The first article in this series covered the onboarding process and basic new employee training. This article delves into the potential for digital training as well as key communication strategies to keep your effort fresh, relevant and engaging.
One-Time Events Versus Ongoing Micro-Training
Hub International is one insurance provider that offers such safety expertise. Emily Lubman, director of risk management at HUB International, provides onsite client support to clients, including wood products companies.
Lubman believes training should be an ongoing process rather than a single event. Shorter “bite-sized” sessions are better. The best way to deliver bite-sized training is through brief, focused sessions, such as 5-10 minute talks at shift start or on-the-job demonstrations, where employees receive direct, hands-on examples relevant to their daily tasks. Visual aids, quick-reference materials, and reinforcing critical messages throughout shifts can further enhance the impact of bite-sized learning. This approach keeps employees engaged and ensures they retain important information without feeling overwhelmed.
Ron Young, the owner of Kaukauna, Wisconsin-based RB Pallet Service, said that his company embraces this approach through its weekly and monthly safety and training meetings.
Taking It to the Cloud
When pallet businesses are smaller, keeping all training records in a binder or file cabinet can still be practical. However, as companies expand, it makes sense to move that data to the cloud.
Brad Cutcher, COO of PLA, a large pallet recycler and management company, noted, “The biggest change I’ve seen over my career is going from that paper manual at the local level to having it in the cloud and having immediate visibility on compliance and where trends are going.” The PLA system was developed at the corporate level to support compliance activities at the site level. For example, a site supervisor will receive a ping at the start of the shift outlining who needs to be trained.
“Every day you come in, and you will receive an alert about the five things you need to do,” Cutcher painted a scenario. “Forklift driver #1 needs recertification, and so on. So it makes the implementation of the program much, much easier.”
Digital Programs
On-demand digital training can be a godsend for trainers with never-ending new hire onboarding duties. It is handy for basic, generic training such as lockout/tagout, ergonomics and personal protective equipment, freeing trainers from repeatedly going through the same script.
Digital training is also becoming increasingly customized to meet business needs more holistically. To learn more, we contacted DeepHow, a digital AI training program provider. The company told us that traditional training approaches—classroom instruction, on-the-job observation, and written SOPs—have inherent limitations.
DeepHow offers an AI-driven digital training solution designed to capture and share expert knowledge through accessible, on-demand videos, making it ideal for industries like wood pallet manufacturing. Traditional training methods can lower engagement and retention, especially as workers may forget essential information, repeat errors, and require ongoing supervision. DeepHow told us that its platform addresses these gaps by capturing tribal knowledge in its video-based training, ensuring that critical expertise is retained even as seasoned employees retire.
With real-time analytics, multilingual support, and mobile device accessibility for employees, DeepHow empowers workers to review procedures independently, boosting confidence and reducing the need for constant oversight. For companies hiring 20 or more employees annually, DeepHow reported that it typically delivers an impressive ROI by cutting onboarding time by up to 80%.
However, one thing to remember with digital training, as with classroom training, is ensuring that workers follow it, which brings the conversation back to the importance of supervisory oversight. While online and digital training programs continue to gain traction, Lubman cautioned against over-reliance on them. A balanced approach works best.
“Third-party, on-demand training can be a great tool for foundational topics like lockout/tagout,” she said, but it should not replace hands-on, one-on-one training where employees can ask questions and receive real-time feedback. Lubman advised that supervisors should supplement digital modules with practical evaluations to ensure employees understand how to apply the concepts in real-world settings.
Other Ideas
Here are some other training ideas to consider.
Keep it fresh: Don’t use the same training modules year after year. “If you’ve been using the same training for 20 years,” Lubman quipped, “it’s time to invest in something new.” She suggests contacting insurance companies or other industry partners who often have fresh, customizable training templates. Bringing in new materials, videos, and real-world examples keeps employees engaged and prevents training from becoming monotonous. The Pallet Enterprise website offers a wide variety of free content that can be used as resources for training and onboarding. If you want to learn how to work with our staff to develop custom resources using our content, please email chaille@ireporting.com.
Keep it fun and interactive: By choosing the right activities and games, you can make training more engaging. Rather than relying on quizzes employees may have memorized, Lubman recommends incorporating interactive elements such as open-ended questions, problem-solving exercises, or game-style formats like Jeopardy. “We like winning just as much as kids do,” she added, suggesting that competitive elements, such as rewards, can make training more enjoyable and memorable.
Upskill and cross-train: A focus on training as an ongoing process helps employees become more valuable and engaged. It can also help deepen your potential frontline leadership pool. Upskilling focuses on helping employees develop more advanced skills in their current role, often in response to technological changes or industry demands, to increase expertise and productivity. Cross-training, on the other hand, involves training employees in different tasks or roles within the organization, enabling them to cover multiple functions as needed.
For Ron Young at RB Pallet Service, cross-training is indispensable. “We do a lot of cross-training,” he said. “For us, it’s one of the keys to success. When somebody doesn’t show up to work, you need people to be flexible. That is the biggest benefit of cross-training.”
Keep communicating: Jobs such as pallet repair can be complex, given the variability of pallets and their condition in the recycled pallet pool. Monitoring production and quality and providing prompt feedback are crucial to success. RB Pallet Service and PLA can trace finished pallets back to the repairer.
“We use employee-level identification for each pallet,” Cutcher shared. “We spot-check at the plant to be sure we’re within the tolerance range, and should a pallet be found to be out of spec, either internally or by our customers, we can target coaching because we know who repaired it.”
As we move into 2025 and the increasing likelihood of a slow economic recovery, businesses are challenged to find new opportunities and efficiencies. Whether taking advantage of insurance provider and machinery vendor resources, shifting training responsibility to supervisors, “bite-sized” learning, blending digital with hands-on training, or just keeping it fun and interactive, a fresh look at your training program is an excellent place to start.
Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a series on basic training best practices for pallet operations.