For Managers
As a manager. you have the most influence on whether your operators drive safely and productively. Why? Because you have more control over necessary resources. (Operators can't repair their own forklift, order more pallets, or re-engineer the warehouse for better flow-through) This means you play an essential role in your forklift operations. My research, which is a continuation of US government-sponsored studies, has demonstrated that supervisors, when involved in specific actions with operators, will produce superior safety results, i.e., NO serious forklift-related injuries in over a decade with our study group involving more than 668 years of forklift operating.
So, what does this "boil down" to? Two (2) essential management practices:
1. Submit each operator to an on-job, on-truck performance test/evaluation that closely matches job/task requirements. We can teach you how!
2. The test/evaluation MUST be administered by a front-line supervisory authority with a regular presence in the operator's work environment. We can teach supervisors how!
That is ALL that is needed!!! Researched. Demonstrated. Studied. and proven in the field.
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If prepared and administered to meet professional standards, the two (2) practices will yield operators with unusual precision safety, and enough speed to keep up with typical productivity demands of their work environment. NO slow-pokes. NO laggards. No more pretending that safe operators must be
S-L-O-W operators.
Now, there is a scientific basis for, in most cases, doing away with traditional forklift classroom training:
- NO "canned" videos.
- NO discussions sitting in a classroom.
- NO pencil-and-paper or computer tests and quizzes.
- NO useless lectures.
- OPERATORS CAN TEST OUT OF THE TRAINING...
...AND it is ALL guaranteed to comply with all city, state and federal forklift regulations!
What about the requirements, in some countries, that have pre-determined theory tests, and mandated checklist practice and evaluations? Give your government regulators their due. Provide them an artifact, so you don't run afoul of the law.
An artifact in any organizational culture is simply low-hassle, low-cost compliance EVIDENCE. After all, you are NOT going to change the rules mandated by government...no matter how wasteful "they" would have it. LIFTOR encourages you to find a way to provide the artifacts at minimal expense, and at the SAME TIME, use the scientifically-derived practices that work to achieve the goal for which EVERYONE benefits. LIFTOR thus encourages both regulatory compliance and substantive operator performance with measurable, reliable, and reproducible results.
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With LIFTOR, your injury record isn't just luck! You know why you have zero serious injuries...with confident, highly skilled operators who act both safe AND fast...
...and THAT's because Everything in the LIFTOR system has been engineered from scientific research and scientific principles. You can't say that about the government required forklift standards. I hope that isn't news to you, but if you are basing your actions solely on government standards, you achieve only government regulatory compliance...and not much else, if anything... [ NOTE: If all you want is government regulatory compliance, then you can STOP reading here. Sorry. LIFTOR is probably NOT for you.]
...and THAT's because government regulations are derived from a political process. The political process includes, lobbying, negotiation, compromise, positioning of interest groups with differing missions, and voting to the will of a majority. They mention scientific research, but definitely do NOT derive most rules from science, and just because people involved held engineering degrees, the outcome is certainly NOT "engineered". Further, keep this fact in mind: Most, if not all, of those people who were responsible for the final version of your forklift-related government regulations, are NOT the same people who will actually get hurt or killed by their decision. Don't believe my word on this? Simply do the research yourself. Ask OSHA, through your local congressman (or woman if they are one), to match the number of serious injuries and fatalities since 1971 with the names of all those people who had the power to author, edit, specify, or vote for your forklift safety laws and/or regulations since that time. If you find more than ZERO matches, please confirm this to me and I will shut down LIFTOR.com, resign from the ANSI/ITSDF B56.1 Committee, and never write even one more chapter for a university textbook... and I will go away to do something else!
LIFTOR is a "performance engineering" process. NOT politics. NOT University-like Education!
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So, the "standards" we generate are going to be different! Yet, LIFTOR responds to all relevant government standards. This is NOT trickery! It is a lot more rational, and systemic. Here are two examples of models we use to ensure solid engineering of LIFTOR; to ensure it is derived from principles and practices born of science, AND effective at YOUR workplace:
- The Accomplishment-Based Performance System
- The Performance Chain
The Accomplishment-Based Performance System. Below is an overview diagram, or model, for how LIFTOR works as a system. Without explaining the model in detail, the systematic interrelationship among the various parts might give you the idea that LIFTOR has structure. In fact, it has a learnable structure here that reminds us that certain things must happen in a specific order to achieve zero incidents. Accomplishment is defined as " a thing of value for another person's use."
The Performance Chain. The Performance Chain (diagram below) shows how organization objectives, relative to forklift operations, are produced from a simple linear series of events. The linear series starts with "Influences".
Influences are the things, events, or antecedents that cause a particular Behavior to happen. For example, if a front-line supervisor (NOT a consultant, staff professional, or H.R. Manager) administers the on-truck LIFTOR certification skills check (evaluation), we now know this helps cause beneficial, recurring operator behavior. Also, if you paint a brightly colored line or walkway marking where you want pedestrians, they are likely to walk along one side of the line or within the walkway, greatly reducing the chance of a collision with a forklift. A physical barrier would be even more effective. In the LIFTOR of things, it is the various influences that are at the heart of effective management practice.
Operator Behavior. This defines what actions operators take or DO on the job. Behavior is defined as "any action that can be seen, or measured in some other way."
For example, every operator needs to have a behavior in their repertoire as follows: Examine the forklift. Another behavior is Dead-Stop the forklift. Others are, Sound the horn; Insert the forks horizontally; Lift with load horizontal; and Load the trailer within 40 minutes. These and other behaviors produce the things of value that define the reason for the industrial truck operator's job. The things of value produced are called accomplishments.
Accomplishment. An accomplishment is "a thing of value for another person's use". For example, in a warehouse, the person operating a forklift might produce any number of accomplishments that together define the value of the job being performed. Typical examples are, A triple stack of pallet loads; a trailer load of goods ready for shipment; Incoming goods on the receiving dock; a pallet load in an assigned location; and a daily/shift examination record. Accomplishments result from a forklift operator's behavior.
One characteristic that separates an accomplishment from a behavior is that the operator can go home at the end of the day, and you can still know they were productive simply by counting or measuring the "things of value" they left behind. In any company, it is the collective accomplishments of all the employees that cause the "organization objectives" to be met.
Tom Gilbert, who coined the word "Performance Engineering", in his book "Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance," wrote a little poem to help us remember the important difference between a "behavior" and an "accomplishment":
BEHAVIOR is what you do at the time,
ACCOMPLISHMENT is what you leave behind.
Organization objectives. To the extent organization objectives are met, managers can claim effectiveness. For the highest level manager, effectiveness assumes there is little-to-no sub-optimization within his/her organization. Sub-optimization simply means that one or more of the business processes are succeeding in their objectives at the expense of others achieving theirs. When this happens, and customers are negatively affected, the organization becomes dysfunctional. Uncorrected, it can eventually lead to organization-wide failure.
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With LIFTOR, front-line managers set the organization context needed to drive results...not just regulatory compliance. Your operators need to act BOTH safely AND fast. But there are NO government regulations that will help you win both.
Rid your company of pencil-and-paper tests, useless class discussions, or "canned" videos, and let your operators test out of training. LIFTOR recognizes the skills they have developed. Your effectiveness is at stake. Performance-Based Training, such as that offered within the LIFTOR system, can provide all the benefits possible. You win. Operators win. Your company wins...and the government regulators are fully satisfied.
Of course, to get the benefits, whether economic, social, or personal, from such a robust system as LIFTOR (Lift Truck Operating Resources), most of the investment in time and money is on the Front-End.
Pay yearly ($1097) during your preparation phase, where you get help from LIFTOR.com every step of the way. When you are ready to certify with your first operator candidate, a LIFTOR Master Trainer will come to you to administer the Trainer Certification test ($2400 includes travel anywhere in the USA contiguous 48 States. Outside USA contiguous, travel is extra)
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