Case Study $3$: Adults or Children $...$ Who Are We Training?

Tessa Silverman recently graduated with her masters in human resources and began working at Essic Total Parts and Manufacturing. Essic was growing quickly due to a new product it developed that caught on like wildfire. Every manufacturer in the region wanted to include this new innovation in its design decisions, so Essic was hiring people at a rapid pace to fill all areas in the company. Tessa was brought in as the third person in the HR Department after the director of HR$,$ Hal Rooker, and an administrative assistant, Brenda Button, who handles all secretarial and administrative issues. Hal had been there $30$ years, and while he knew a lot about HR laws and the basics of managing the HR function, the CEO had confided in Tessa when she was hired that the company was excited to have her on board because she would be able to help Hal get up to speed on cutting$-$edge HR issues. Tessas current job is primarily to coordinate all of the training and development activities that need to happen given Essics rapid growth. With growth comes lots of internal promotions and new hires, and with that the need to train people to make sure they are prepared for their new job responsibilities.

Tessa was finishing up the design plans for those working on the line in the manufacturing plant. She was carefully following the ADDIE model $($see the introductory chapter$)$ and remembered to consider learning theories when designing the training programs. Tessa brought her plan in to Hal, who had to sign off on her ideas before she could develop the materials. Since this was her first solo project, she was a bit nervous. Tessa walked Hal through the program and discussed her reasons for designing the program to focus on intrinsic motivators, providing good reasons for the employees to understand what they were doing and why, and teaching the employees to be empowered to solve problems independently. The program was going to be experiential in nature, with lots of hands$-$on instruction and practice. After her presentation, Hal smiled, then started to laugh. He said, Tessa, all this newfangled learning stuff will be lost on these good old boys on the line. Most of them barely graduated high school, and they hate learning new things. Just toss them the manual and let them figure it out on their own. Maybe take an hour to tell them what to do$,$ but otherwise you are wasting too much time trying to make this relevant $[$said with sarcasm and an eye roll$]$ to them.

Tessa left the meeting shocked and disappointed. She now faced a dilemma. Should she do what Hal, her boss, said, or should she find a way to convince him that her new plan was a good idea, given what she learned in her studies about the importance of making training for adults relevant, practical, and experiential? Hals idea sounded like the worst of high schoolread this, take a test, no relevance, no explanation. Was Hal right that the guys on the line would prefer being tossed the new process manual so they could learn it themselves, or would Tessas plan be the better approach? How would you recommend Tessa proceed?