contacts with the professional training of employees from industry [56,57,58,59]. The contacts with industrial practice have been based on the cooperation of the Department with the company EATON, which is an outstanding producer and importer of automation systems. These contacts have become, nowadays, more and more important, mainly with respect to the need to train future technical workers and programmers for the world of globalization in the labour market of Industry 4.0 [60,61,62].

EATON Corporation Inc. (EATON) is a multinational company, founded in 1911. During the years of its operation, it has risen to become a global technology leader in power management solutions that make electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical power operate more efficiently, effectively, safely and sustainably. Currently, the company has more than 102,000 employees working in its subsidiary corporations located in European countries, Middle Eastern countries, Russia and Africa and carries on business with customers coming from more than 175 countries. The company has its own research and development laboratories and cooperates with universities around the world. In the area of the former Czechoslovakia, the cooperation with the academic environment is assigned to solving partial tasks and problems arising from industrial practice. At the same time, selected universities also cooperate with EATON in preparation and implementation of specialized training courses for experts in the field of PLC systems programming. The first contacts with Slovakia made by the company were established in 1994 and since April 2008, it has established itself here in business with its subsidiary corporation (Eaton Electric, Ltd.). Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra is one of the academic workplaces cooperating with EATON and participating also in the preparation and implementation of the tailor-made courses for industry sector employees dealing with EATON PLC systems programming. Several university members have participated at some face-to-face training, thematically devoted to programming of the PLC facilities, HMI panels and frequency changers, organized by EATON for its employees and employees of other industrial corporations, which are its partner firms.

Gradually, EATON felt that the tailor-made education and training programs provided were quite problematic, not resulting in the expected improvement of its participants’ professional knowledge, skills and abilities. That was the reason why the company asked the Department of Technology and Information Technologies to assess the offered courses and, if appropriate, to suggest an improved model of the offered courses to meet the expected results.

3.2. Structure of the Assessed Tailor-Made Education and Training

The professional education and training provided by EATON was carried out year after year through four three-day face-to-face courses, which we named A, B, C and D course. The schedule of each of the courses was as follows:

• Day1:

  ○

  Teaching theoretical principles.

• Day 2:

  ○

  Practical task solving;

  ○

  Practical task solving following the participants’ requirements.

• Day 3:

  ○

  Approach questionnaire administration;

  ○

  Theoretical knowledge test;

  ○

  Independent solving of practical tasks;

  ○

  Test evaluation.

As to their content structure, they were devoted to the following topics:

Course A:

○

Automation basics;

○

A1—basics HW + SW for PLC EASY;

○

A2—basics HW + SW for MDF Titan;

○

A3—basics HW + SW for PLC series XV and programming system CodeSys.

Course B:

○

B1—functions and programming elements for PLC EASY;

○

B2—HMI components for PLC EASY;

○

B3—functions and programming elements for PLC MFD Titan;

○

B4—HMI components for MFD Titan;

○

Programming specific complex tasks for PLC EASY;

○

Solving tasks for PLC EASY following the participants’ inputs;

○

Programming specific complex tasks for PLC MFD Titan;

○

Solving tasks for PLC MDF Titan following the participants’ inputs.

Course C:

○

C1—functions and programming elements for CodeSys;

○

C2—programming specific complex tasks for CodeSys.

Course D:

○

D1—basics of HMI programming—programming system Galileo for EASY;

○

D2—basics of HMI programming—programming system Galileo for MFD Titan;

○

D3—basics of HMI programming—programming system Galileo for CodeSys;

○

D4—basics of HMI programming—programming system Galileo for WebRC;

○

D5—functions and programming elements of Galileo system for EASY, MFD Titan, CodeSys, WebRC;

○

D6—programming specific complex tasks in programming system Galileo for EASY, MFD Titan, CodeSys, WebRC;

○

Following the participants’ inputs solving tasks in programming system Galileo for EASY, MFD Titan, CodeSys, WebRC for PLC EASY;

○

Solving different tasks following the participants’ inputs.

3.3. Methodology of the Assessment Used of the Tailor-Made Education and Training

To assess the offered courses and appropriately suggest an improved modification of the tailor-made model of the provided training, a case study was carried out. The above-presented theory of Rama and Nagurvali’s four-stage cyclic model of a training effectiveness evaluation process [35] was utilized as the platform for the methodology upon which the assessment carried out by us within the case study was based.

As has already been mentioned above, the participants of the assessed courses were, on the one hand, EATON employees (EATON Slovakia business agents, sales representatives and technical assistants) and, on the other hand, employees of EATON business partners (i.e., companies producing technological processes in automation but which are, at the same time, EATON customers applying EATON systems into the practice). This means that the target group of the training carried out is very heterogeneous as it consists of employees of different companies working in different positions, and these employees are not of the same knowledge level, or the same educational background.

The case study carried out was, in general, aimed at the course content, its teaching and also the overall administration and realisation of the courses [59]. The assessment carried out of the provided education and training was done in three ways: approach questionnaires, knowledge tests and personal inquiry. Approach questionnaires and knowledge tests were administrated on each of the courses A–D, always on the third day of its duration and the personal inquiry with the employee education participants was done with each of the participants only after the completion of the whole cycle of the courses.

The particular items of the approach questionnaire were focused on finding out the opinions of the education participants on the overall content of the vocational training and education (both the theory and the theoretical knowledge provided, as well as the practice, exercises given, tasks solved). Besides that, using a scale from 1 to 5, the questionnaire respondents were asked to assess the particular topics included in the courses, the teaching mastery of the lecturer and the administration/organisation of the courses.

The goal of the knowledge tests administration was to assess the understanding and scope of the knowledge achieved by each participant within the employee education, i.e., achievement of the participants’ learning objectives and fulfilment of the training program’s needs and goals. Evaluation of the knowledge tests results was based on the mastery learning system in which it is necessary to acquire the presented subject matter at least on the level of 80–90% of the explained knowledge (curricula) by each of the learners.

Personal inquiry (interviews with each of the employee education participants) was used for a deeper analysis of the results of the approach questionnaires and knowledge tests. For example, based on the results which the employee education participants achieved in the knowledge tests, it was impossible to find out the specific reasons for their poor results in the courses. The interviews were focused on the interviewed participants’ opinions on the curricula of the courses, the organisation of the education process/training, the personality of the lecturer and the personal attitudes of the participants’ towards the employee–education continuation.

3.4. Findings Resulted from the Carried out Case Study

One of the very serious problems which were recorded, was the question of how to design and structure the organization of the training courses. There was a heterogeneity of the time preferences stated by the course attendees, who were people working at different companies and firms cooperating or having some kinds of business links with the EATON company. To determine any date which would be suitable for all of the course attendees, was completely impossible. That was why the given dates were changing very often to meet the attendees’ either preferences or possibilities. We tried to choose such terms for each session of the course that would be suitable for as many course attendees as possible. Despite all our efforts, always some of the attendees could not be present. For these reasons, a final decision was made to design the tailor-made further education provision for the participating employees more or less in a distant form. Based on the above presented theoretical aspects of different models of training process design, we came to a modified version or newly suggested model for the courses carried out, within which currently the newest technologies were used and which reflected most of the current demands and requests of the company, but what was more important, in which also the industrial practice’ needs and requirements were reflected.

Despite the fact that the proposed model of the training provided (a modified version of the education provided), was designed using mainly distant forms of the particular parts of the course to address as many course attendees as possible, already from the beginning some problems occurred. The key problem represented our findings was that it is impossible to change the all education and training processes from the face-to-face form to distance learning forms (which had been our original intention). Although we wanted to keep our intention to transfer the whole scope of the education and training activities provided into distance learning, the surveys carried out by us showed that within the modified version of the newly suggested model we had to keep some parts of the training in their face-to-face forms. It was proved that some of the course attendees, for some tasks focused on programming, besides theoretical knowledge, also needed some professional skills related to the issues of programming which could not be acquired and developed by means of distance education and training. This problem was connected mainly with two training areas. The first one was enhancing and upgrading the course participants’ motor skills and the second one was connecting various equipment parts and apparatuses, changing and removing covers, crimping connectors, etc. For example, what occurred very often was that when pressing the reset button on the PLC systems, very often the button had been damaged due to the use of excessive force. A separate chapter could be devoted to the issue of distance education regarding the topic of the bus cabling production and connector crimping.

The findings resulting from the case study also pointed out how important the sociological aspects of the courses are. The significance of personal contacts, relationships, and communication between the attendees and their trainer (tutor or supervisor) was proved. The trainer’s personal meetings with the course attendees were highly appreciated and the trainer’s willingness to help the attendees to solve the problems they faced, also subsequently (after the face-to-face meeting), by means of their online communication. According to the course attendees, these contacts broke down barriers for them and the trainer was not a “stranger” to them anymore. Having the chance to give this “stranger” various questions eliminated the attendees’ feeling of shame and as a consequence of this elimination, the course attendees also lost their fear of acknowledging their study failures.

We can conclude that although the optimal design model for employees’ further education and training is based on distance education forms, it cannot be carried out completely in this way. It has to be carried out as blended learning, with a certain proportion of face-to-face education and training added to the distance teaching and learning.

As the results of the questionnaire inquiry showed, the participants were not satisfied with the content of the education (course curricula). The most significant problems were found in the theoretical parts of the courses. The participants pointed out that a lot of time is devoted to theory acquirement instead of dealing with practical exercises. In the participants’ opinion the courses were time consuming (long) and very often focused on topics out of their interest.

These findings were proved also by the results of the knowledge tests. The average results of the participants did not achieve the expected (required) knowledge level. According to the applied mastery learning system methodology, the participants were to acquire at least 80–90% of the explained knowledge but they achieved this level only in two of the explained topics. The lowest results were related to the solution of practical tasks.

To identify the specific reasons for the participants’ inadequate (low) learning results recorded during the particular courses, personal interviews with the course participants were used. The most significant weaknesses of the courses were identified as the following:

−

Too broad a scope of course topics (curricula) resulting in disinterest of some participants in some of them;

−

As the participants worked at different companies (although all belonging to industrial production practices) and moreover holding different work positions, they needed to be familiarized with various different issues;

−

Poor IT knowledge of some participants;

−

Participants’ problems in linking verbal task assignments with the program language;

−

Low time allocation to practical exercises/tasks (as already mentioned).

4. Discussion and Summary of the Case Study Results

Based on the presented results of the case study carried out, there was a proposed and subsequently applied modification of the employee education concerned. The proposed changes related to the content structure (curricula) of the courses, the composition of the participant groups and the form of the theoretical part of the courses was partially modified to the distance learning form. Due to the modified application of the theoretical part of the courses to the distance form of education, more time was created (in particular, one day) which could be devoted to practical training (solving practical exercises).

The final version of the proposed modified model for the further education and training of the target group of employees is presented in the scheme in Figure 3. It consists of five modules from which three are in the form of distance education and two in the form of face-to-face education.

The structure of the presented scheme for tailor-made education and training of selected groups of industrial practice employees starts with the Theoretical education of its attendees. The main goal of this education segment is to familiarize attendees of the course with the basic theoretical principles and knowledge related to the issues that are going to be studied. It can be considered as the creation of a starting knowledge platform, the same for all attendees of the course, independent of their previous knowledge level, from which the subsequent teaching and learning activities will be derived (or on which they will be based). The segment of theoretical education could be carried out either in a distance learning or face-to-face form. Taking into account different aspects (aspects related to time, finances, teaching and learning process efficiency) and a measure of their demandingness, our choice fell on the distance form. With regard to the chosen form of the segment, an education portal was established by means of which the course attendees could obtain the needed knowledge and information (related to terminology issues, basic principles and characteristics, schemes of operation of different apparatus and devices, etc.). The teaching materials allocated at the education portal are in different forms to make it easier for the attendees to obtain the needed knowledge or information. There are teaching text materials, schemes, figures, video presentations. Within the segment of the theoretical education the attendees of the course can make full use of the advantages offered by the distance form of education.

As to the next segment, named Exercises, there the situation is completely different. The attendees of the course are given assignments of exercises in person, and they have to complete them either by themselves or with support from the trainer (lecturer, tutor). This means that this segment of the tailor-made education and training is carried out fully in face-to-face form. The form in which the segment is carried out results from the learning outcomes which are to be achieved during this part of the course, or training. The expected learning outcomes of this stage of the offered education and training are the development of attendees’ motor skills, the ability to apply the theoretical knowledge in practical activities, such as the selection of the right apparatus, devices, connections, schemes, procedures and their subsequent manipulation.

The exercises given to the attendees within the framework of this segment are the same for all, without taking into account their knowledge or skill ratings, or the work positions they hold in their jobs. The exercises are focused on the basic connections of the PLC facilities and HMI panel programming. The attendees of the course learn to connect low cost PLC units, to work with the Galileo software which is designated for HMI panels and to learn the standard commands and syntax of the Codesys program, which are skills and abilities with which all attendees should be equipped. In the given exercise, there is no focus on any concretized specific problems to which the course attendees could face in their jobs.

In the next phase of the course (see the segment Homework of the scheme in Figure 3) the attendees return to the distance form of learning as already indicated by the name of the segment. In comparison with the previous segment, there are two changes. In this case, the course attendees receive the task assignments online, not in person, and unlike the assignments given them within the previous segment, this time the tasks given them for their homework are significantly oriented to the specific issues they commonly deal with in their jobs and work positions. The trainer’s personal presence is partially substituted by the established education portal, but besides that, the course participants have the possibility to contact the trainer (lecturer, tutor) and consult with him about problems they are facing during completion of their homework assignments. Of course, the attendees may also consult with each other about their homework assignments, although they are solving different assignments. For these purposes of mutual communication concerning the solving of problems, a chat forum at the education portal has been created and is available.

The subsequent (face-to-face) segment of the course is the Questions/exams segment. As its name indicates, it consists of two activities. The first of these concerns questions which arose during the completion of their homework or resulted from their solving of problems and which the attendees want to ask (solve, discuss) their trainer (lecturer, tutor). Of course, the range of the attendees’ questions would not be limited to the homework topics. The attendees may come with specific problems either regarding the subject matter of the course or the professional issues they are facing in their professional performance. The other activities included in this segment are practical exam activities. The practical exams for the course attendees are based on the fulfilment of the assigned practical tasks, while the fulfilment is assessed by the trainer.

The last segment, Continuous education, results from the acceptance of the employee of the importance of further education and training for both the employees and the employers. Logically, it is proposed that it should be in distance form. The purpose of the segment is to allow the course attendees after course completion (course completion means the practical exams of the Questions/exams segment) to continue in their education, to acquire more knowledge, to complete and broaden the obtained or required knowledge and information, to communicate with the tutor and discuss with him problems occurring in their everyday professional duties.

Consequently, it was necessary to assess the efficiency (fruitfulness) of the new modified version of the employee education concerned. This assessment was based on two criteria. The first criterion was the achievement of the requirements of the mastery learning system and the second one was the improvement of the total learning results of the participants in comparison with the previous version of employee education. The results of this assessment proved that, in its new version, the participants of the professional training (the courses in their new version) achieved better learning outcomes and acquired a higher level of knowledge and skills related to the areas involved.

The presented results have also proved the fact that distance learning forms of education are applicable in the further education of employees from industrial production practices. On the other hand, we are aware of the fact that the presented findings cannot be automatically transferred to all other industry sectors. However, as the results of the case study show, in some branches of the automation industry (e.g., in some fields of automation dealing with PLC component programming) distance learning forms of education are applicable. From our findings, it is clear that the employees from this industry branch need training focused mainly on the improvement of their practical knowledge and skills. It is difficult (or even impossible), however, to develop practical knowledge and skills without basic principal theoretical knowledge of the areas involved. To develop this theoretical knowledge, it is very useful, in our opinion, to apply electronic forms of distance education. Through distance forms of education, it is possible to unburden the education participants of excessive use of their time. Moreover, the distance learning forms of education also offer their participants different tools based on which they can communicate with each other or help each other to solve difficult specific complex tasks and problems [63]. From our point of view, distance learning can almost fully replace face-to-face theoretical education.

5. Conclusions

Based on the results obtained from the case study carried out, a model of tailor-made education and training was proposed for the target group of both EATON employees and employees of companies and firms cooperating or having some kinds of business links to the EATON company (see the scheme of the model in Figure 3). The proposed model is in line with recommendations made by Cedefop [64,65] and the Council of the EU [66] regarding education tailor-made for employees. According to these recommendations, the employees’ education should follow their identified learning needs, and should be regularly revised, taking into account also the company needs and its human resource development strategy. At the same time, it should be based on a modular structure allowing the employees the flexible organization and sequencing of their education (when, what and how they will learn).

Consequently, great attention was paid to the evaluation of the efficiency of the course (a course modified according to the proposed model). Training is important at all employee levels because skills erode and become obsolete over a period of time and need to be replenished. Usually, the stress is put on the tailor-made aspects of the offered employee education and training. However, for any organization or company, it is not just sufficient to conduct a training program. Organizations should evaluate whether training and development programs, even if they are tailor-made, are really efficient and producing the desired results. Proper evaluation is the base for effective training. That is why, in practice, it is very important to also have tailor-made assessment of the employee performance evaluation after they finish the courses and training. One of the main goals of this evaluation should be to find out the differences in the performance of the trainees after the training program, and the degree to which learning results achieved by the trainees during the training program meet with the stated and required training objectives. As the presented case study has proved, such an evaluation does not just contribute to increase training effectiveness.

Proper evaluation is the base for effective training. Training evaluation should be a regular system because trainees are transient groups. They attend training programs to acquire specific skills and return to work to apply them. Over time, new knowledge and skills become necessary; and the employees again return to the training program.