OJT · On-the-Job Training
On-the-Job Training
What is OJT?
- Training while working on the job
- Learning transfers to results immediately
- Risk of “neglect” without goals and feedback
Adopting OJT means accountability for training moves from HR to line managers. Classroom training runs once a date and an instructor are set, but OJT is a structure in which team leads and seniors carve teaching out of their own working hours, so it collapses in the first month unless coaching time counts as work. That is why half of OJT design is not “what to teach” but the answer to where the coach’s time will come from.
On the job, OJT usually takes one of three forms: shadowing, where a newcomer follows a senior colleague; staged delegation, where duties are broken into pieces and handed over in order; and job rotation, moving between departments every 3–6 months. TWI’s Job Instruction (JI) lays out the delegation type in four steps — prepare, present, try out, follow up — and it remains a standard on manufacturing floors. The line between OJT and Off-JT is surprisingly simple: judgment criteria and principles are covered in the classroom; procedures that must become second nature are covered on the job. One coach can realistically handle two trainees at a time; beyond that, there is no room left to answer questions.
OJT that works has a few things in common: a list of 15–20 tasks the trainee must be able to do alone within a set period, three boxes per task marking “watched – did together – did alone,” and a fixed 20-minute weekly check-in. The moment check-ins slip to every other week, the progress sheet turns into paperwork filled in at month-end. Even the 70 in 70-20-10 doesn’t build up on its own: experience becomes competence only when documentation and reflection come with it.
The most common misconception is that “putting someone on the floor is OJT.” With no checklist and no deadline, a new hire spends three months helping with odd jobs, and at review time the team lead can only say, “It’s too early to leave this to them alone.” The costlier price is scattered standards. Every senior colleague teaches differently, so three or four versions of the same task emerge, and even a former colleague’s bad habits get passed down. If teaching time isn’t reflected in evaluations, seniors back off with “my own work is already piling up,” and new hires read that neglect as the company not caring, then respond by leaving early.
Kyungtae KimHR expert · Organizational culture and HR strategy consultant
John KimAuthor of B2B Marketing Design and CEO of Nanum ConsultingA long-standing method in industrial training, established alongside systematic job training such as TWI.
Let’s look at a hypothetical case: Company A, a tier-2 auto parts supplier with 140 employees. Over the past two years, 4 of the 7 new hires in the production engineering team left within six months, and most exit interviews said, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn or by when.” Line supervisors, meanwhile, pushed back: “It’s hard enough keeping the line running. When are we supposed to teach?”
- A production engineering team lead kept 5 foremen in a conference room for two hours to list what a new hire should be able to do alone within 6 months. It came to 18 items, and for 9 of them, each foreman taught in a different order.
- The 9 items with conflicting sequences were standardized on the method of Foreman Kim, who has 18 years of experience, and a one-page A4 progress sheet with three boxes per item — “demo – accompanied – solo” — was posted beside the new hires’ workstations.
- Foremen were told to log 30 minutes right after the morning briefing, twice a week, as coaching time in the attendance system. When the plant manager said at the briefing, "The 30 minutes you spend teaching is work, full stop," the foremen’s attitude changed.
- At the week-8 check, when 2 new hires couldn’t move equipment setup into the solo column, the team lead dug through the progress sheet, found three items stuck at “accompanied” for two months, and replaced the foreman in charge.
- Six months later, all 4 new hires had moved 16 of the 18 items to solo level, no one had left within their first year, and equipment-setup rework fell from 11 cases a month to 3.