Structured on-the-job training (S-OJT), introduced in the late 1980s, aimed to harness the skills and knowledge of an experienced employee in training new hires in the actual work setting, rather than in a classroom away from the workplace. Now, some 40 years later, digital technology steps up to deliver S-OJT’s 21st -century incarnation, SiTUATE.
S-OJT features having an experienced employee train a novice employee on a unit of work in the actual work setting.
This article introduces SiTUATE, the digital version of structured on-the-job training (S-OJT), and presents two illustrative case studies on how it will be used. Readers may be aware of my founding role in introducing S-OJT nearly forty years ago, as part of a research and development project when serving as a professor at the Ohio State University. Since that time, S-OJT has become one of the most frequently used training approaches in organisations. In one respect, the article shares my own personal journey to develop SiTUATE as a necessary next manifestation of S-OJT, which may interest readers curious about advances in training and human resource development. In a broader sense, the article highlights the maxim that innovative thinking for the good often comes from dark and challenging times. Managers would be well advised to keep this fundamental principle in mind as they address today’s most challenging issues.
Crisis situations are known paradoxically for also being fertile grounds for innovative thinking, often yielding positive societal benefits alongside tragic human events. For instance, historians often refer to the numerous technologies that emerged from the Second World War, an event of disastrous proportions, but that also resulted in immense societal benefits afterwards. For instance, the Training Within Industry (TWI) project from the US government, established in 1941 within the War Manpower Commission, is often cited as a critical factor for enabling domestic production plants to respond quickly to the
