Quality Grind Podcast Episode 2 – Training, The Universal Topic

Jessica Taylor: 0:04

This is the Quality Grind Podcast presented by Medvacon. Conversations that go beyond compliance. Sharing insights geared toward helping you navigate the everyday grind of regulated life science industries. Here are your hosts, Joe Toscano and Mike Kent.

Mike Kent: 0:23

Welcome to The Grind, everyone! Today we’re going to talk about training, that universal topic that applies across the board to everyone in the life science industries, regardless of your role. And that’s the reason why we chose it to be our first topic. Joe, how do we navigate this, and how do we get started?

Joe Toscano: 0:40

A lot of times when we’re brought in to help in this area, we find a lot of common issues and problems that are very significant from organization to organization. It seems like we’re solving the same thing over and over again. So, the thought that you and I had was, why don’t we produce a segment where we can offer some tips, some tricks, some things to be cognizant of where people might be able to address this ahead of time so it doesn’t get out of control, so to speak, and become ineffective and not have the impact that organizations want it to have. And hopefully that’s what we’re going to do today is talk a little bit from a very high viewpoint as to some of the areas to avoid, some of the things that can be done proactively, and how to get the best impact from the training that a company has or can improve or can implement if there’s nothing there. More importantly, training doesn’t have to be something scary. I think a lot of people are always nervous when they hear they have to go to a training program. And what does that mean? It should be educational. More importantly, it should be something fun that people really look forward to.

Mike Kent: 1:44

Wait a second. Did you say fun? I just want to clarify that. Did you? Okay. We’re going to have fun doing training? Seriously? I mean, this is compliance, right? This is serious business. This is, you know, we’ve got patients lives in the balance here. So, fun how does that really work? One of the first challenges that we see an awful lot when we go in is, as you mentioned, it’s either scary or nervous or not really value-adding. People don’t seem to get a lot out of it. But fun? Can that really happen? And is that an important part of making sure that a training program really works?

Joe Toscano: 2:27

Well, yeah. And look, we all have that class in school or that professor that we all loved, whether it was grammar school, high school, college, where you felt like you got so much out of it. And why? Why did we really enjoy that subject or individual? It was because they made it interesting. They made it engaging. They made it fun, right? You looked forward to being there every day because you really appreciated the way in which that subject was taught and conducted. There’s no reason that can’t transfer into the workplace, right? Training departments can change the way they go about doing a program. It doesn’t mean it’s still not compliant. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t check the appropriate boxes, but there are lots of different ways to present the information to make it engaging and have people really want to participate versus having to participate. And there’s a big difference between those two. If you can make a program engaging, if you could make it fun, more people are going to look forward to that experience and quite frankly, get more out of it, which only benefits them, the company, profitability, success. And that’s the ultimate goal. Yes, training is needed, and especially in a regulated environment to check a box. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a great experience.

Mike Kent: 3:47

Yeah, absolutely. In my experience, what the first challenge of building that engagement I think that’s a really important term for people to align to right off the bat is that we’re not talking about going in there and playing games. We’re not going in there and running around the room and making it a kindergarten exercise. But there are a ton of ways that we can engage people to get them involved and get them invested and really open them up to a lot of discussion and problem solving. Those are some of the things that we’ll talk about a little bit later. But one of the challenges I find with that often times is going to senior leadership. We want to engage them in the process, as well, to get their buy in for what we want to do. We say we want to have conversations. We want to engage people. We want to talk about scenarios and we want to have fun. As soon as we say that”fun” word, it tends to turn some senior leaders off because they think it’s going to turn into that kindergarten exercise, and well, what are people really going to get out of it? Are they going to take this topic as seriously as they need to because patient lives are at stake? Rightfully so. Those are good questions to ask. I think the trick is how to hit that middle ground of balancing fun with engagement so that senior leaders see that yes, we’re doing everything that we need to related to the training topic. But we’re also making sure that people take this seriously and know that there are consequences for not doing the things coming out of training that we’re teaching them.

Joe Toscano: 5:30

We’re not saying that everybody does training badly, right? There’s a lot of great companies that have fantastic programs with incredible individuals that are making the impact that we’re talking about. And our hope is that, even in this conversation, if it helps them even get better by maybe bringing some things to light that can improve those programs, that’s great. But it’s not that everybody does this badly. We see a lot of commonality. One of those things is exactly what you said. It’s leadership, and they’re not engaged in the process. They know it has to be done. They’re allowing for it to take place because it’s a requirement, especially if we’re talking a regulated environment, but they’re not part of the process. It’s not just a question of checking the box, but what you’re really hoping to get out of it. That’s a big disconnect, right? If leadership doesn’t understand what the end goal, and more importantly, your participants don’t understand what the end goal is, then your chance of achieving it is going to be very low. So the first step in this is really looking at your program, being able to explain it well to the leadership and engaging them. They’re going to have good ideas. They’re going to want to hopefully take part. If they don’t, invite them to, ask them to. They’re extraordinarily busy individuals, but their engagement in this only elevates the program. And over time, and where we’ve been helpful with organizations, is in making that connection. As soon as they start getting involved, goals become clearer, the impact becomes more profound, then the results are extraordinary. But without those steps, that initial involvement, it’s very hard to achieve what you’re looking to do.

Mike Kent: 7:08

One of the things that I would add to that engagement is the senior leadership is charged with moving the company forward. Often times they are, as you said, extremely busy, but also extremely strategic and high level in their thinking. One of the lessons I learned early on from a couple of master trainers who really were good at engaging senior leadership and getting buy in they spoke the language of senior leadership. They understood how their programs contributed to the bottom line. They understood how their programs would contribute to things that were important to senior leadership. Getting batches out the door. Reducing compliance risk. Improving effectiveness and efficiency out on the floor, wherever that floor is, whether it’s the laboratory, an office or the manufacturing floor. When you’re talking with senior leadership, if you understand their vision, what’s important to them and align what you’re doing to those elements that are important to them, you’re going to get a lot more engagement. They’re looking for that connection. They’re looking to understand it. You have to be able to provide that in terms that they can understand. That can go a really long way towards helping you get that engagement, which then gets to the buy in, which is what you’re really looking for.

Joe Toscano: 8:38

Look, unfortunately for many organizations, especially when you’re talking with senior leadership, training has become a task. It’s not part of the fabric or the initiative in order for the company to achieve its mission. It’s just something that needs to be done in order to check a box. It’s done more to say it was done, to have good documentation that it was accomplished and nothing more. But if leadership understands that training can help accomplish the mission that they have set out to do in the direction that they want to take the company, and instead of seeing it as a task, sees it as an integral, important part of the process to achieve those goals, it changes everything. Because now what happens is more focus is put on the training for the employees. Hopefully, it’s presented in such a way that employees enjoy the interaction and the experience. That only leads to them implementing actually what they’re learning versus just having wasted three hours in a classroom to say they did. With that implementation comes increased performance, and that increased performance leads to more success, right? It sounds so simple and it always amazes me how often it’s not done that way. It comes back to good communication. If we’re looking at a Training department, are they communicating with senior leadership to show that they understand what the mission is? Does leadership have any recommendations or suggestions that they could provide where now they’re interacting and they create a program that’s even more impactful. Invite leadership to the classes. Yes, it’s a little bit of time out of their schedule, but if they show up, it shows that it’s important. If it was important enough for them to give time from their schedule, the participants are going to recognize that, especially at higher levels within the company. And if they roll up their sleeves and have some fun with the class and the group, even though it might not be their area of specialty, that goes a really long way with the people that have to do it on a regular basis. So again, very small things that make really big differences, but there has to be good communication. There has to be an understanding, and there has to be an exchange. If that can begin, the end results will always be better than what they currently are, and it will help establish a new norm within the company that wasn’t there before.

Mike Kent: 10:57

That’s really the benefit of training. It elevates the organization by improving performance. It has an impact on morale and job satisfaction and job engagement and collaboration and everything that we’re looking to do when it’s done well. A very important piece of that engagement is then going back, cycling back to senior leadership and showing them what the impact was that happened and being honest and transparent about that. Saying,”Okay, this is what we did. This is what we set out to do. This is what we achieved. And if things match up, wonderful. This is how we’re moving forward. If things didn’t match up, that’s okay. This is what we learned. This is how we’re going to shift.” And you continue to demonstrate to senior management, senior leadership, not only the”this is what we’re going to do and why”, but”this is how it all went, and this is what we learned and how we’re continuously adapting and improving things to continue to meet the mission that we’ve been given.” You mentioned having senior leadership in the room. Great way to get support for the program! The other part of that is sometimes, and trainers and Quality folks have to be aware of this, that can be a bit of a double-edged sword. You get a senior leader in the room and all of a sudden everybody clamps up because they don’t want to deliver the bad news, or they’re intimidated or they want to make sure that they don’t look stupid or silly or say the wrong thing or ask a silly question. So when you’re facilitating and building your training programs, take that into account. Build in some ways to engage folks in such a way that it makes that environment safe, and a positive one for everyone to interact where the level of intimidation is a lot lower.

Joe Toscano: 12:54

Mike, a couple of things, and you bring up some good points. But leadership attending training is never a bad thing. Because them in front of a different group of people than they’re normally in front of and having that interaction only makes the entirety of the organization better, right? We all work in a certain area. We all tend to work with the people that we come into contact with every day within that area. The best companies, and where we see the most success, is when there’s a lot of communication across all levels, right? If a senior leader could be part of a training class with especially individuals that might not be in such a high position, it only adds credibility and care. There’s so many positives of them attending something like that, that just makes it all better. Even before looking or engaging senior leadership, if that isn’t being done, is first take a look at the program and how it’s being conducted. You might not have the best program. It may be why you’re having some of the challenges, as well. A good program doesn’t always take more money to do. It may take a different approach, a different idea, a little bit more time, but it doesn’t always have to incorporate expense. There’s a lot to be said of making improvements that don’t impact the bottom line in a negative way, but they will eventually impact it in a very positive way. Ask some people what they thought that went through it. Would you want to sit through it for the amount of time that’s needed? If the answer to that is no, then you probably need to change a few things. But if you incorporate some change, and then when you go to leadership and say,”Look, we revamped this, we did it. What do you think? Any ideas? How would you improve it? Will you come?” It starts opening up the environment so that now training becomes something different. If you’re interacting with people, it makes a huge difference. And eventually, as the class goes on and they see that it’s safe, more and more people speak up and want to participate. So, at the end of the day, it doesn’t have to just be the Training department and leadership. Anybody in the organization should be willing to say,”Hey, look, can we do some training on this?”, or,”we need more of that.” It’s really everybody’s responsibility, like we said in the beginning, to step up and participate in this and ensure that the company is really benefiting from it.

Mike Kent: 15:14

The best people to do that, I think, are the frontline managers, which are the individuals that are really making sure that from a day to day perspective, from a moment to moment perspective, things are moving along as they should. And so seeing what’s going on in the front lines, if you will, regardless of what part of the organization you’re in, those frontline managers should be engaged as well in that process, just like the senior leadership should be. They’ll understand where the actual pain points are. They’ll understand more of the dynamics of their group and what may resonate, what may not resonate with them, what’s important to them on a daily basis. One of the challenges I find is that there’s a lot of assumptions that are made around how things will land with the trainees in the individual functional areas. By asking just a few simple questions of those frontline managers about what they’re seeing, what their challenges are, what their environment is like every day, and how they navigate that, what’s important to them, can help those training programs be much more effective and efficient, but also engage people because it’s more real life. It’s more every day. When things are more real life and every day, there’s a greater chance of them being applied to every day and real life, which is really what we’re after. So, engaging those frontline managers, as well as the senior leadership, to ensure everybody’s on board with what the goals and objectives are, what the outcome should be, how it should go about, ideas and strategies of what might work and what may work. All of those things are critically important to do. Yeah, that takes an awful lot of work. But at the same time, if you can get all those people together and get the input and information, it makes the end product and the end result so much more impactful.

Joe Toscano: 17:15

But once it becomes part of the culture, it’s always there, right? It’s not extra effort, extra time. If things aren’t working the way they should, make those changes. Yes, it’s going to take some effort. But if that effort’s incorporated, you start seeing those results. It becomes part of the culture. Everybody’s going to win, especially the organization. At the end of the day, the frontline manager is critical no matter what level they are. The reason for that is they actually need to know this better than their employees do. Why? Because one, they have to teach it, reinforce it, and make sure that people are doing it the way it should be done. If that frontline manager doesn’t have buy in, if they’re not as good at the learning that they should be or understanding to ensure that it’s being implemented, we all know what happens. They don’t follow up. They don’t care. The box was checked. They don’t have to worry about it until next year. That’s not what you want. If that frontline manager isn’t engaged, then they’re going to ignore it, and you’re going to get the same results you’ve always gotten that you’ve wanted to change. To me, it’s probably the most critical group. Yes, you need senior leadership to support, but you need that frontline management group taking the training seriously. More importantly, they need to be the biggest cheerleader for their employee group to ensure that things are being done on a consistent basis. Everybody wins that way.

Mike Kent: 18:39

An example of what can happen when engagement is high: a senior process engineer stops me in the hallway and he says,”Mike, can I get into that GMP Process Controls class that you’ve got going on next week? I tried to register and it’s full.” He says,”I’ve heard it’s fantastic. That could really help me solve some problems with my team by understanding some different strategies and some things that I’ve heard that you’re talking about in that class. I really need to get in there.” I was floored. Six months ago, this is a guy who was the loudest voice for,”Oh man, all this GMP training and all this stuff that we’ve got to do. And it’s so, it takes so long and it doesn’t do…”, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A lot of that was true. We changed our approach to engage people, to do a lot of the work up front, to really make sure that we understood what would be impactful, what did matter. And all of a sudden, six months later, this guy is stopping me in the hallway and begging me to get into a GMP training class, for crying out loud. It was great! I mean, I had to pinch myself three or four times after I left that conversation. But it occurred to me in that moment that we had really, really made a difference at that point. Through blood, sweat, and tears, and putting forth a little bit more effort to engage a few more people a little bit more, we had moved the needle to the point where our programs were highly sought after, highly impactful, delivering measurable and sustainable results. And I’m not patting myself on the back. What I’m saying is those are the things that are possible that we all want. How to get that is by engaging folks, especially frontline management and the people who are the stakeholders in the program to really make a big difference.

Joe Toscano: 20:43

Mike, you and I both know whenever we hear training doesn’t work, all you have is bad training. That’s all it ever is. There’s a word here that a lot of people don’t like, and that’s called accountability, and accountability at all levels from senior leadership down to the people performing the training. Senior leadership should want accountability. If we are spending that kind of time to pay for a training program, for trainers, for a department, to take people out of their work environment, and you’re reducing productivity in order to go through a program, there should be accountability to that. Leadership should demand to see where were we beforehand. Where are we afterwards? What are good, strong, measurable, sustainable goals that we should be looking for? And what’s the time frame in order for us to see that? At the frontline manager level, again, accountability. We need to ensure that frontline manager knows it. A great way to go about that, though, is get their input before a program. You get them excited and involved, they’re going to want to participate. You give credit to the people that are helping you make those changes, you’re going to have lifelong fans, right? They’re going to always be supporters of training and the training methodology in the program. But those individuals are critical because they should be held accountable to the performance now of their team. Then lastly, at the employee level that are reporting to these frontline managers, that should be part of their performance reviews, too, as it should be for everybody along the way. What did you go through? How did you implement it? Did we see a change in performance, an improvement in safety, whatever the measurement may be. They need to ensure that’s consistently being checked, that they’re trying whatever the training provided, and they’re implementing it in their daily work to get the end result they want. If you get that functioning from the most senior levels all the way down to the lowest within the organization, there is no way you can’t be successful and have an impactful program that ultimately will make a positive difference to an organization. It just will.

Mike Kent: 22:50

Absolutely. And that engagement at all levels, I think, is the key message here. If you’re getting all this information and you’re gathering all this information, it occurs to me that’s an awful lot of work. Having done this throughout my career, yes, it’s an awful lot of work. We always hear from clients when we walk into places, especially from the frontline managers and the senior leadership, that there’s”too much training”. A lot of the times that is true. There is too much training. Now some of that may be a perception, and some of that might be due to the fact that training isn’t seen as valuable or it doesn’t achieve the results that we want it to. That perception is something that we all have to manage and be aware of, but there are some things that you can do right off the bat to improve that. One of which is making sure that any of the training that’s required training is actually relevant to the individual’s assigned tasks. This is the removing the training that’s there for just in case reasons or at some point that person may get to it. It’s something that I see quite a lot when we go into organizations. A list of 124 SOPs, for example, that everybody has to read before they can step foot into their job responsibility, regardless of what that is. Well, are all 120, 124 SOPs really relevant to that individual’s assigned tasks in the moment? In my experience, a lot of them are not. So getting rid of those things that are the”nice to haves” or the”just for informational purposes” or”for awareness purposes”, and the individual really isn’t performing those tasks or making a decision in that process. That’s one way to free up space and free up time so that people can fill that with getting together and collaborating and having those discussions. What are some other tactics and specifics that you’ve seen, Joe, that work really well to allow people to free up some time or some energy to have those conversations?

Joe Toscano: 25:09

One of the things we hear often when we’re brought into help is,”Well, we’ve always done it that way.” Well, that’s not a really good thing. That’s, probably pretty bad, right? Just because it’s always been done that way doesn’t mean it’s the right way, the best way, the most impactful way, especially if you’re running into problems. There’s probably a good reason that we got a phone call. It breaks down into like four main areas. Evaluate what you have. Is it achieving the goals that the company has? Is it getting you to the necessary outcome that you really want for the organization? But you need to be honest and look at what you have and see how it can be improved. Now you may do that overview, and part number two is, it’s good. Well, that’s fantastic. There’s a lot of great training and programs, but can you make it better? Is there a way to engage some people to even get more buy in and a better outcome? And quite honestly, if it’s not good, then I think we’ve outlined how you should go about starting to fix it, right? The third thing is engage everyone. Engage your senior leadership. Same thing with frontline managers. They are vital to the success of any training program because they are the conduit to making sure it gets implemented. And even employees. Just because they’re not a manager doesn’t mean they don’t have fantastic ideas or insights. Actually, probably the best ideas come from the people having to do it every day. You really should engage those individuals and ask them what they think. Title here is irrelevant. What’s relevant is ideas, feedback, participation. You get people excited about this, especially if you involve them, and that’s the best way to get people excited. They’re gonna do some incredible things and everybody wins from that. Step four is it’s everybody’s responsibility, as we said at the beginning of the podcast. It doesn’t mean you have the title or work in that department, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have an idea or have a connection or have an approach that you would love to see that might make the job better. So my point here is, everybody should have an eye towards this and participate any chance they get. And you’ll find that what seems overwhelming and very complicated really isn’t. Over time it becomes part of the culture and it’s part of the success of the company. It’s what makes the best companies the most successful.

Mike Kent: 27:32

What we’re talking about in terms of real engagement is being out there in the environment. And it’s funny because whenever I talk about this, I think about David Attenborough being out in the wild, and I see the documentary there flashing in my head of,”We’re out in the environment where this task takes place and we’re learning so much.” And it’s very, very true. Joe, you mentioned having senior leadership attend a class, being in that environment where the training is happening so that they can understand what’s going on, what the employees are experiencing in that class, but also in their work environment. If you’re in the Training department or in the Quality department and have questions or are curious about what’s going on, being out there in that work environment is going to give you so much more information than having those conversations either by email, relying on a feedback sheet, or having them in a conference room. It may not be the easiest thing to do, but it is so well worth the effort. If you’re a frontline manager and your presence is out on the floor and people see that you’re not just railing them or trying to correct them when you’re out there. You’re actually curious and wondering how we can improve and engaging people for those reasons. Then you start having those conversations much more frequently and people become much more open. So regardless of what level you’re at, whether you’re senior leadership, frontline managers, Quality, Training, the operators, or the individuals doing the work, being engaged in that environment to be curious, to share your thoughts, and ask questions about how things can be done or should be done better can inform a lot of great activities, training just being one of them.

Joe Toscano: 29:28

Mike, that’s great, and there is another benefit. Training is kind of a conduit to get there. And that is, does everybody understand what leadership has established and what direction they’re looking to take the company? By leadership attending training, they can tell the people going through the training exactly what they’re trying to achieve and why that training is so important. It also filters down to the frontline managers who, if they understand it as well, can reinforce it every single day with their employee group. And the employees now are hearing it from their manager as well as senior leadership. What it does is it slowly over time changes the culture so that everybody is working towards the same goal. The point being is, what a great way to tie so many different things together through a program that’s integrated through every organization that’s out there. It’s just another way to take advantage of instead of it being a task, right? We have to check the box of training. Make it an integral part of the culture of the organization and really the end result will be phenomenal.

Mike Kent: 30:38

If you’ve seen a big improvement, if you’ve had a major impact, celebrate that as a win. Because people, when they see that, will say,”Hey, they’re taking us seriously.” Often times, that’s all people really want in this realm is to be heard and taken seriously. If you can give them a reason to say,”Yeah, we heard what you were saying. We adopted that recommendation and it’s made a huge difference,” people are going to be much more apt to engage with you and then you’re meeting them halfway and it makes the program better. Then you’ve got much more engagement than you could ever know what to do with, and that’s like gold.

Joe Toscano: 31:21

Mike, it’s really simple. Victories inspire more victories. So, if you could achieve some, it’s amazing how those can lead to others. That’s all we’re trying to do, and what we do for clients when we’re brought in to evaluate programs, improve programs, even start a new program. A lot of the things we’re discussing is how we go about that approach in order to ensure that it has more impact and it leads to greater success in the organizations. And people get excited over that. They just do, right? Something works. They see the impact of it. People become excited. They’re getting credit. They’re participating. You’ve just changed everything about an organization and it only leads them upward. It’ll never lead downward. I think that’s all we’re trying to convey here. It sounds like a lot of information. It sounds complicated. It’s really not. It’s just a bit of a change of mindset and approach that makes huge impact. And again, victories inspire more victories.

Mike Kent: 32:28

That they do. And once you get that ball rolling, it’s a wonderful journey to be a part of. And then training becomes exactly what it’s intended to do. It facilitates movement, continuous improvement, and growth and engagement.

Joe Toscano: 32:44

So Mike, I think we had a good discussion today in terms of a high level view of training, the importance of it, how people can get more involved, improve programs, engage others. And to me, it’s really not a difficult task. Yes, it’s a look at doing things differently and taking a different approach, but it could have big impact. I look forward to our next discussion where we’ll get into a little bit more detail on this topic. I hope that everybody has found this a bit helpful in terms of our exchange and the experience that we have and the commonalities in terms of challenges that we see in industry that hopefully will help other individuals overcome some of this before it becomes problematic down the road for them.

Mike Kent: 33:30

So join us for our next episode where we continue this discussion on training here on The Grind.

Joe Toscano: 33:35

If Medvacon can help you and your organization, we’re happy to do so. We specialize in the following areas: Quality and Compliance, Validation and Qualification Services, Project Management, Tech Transfers, General and Specialized Training Programs, Engineering Services, and Talent Acquisition. If you have general questions as well, feel free to give us a call at any time. We can easily be reached at+1 833-633-8226, or via our website at http://www.medvacon.com. Thanks so much, and we look forward to speaking with you. Thank you for listening to the Quality Grind Podcast presented by Medvacon. To learn more or to hear additional episodes, visit us at http://www.medvacon.com.