by Desiree Schnoor

Did you know that by 2025, three quarters of the workforce will be made up of millennials? Everyday 10,000 baby boomers are retiring everyday. As the labor workforce gap widens, it seems like more bad news for manufacturing. Even though the general perception is “manufacturing as vital to the domestic economy”, , millennials ranked manufacturing last on list of career preferences.  So, if millennials are to be the workforce of our future, what can manufacturing do to attract and retain them?

In 2018, 3 million manufacturing employees quit their jobs, yet a reported 77% of those who quit said they could have been retained. How? Millennials need informal learning and job rotation. Younger workers are most receptive to informal learning, in fact 53% reported that on the job training was the most effective training and development method. 

Millennials are among the group who leave their jobs because the want more career development, opportunities for growth and security. Or because of job characteristics, meaning they want more ownership and confidence in what they are doing. Video Work Instructions give them both. A recent study showed that millennials are driven by career development, which means they seek positions they like and can grow in, they are willing to change jobs often, and sometimes go back to school for specific skills training. Essentially, they want to grow and perform well. Video Work Instructions are designed to give millennials what they need to be successful because training with Video Work Instructions is 10 times faster than traditional work instructions, and almost immediately levels the playing field between new and seasoned workers.

“Millennials are accustomed to instant access to information, so companies should consider on-demand digital microlearning that’s available via desktop and mobile to better engage their employees.” A successful retention strategy for deterring the average millennial from job hopping every two years, is job rotation. Video Work Instructions make cross-training both experienced and novice employees easy, and is a benefit wise employers will use to keep millennial workers engaged.

Finally, What could a mentoring relationship between lead technicians and millennial new hires look like? Mentoring millennial workers is of great importance. Not only will providing direct input, attract more young workers to your company, but it will also retain more of them.

The opportunities for connection and learning are endless. For example, senior techs can show their diverse skill set while work with millennials by cross-training them at new stations for new challenges, and understanding why task illegibility is important for them. How could your veterans and new hires learn from each other’s patience and perseverance, and fast, changing and creative work preferences?

by Desiree Schnoor

It’s one thing to show you how implementing Video Work Instructions can improve your company in areas like training, tribal knowledge, turnover and employee satisfaction, but how about some cold, hard figures showing how much not having video is costing you now and what that will mean 5 years from now?

Virtual QE is introducing their True Cost of Training Calculator. Easily accessible on their website, you can get an accurate picture of some serious savings. Just complete a ten-item questionnaire to find out the real financial impact your current training methods are having on the health of your company, and the value of Video Work Instructions, and what it will cost your company to not have them now, and 5 years down the road. There is even a cost benefit analysis, displaying the impact Video Work Instructions could have on your company over the next 5 years.

by Desiree Schnoor

Labor availability. Training. Tribal knowledge. Quality. If you are a manufacturing plant manager in the U.S. today, just hearing at least one of those words probably gives you a negative feeling. That’s because these are the top four areas that are negatively impacting managers and workers today. One of these areas might be so costly, unattainable or broken for you, that you might think there is no way to improve it, but Virtual QE has a solution- Video Work Instructions. Joshua Schnoor, Business Development Manager, says, “I like to call these the Fateful Four because the fate of your company depends on the health of these four areas, on how well you can answer these questions. Video Work Instructions strengthen each of these areas and more.” What if Video Work Instruction could bring resolution in just one of these areas? Two areas? What would that mean for hiring, revenue, and production and beyond? Find out the financial impacts Video Work Instructions can have on your company by completing a quick calculator here.

by Desiree Schnoor

Wondering more about what it takes to get your company up and running with Video Work Instructions? Let’s take a closer look at the process. The Virtual QE team offers start to finish email support with thorough and easy to follow instructions. First, you will be shipped a pair of camera glasses, that your lead technician will wear to record video and audio of your best practices. We then receive the file you send to our secure cloud-based. Once uploaded Virtual QE can begin the editing process, which usually takes 1-2. During editing, our quality engineers and video editing team will work together to identify quality, critical safety, and learning moments that they highlight throughout the video. Your final product will differ in length than initial recording time, due to cutting some video out and adding in some time with quality control features. Virtual QE counts “one” Video Work Instruction as about 10 minutes of edited and finalized video. Once this process is completed, our senior quality engineer will verify all the steps are captured correctly before the video is delivered back to you via Box.com. The file is now ready for you to upload onto a tablet or other device and be utilized by your employees.
 
For added peace of mind, Virtual QE has an optional maintenance package available. For an additional 25% of the cost of the instruction, Virtual QE will perform limited revisions to the work instruction, renewable yearly. Revisions include simple corrections and updates, but might not include additional steps or substitutions, which would constitute a brand-new work instruction. 

by Desiree Schnoor

Results like this are amazing, and the implications almost unimaginable. What would it mean for your company to put a technician on a task that he or she has never done before and see it completed in a fraction of the time it usually takes? Which of the benefits would be most crucial for you company? Time saved, production increases, cross-training flexibility, freeing up your expert technician for other duties, or something else? No need to pick just one, because all these benefits and more can be yours with Video Work Instructions.
To find out the financial impact Video Work Instructions could have on your company, visit www.virtualqe.com/calculator.html .

by Desiree Schnoor

The 2017 Training Industry Report reveals that not only are companies training expensively, but they are also training longer. The average rose 4 hours from last year, with midsize companies training for just over 54 hours. Despite more expense and longer training, 49% of companies reported their training budget remained the same.  This means these companies are either training less people, or training is causing them to lose money. In 2017, the average manufacturer spent $1,217 to train each learner, the most expensive, across all sectors.
 
The tricky thing about traditional training methods is that not only are time and money resources costly, but they are compounded for each person being trained. Video Work Instructions allow you to do things differently. Video allows you to train multiple people, and endless number of times, while directly utilizing tribal knowledge. 

by Desiree Schnoor

Imagine if your company could hurdle over the state of the current labor pool and not worry about filling workstations, finding qualified applicants, high salary constraints, or whether tribal knowledge would be lost if workers quit or retired. Now you can. 

Video Work Instructions bypass "skills" and "experience" prerequisites, because they automatically allow inexperienced workers to perform liked skilled ones, speeding up training by providing first-person video instruction our brains prefer.

by Desiree Schnoor

How do Video Work Instructions make for a safer work environment? By their very nature, Video Work Instructions have several safety measures automatically embedded. Since video instructions capture the entire process in a few minutes, they are faster, better and safer execution of the task. Let’s take a look at the safety features of Work video.

With Video Work Instructions, the trainee is watching what the expert trainer is wearing, saying and doing, so they are learning the safest way to perform the task. And since the video is in the first-person point of view, trainees are seeing what the expert is seeing, causing their brain to easily orient them to be able to replicate what the expert is doing. The trainee can then model the exact actions of the expert trainer, increasing standardization of the task, which means less variations and errors, ultimately, less room for accidents to occur.

A university source says, “Most importantly, the best prevention strategy is to train employees and employers frequently. Creating a learning environment focused on safety promotes a healthy and safe workplace”. Cross-training is another safety function of Video Work Instructions, that elicits diverse and continuous training and learning. Not only do video instructions allow new and existing employees to train quickly, effectively and safely at new tasks, they also allow them to cross train multiple new tasks in the same way. Periodic exposure to training with Video Work Instructions compounds the safety effects of the training tool, and the result is a well-rounded, safe, and effective employee. 

Looking at the financial impacts of safety, “safety is the #1 way to reduce your workers’ compensation costs both direct (insurance premiums) and indirect (cost of hiring, retraining, overtime, and loss of productivity and other costs associated with work place injuries).” 

With rising awareness about how Video Work Instructions reduce both the rising labor availability and training costs, let’s highlight how video drives down manufacturers’ workers’ compensation costs too. Companies experiencing a reduction of the indirect costs associated with workers’ compensation can be traced back to the implementation of Video Work Instructions, as video improves each of the indirect causes listed above. Of course, general improvements in overall safety, such as less work place injuries means lower insurance premiums for employers. 

So, is it worth is? A state Department of Labor website states, “for every $1 invested in workplace safety, employers realize $3 – $10 in cost savings (direct and indirect costs).” And with Video Work Instructions answering both indirect and direct costs, we say video is a “safe” bet.