Training Foremen — the Lucas Way

Abstract

The state of foreman training in general. To train supervisors at all, on the present scale, is an innovation in this country: it is a development which has taken place within the last fifteen years. In these circumstances there is little wonder that ideas have changed over this period, but what is surprising is that, independently, several firms and organisations have followed the same sequence of development. Immediately after the war the accepted practice was for a firm to avail itself of the courses offered by local education authority institutions: short full‐time courses in the residential adult education colleges and part‐time evening classes in technical colleges. Although these are still popular, attention was soon redirected from the external course to the internal course given by the firm‐usually a large firm — exclusively for its own foremen on its own premises. The effect of this change was to re‐orientate the subject matter from general principles to the specific problems of the particular firm. This was a splendid move; foremen are essentially doers, pragmatists concerned foremost with actual day‐to‐day problems. The new trend, which has become discernible over the last two or three years, is a logical development beyond this stage. A fictitious ‘model’ of a company, bearing a very close resemblance to the actual firm arranging the course, is created — on paper or within the confines of the lecture room. Fictitious, though important and relevant, problem situations are carefully selected and built into this model, and the training exercise is to resolve the problems. Such lectures and direct instruction as are given relate directly to the problems before the group: they set out the background knowledge essential to an understanding of the various issues. In this way foremen can ‘have a go’ without being haunted by the awful thought that they may ruin the company in the process. This article is about this type of supervisory training and the way it is organised and carried out by Joseph Lucas Limited.

Citation

Wellens, J. (1960), "Training Foremen — the Lucas Way", Education + Training, Vol. 2 No. 12, pp. 10-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014905