Monday, 2 a.m. at Mill Lane: The central bakery on Mill Lane now bakes for all three shops of Lena's Bakery Ltd, through a night shift that starts at 2 a.m.
Lena has hired two new bakers for it (2.1.2). On Monday night they walk in for the first time.
What they do not know yet
- Where the flour store is
- What to do if the fire alarm goes
- Who to ask when a dough will not rise
- When the break is
Not at the ovens yet: Lena does not put them at the ovens yet. She spends the first two nights showing them round.
Those two nights are induction training (induction): the training a new employee gets when they start the job. It welcomes them, shows them the workplace, and teaches the rules and the way this business does things, so that they can do the job the way the business expects.
Lena's two-night induction
Where things are
A tour of the building: the flour store, the ovens, the lockers, the fire exits and the loading bay where the vans leave for the shops.
The rules
Hairnets, hand-washing and the allergen labels on every tray. How to use the ovens safely, and what to do in a fire (health and safety).
The people
Meeting Priti, the head baker, and the drivers. Who to ask when something goes wrong at three in the morning.
The job and the hours
Start at 2 a.m., bread on the vans by 5, then a break. What a good loaf looks like, and what the bakery stands for: local flour, nothing sold a day old (its culture).
Induction is about who and when: Induction is for new employees, at the start of the job. That is what makes it induction.
Priti, the head baker, has baked for Lena for four years. When she learns to use a new oven, that is training, but it is not induction, because she is not new.
Two nights with no bread from the new bakers is a real cost: Lena pays their wages and Priti's time. She thinks it is worth it. New bakers who know the rules and the people are useful sooner, make fewer mistakes in their first weeks (a missing allergen label can make a customer ill), work safely, and feel welcome, so fewer of them leave in the first months.
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From the third night, each new baker works beside Priti at the real ovens, on the real bread for tomorrow's shops.
How Priti teaches
- Priti shows how she shapes a loaf.
- The new baker copies.
- She corrects them on the spot.
- By the end of the second week they are shaping 200 loaves a night on their own.
On-the-job training: This is on-the-job training: training at the normal place of work, during normal working hours, while the employee does the job.
Three ways it happens at Mill Lane
Watching and copying
The new baker stands next to Priti for a night and watches every step before trying it (shadowing).
Doing it with help
The new baker shapes the loaves; Priti watches and corrects the shape, the weight and the timing as they go (coaching).
An experienced guide
For the first month each new baker has one experienced colleague to go to with any question, on any night (mentoring).
What Lena gains
- It is the real job. The bakers learn on Lena's own ovens, with her recipes, so everything they learn is used the next night.
- It costs little. No course fees and no travel; the bread still gets baked while they learn.
- They learn the bakery's way. Priti teaches how Lena's Bakery does it, not how a textbook says it.
What it costs her
- Priti bakes less. Every minute she spends correcting a new baker is a minute she is not shaping loaves.
- Mistakes reach the shops. A loaf a trainee got wrong is a real loaf that cannot be sold.
- The training is only as good as the trainer. A busy or impatient Priti teaches less well.
Priti's habits become theirs: On busy nights Priti skips the second rise and puts the dough straight in the oven. She knows when she can get away with it.
The new bakers watch her do it and learn it as the normal way. On-the-job training passes on the trainer's bad habits along with the good ones.
So on-the-job training is cheap and close to the real work, and it can only teach what is already known inside the business. If nobody at Mill Lane knows something, nobody there can teach it.
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Three days at the catering college: The town's catering college runs a three-day course in bread-making and food hygiene, taught by specialist bakers, with a food-hygiene certificate at the end.
Away from Mill Lane: Lena books both new bakers on it. For three days they are not at Mill Lane at all.
This is off-the-job training: training away from the normal place of work, usually given by an outside provider. It can be a short course, a seminar, a university or college class, or a practice kitchen where trainees repeat tasks they will later do in the job.
| What Lena gains | What it costs her | |
|---|---|---|
| Who teaches | Specialist bakers who know methods nobody at Mill Lane knows | A method taught for a college kitchen may not suit Lena's ovens or recipes |
| Money | A certificate that shows customers and the council the bakery is safe | Course fees of $450 a baker, plus three days of wages with no bread from them |
| The work | Trainees can make mistakes on practice dough, not on tomorrow's bread | Three days with two fewer bakers on the night shift |
| Focus | Away from the ovens and the vans, they can concentrate on learning | What they learn has to be carried back and fitted into the real job |
A certificate goes wherever the baker goes: Lena has paid for two bakers to earn a certificate that any bakery will value, including Goldcrust plc and its 400 bakeries.
Off-the-job training can make staff more attractive to other employers. The skills belong to the baker, not to the bakery.
So off-the-job training brings in knowledge the business does not have, at a price in money and in lost work. On-the-job training uses the knowledge the business already has, cheaply, and passes on its habits with it.
Lena's new bakers get all three types in their first fortnight. Many businesses mix them like this.
Their first fortnight
- Two nights of induction
- Three days at the college
- Then on-the-job training beside Priti
To tell them apart, ask two questions: is the employee new, and where does the learning happen?
Induction
- Who: new employees only
- When: as they start the job
- What: the workplace, the rules, the people, the job and the business's culture
- At Lena's: the two-night tour, hygiene rules and meeting Priti
On-the-job
- Who: any employee, new or experienced
- Where: at the normal place of work, in working hours
- How: shadowing, coaching, mentoring by an experienced colleague
- At Lena's: shaping loaves at the Mill Lane ovens beside Priti
Off-the-job
- Who: any employee, new or experienced
- Where: away from the normal place of work
- How: courses, seminars, college classes, usually by an outside provider
- At Lena's: the three-day course at the catering college
| What happens | Type of training | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A new counter assistant's first morning: the till, the fire exits, the staff room | Induction | She is new, and she is learning the workplace and its rules |
| A new steam oven arrives; its maker's engineer shows Priti how to use it at Mill Lane during her shift | On-the-job | At the normal place of work, in working hours. Priti is not new, so it is not induction |
| Marco spends two days at a business school learning to plan the delivery routes | Off-the-job | Away from the workplace, taught by an outside provider |
| A new baker shapes his first 50 loaves at the Mill Lane ovens with Priti correcting him | On-the-job | He is learning the job while doing it, at the normal place of work |
Two questions decide it: Where does the learning happen? At the normal place of work, while doing the job: on-the-job. Away from it, usually with an outside provider: off-the-job.
Is the employee new? Training that welcomes a new starter and shows them the workplace, the rules and the job is induction.
The right choice depends on what needs learning. Skills that already exist in the business, like shaping Lena's loaves, suit on-the-job training. Knowledge the business does not have, like a food-hygiene certificate, needs off-the-job training. And every new employee needs an induction first.
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How this comes up: A case describes how a business trains its staff, and the question asks you to describe the two types of training it uses, for four marks.
Short questions: Short questions ask you to describe one feature of induction training, or of off-the-job training, for two marks, or to define induction training.
The four-mark pattern
- Name the first type with its proper term. On-the-job training, not 'training at work'.
- Say what it is, with the case. Training at the normal place of work while doing the job: the new bakers spend two nights at Mill Lane working beside the head baker.
- Name the second type with its proper term. Off-the-job training.
- Say what it is, with the case. Training away from the normal place of work, by an outside provider: three days on a course at the town's catering college.
Trap: no term, half the marks: 'They learn at the bakery and then go to college' describes both types and names neither. Each type needs its proper name as well as its description.
Trap: calling it all induction: The bakers are new, but the question asks for the two types the case describes. Where the learning happens decides it: at the workplace or away from it.
Describe the two types of training used by Lena's Bakery Ltd.
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