Snowfighter Training - Does it Pay? 

by Donald M. Walker, P.E.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
College of Engineering
Wisconsin LTAP Center Director

Training pays off – if it’s done right.  Some seminars and conferences are a total waste of time and money while others can produce great benefits to an organization and individual staff.

What makes the difference? Three factors seem most important:   selecting the right training course in the first place, making sure trainees have the right attitude and following-up afterwards.   Fail on any one of these components and most likely your training investment will be wasted.

We’ve all been to far too many meetings that waste our time.   And this applies to experience with training courses.  In this era of tight agency budgets, many organizations, recalling their memories of wasteful training exercises in the past, are reducing their training budgets.  That’s penny-wise and pound-foolish.

At minimum, training takes time away from immediately-productive tasks.  Sometimes it involves additional time and expense for training.  Years of experience, however, shows that investments in training can have big payoffs.   Here’s what I’ve learned in more than 20 years training transportation personnel.

The traditional way of determining the effectiveness of training is to survey trainees with evaluation questionnaires at the end of the session.   While offering some useful insights, these evaluations often entirely miss the underlying question of whether the session will change behavior.  How do the normally positive comments translate into real world changes back on the job?

The Wisconsin LTAP Center has followed up several of its workshops with evaluation forms sent to participants several months after the workshops. The advantage is obvious:  the surveys better avoid the temporary glow of a motivating presentation and more readily capture changes in performance that the session may have produced.  These delayed evaluations were well received – about half were returned.  Better still, the evaluations were uniformly positive with regard to their utility on the job.  Even more helpful to trainers in fine-tuning their ongoing efforts – and public works officials trying to justify budget outlays for continuing training – the evaluations provided anecdotal documentation of truly meaningful changes produced by the workshop.

Examples from the winter road maintenance evaluations included these actual comments:

·        “We saved money in overtime and salt use, yet increased service”

·        “I was able to develop a policy and procedures manual for snow and ice removal”

·        “Reduced salt by calibrating”

·        “Saved money by calibrating salt and sand spreaders”

·        “Saved money by getting plows and sanders out earlier to get the roadways clear of ice and snow”

·        “Saved money by more evenly spreading sand and less trips in plowing of snow”

·        “Money was saved due to placement or non-placement of salt at the proper time”

·        “Reduced use of salt for sure”

·        “Used less salt”

·        “Less sand bought, less clean up time, less hauling of material”

·        “Saved money through more efficient application (of materials)”

Agencies have often been able to quantify the return on their investments with saved materials, more efficient labor deployment, better equipment maintenance and utilization. 

And then there is the motivational impact of participation in (effective) training programs.  The evaluations reported:

·        “There was a lot of enthusiasm we brought back from the workshops along with ideas that we shared with fellow employees”

·        “People better understand why they need to do a better job”

·        “Helpful to learn from other towns and villages, new ideas etc.”

·        “Helpful to give me more confidence as I do my job-knowing what I am doing is correct helps a lot”

·        “I always learn something by talking to the person next to me from another community who has a different approach to the same problems”

·        “Just by attending you hear of new avenues to take in solving problems. It develops your mind away from routine”

·        “I'm new to the road business...it helps me become aware of safety and maintenance issues”

·        “Better communication with county and board members and citizens in my town”

Some of these comments are those of the supervisor, not the operator.  Others reflect the perspective of off-site multi-agency training rather than that which larger agencies can sometimes provide in-house.  But all illustrate the synergy and motivational power of training sessions.

There are new training materials.  AASHTO has produced an excellent computer-based self-paced training course on anti-icing.  APWA recently delivered an outstanding satellite-delivered distance learning “Click, Listen and Learn” seminar on using salt brine for anti-icing, but live training sessions allowing interaction between speakers and other participants contributes to both additional learning and motivation to implement. Trainees also appreciate gaining additional contacts, which can prove helpful when implementing change.  One technique that works well for continuing training is to involve a “graduate” of the training as the principal trainer or part of a team of trainers.   In these instances, the “graduate” can provide peer testimony of the value of the course, provide higher credibility and encourage post-training implementation of what is being taught. 

To capitalize on your investment in training, pay attention to the three key points: 

1. Appropriate training.  If using outside training, make sure the trainers come from organizations that have a history of good training.  Check with others you trust if not familiar with a specific course or organization. Choose carefully what subjects will be presented.   Don’t waste your time and money on low-payback topics.  Determine if you need basic introductory instruction or refresher training.  Read the course details and be sure the content is at the appropriate technical level for the participants. It is surprising how many people attend courses with little or no idea of the content or technical level required. Finally, if you attend a poor course, let the sponsor know about it in clear terms with enough detail so they can improve. 

2. Proper Trainee attitude. This probably is the most important issue. Whether you’re a supervisor responsible for getting your people trained or a trainee selected to participate in training, setting the expectation for learning is critical.  Some people show up and expect to learn something. Others come because they were ordered to attend; they don’t appreciate the value and benefit of what they’re being asked to learn.  A poor attitude cripples their ability to learn and can undermine classroom motivation of fellow trainees.  Obviously, attitude affects payback on training investments.  Managers need to make it clear that training is important and an invitation to attend training is a cherished opportunity, not a boring assignment.  How can that be done?  If operators feel they are being “sent” to training because management feels they don’t know anything and they, themselves see no purpose or value in the training topic, it will be hard to instill a positive attitude.  On the other hand, if operators understand that their management has a plan to make improvements and that having operators receive instruction contributes to the agency’s mission – and, particularly, if they believe that something they learn will be implemented in their operation, motivation problems disappear.  To reap the best rewards of the investment in training, you’ll find it cost-effective to make an additional small investment in preparing trainees to appreciate the contribution management expects them to make as a result of the training. If the trainee is convinced that “there is no way my boss will be interested in making changes discussed in this course,” he won’t have much motivation to learn.

3. Follow-up.  Even if the training is high-quality and focused on a priority need, and even if the trainee participates in total confidence that training is important to his job and the agency’s performance and is part of a plan to improve snowfighting operations, the investment can still be wasted if management doesn’t follow-up the training with operational changes taking advantage of the new capabilities and understanding of its now-trained operators.  Just as interactive training is more effective in promoting retention of the material trained, adoption of new techniques or acquisition of new technologies to put into practice the classroom instruction reinforces the learning objectives – and translates them into the savings and upgraded service that motivated the training in the first place.  Conversely, if the trainee returns to the job and there is not even a discussion about what was learned and how that will translate into improved service, the investment will have been wasted. Certainly, we cannot always make changes right away especially if the change requires new policy or new equipment etc.  If the training is not reinforced by affirmation of the importance of what was taught, however or if managers discourage the excitement of peer discussions of what was learned, what was taught will soon be a distant memory.  Part of your follow-up should be a post-season evaluation of the changes to see if the changes promoted in the training session were translated into changes in operator behavior in the field.  Follow-through pays dividends on the training investment.

Training pays off.  People want to grow.  They want to make a difference.  And they do – one way or the other.  If they have the tools, that difference can be enormously positive; if lack of training is reinforced with other management disregard, the penalties are assessed as unnecessary traffic crashes and injuries, in avoidable environmental insult and in unproductive snowfighters.   Snowfighters have exceptional challenges.   Yours is only a seasonal task, but can require specialized skills.  Experience can teach a lot, but pre-season training is important for every snowfighter.  Building a team to battle winter 24/7 requires hard work and dedication…and a lot of preparation.

Every state has an LTAP Center.  Local Technology Assistance Program trainers have materials available prepared by the Salt Institute in partnership with the National LTAP Association and others.  These materials can also be used by agencies performing their own in-house training.  You can afford snowfighter training.  You can’t afford not to!

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