Together in Training
Training Within Industry proves invaluable to North St. Paul School District
After adopting a training program that was pioneered in manufacturing, the working relationships and productivity among custodial staff supervisors at North St. Paul’s schools has improved substantially.
Like many manufacturing supervisors, Mike Boland, the operations and health and safety supervisor for the district, says his operation sometimes suffered from personality conflicts. Because supervisors assign custodial tasks but don’t work through the night, as many of the custodians do, some supervisors became upset if an overnight task did not get finished or had been carelessly completed, which usually resulted in the supervisor taking issue with his custodians. A Training Within Industry (TWI) program encouraged supervisors to take more of a coaching approach, working with custodians to improve the quality of their work. “It was mostly personality conflicts. We’re working with groups that are [known] for doing great mechanical things and other custodial things, but they have no skills in supervision,” Boland says. “A lot of times in those positions, they just think of themselves as janitors. They don’t understand how many interactions they have with the community, with the students and with the staff.”
Boland’s staff, along with custodial supervisors from White Bear Lake, underwent TWI’s four-step training for constructive problem solving. “Instead of just looking at an overall problem, they can break it down so that they can actually deal with the problem,” Boland says. “They’re brick and mortar kind of people. This [method] gives them the skills to say, ‘This is the problem. These are different ways to solve it, and these are the ways I am going to do it.’ ”
North St. Paul’s school district benefited as well, seeing better productivity, cleaner buildings and a happier, even healthier, staff. “Your work force stay healthier because they want to come to work. It’s a team concept, and everyone feels like they are in it together.”
Boland says the custodians are now paying attention to the cleanliness of an entire building instead of focusing solely on their assigned areas. Spread out among 17 different buildings, the custodial staff still meets monthly to discuss work problems and strategies, a habit that helps maintain open lines of communication in a supportive network. The TWI program was so successful, North St. Paul’s schools are looking into implementing it with their food services staff in the future.