How We Work

We help you bullet-proof your operator training. Working with North Pacific is like hiring a training consultant and a subject matter expert at the same time.

Imagine the time you'll save and the headaches you'll avoid by working with experienced course developers and instructional designers. Here's what you can expect when you work with North Pacific Associates:

Expect relief. Yes, expect relief when you find that you are working with someone who has training skills you can trust; someone who will work with your own people to create a defensible, results-based training system. Think how well that reflects on your mine and sets you apart from your competitors. Think how well you can demonstrate due diligence in training should the need ever arise. You are freed from worry because you are confident you’ve taken every reasonable step to ensure your operators have received thorough, consistent, task-based training.
Expect your training to resonate with your trainees and your trainers. Once your training system is free of inconsistencies, dangerous technical errors and content gaps, your trainers can focus on what the learners need to know and do to succeed on the job, not on weaknesses in the training materials and content.

Trainees and trainers alike respond positively to a clearly defined, well laid-out program that facilitates quick and optimal learning. As your training approach is communicated error-free, clearly, and consistently throughout your training system, your training department's image and track record will become credible and respected.
Expect more enthusiasm from trainees. Trainees who have confidence in your trainers and training system are more willing to learn. They take you more seriously because you train in ways that are comfortable and conducive to learning for the trainee. Learning results come with less confusion, struggle and effort.
Expect to gain a growing knowledge and understanding of how trainees think, and of their expectations in their job. Good training is one of the key tools you have at your disposal to help retain employees. The better your trainers understand how optimal learning occurs, and the better your training system is at enabling them to use methods that encourage optimal learning, the more successful and the more defensible your training will become.
Expect us to complement and support, not replace, your in-house training department. If you have in-house trainers, we help strengthen their skills. Once your trainers see and have an opportunity to work within a competency-based training framework, their training skills leap rapidly ahead.
Expect trainers and trainees, as well as training auditors and anyone else who cares, to be happier with your training system and materials. Poorly-conceived training manuals and systems frustrate everyone who needs to rely on them. If your trainers can't use the system successfully because they can't figure out how to implement it, or there are gaps in the training process, they will soon stop using the system and spread the word that it doesn't work. You lose enthusiasm, consistency of results, and knowledge and skills.

A system that includes well thought-out materials and processes thrills users because you are supporting and helping them. How many of your mining competitors are doing that? Typically, very few. Your mine gains positive responses from your trainees, your trainers and training department, and ultimately from your customers because the quality of service and rate of production goes up.

Our Approach: Collaboration, Communication, and Confidentiality

Our approach to our business and working with your company is one that we have developed from 30 years of experience working with hundreds of client organizations.

Here are the methods and procedures we have found to be the fastest, most harmonious and ultimately the most effective:

We set up a consistent, single point of contact. Once you decide to engage our services, we assign a project manager to coordinate all projects we do for you. Even if there is more than one person working on your project, you always know who to talk to if you have questions, concerns or suggestions.
We welcome and encourage collaborative working relationships. Having a single contact person also makes it easier to develop a long-term collaborative business relationship. We value this type of relationship because we have found over the years that the most successful projects--large and small--are the ones where we work with the client as a partner; where both companies discuss, suggest and work together. It’s important that we get to know you and your organization because that enables us to assist you more effectively. We also invite you to learn how we work, so that we better understand each other's goals, work methods, corporate motivations and expectations.
We respect your need for confidentiality and privacy, both corporately and individually. We recognize that some of the work you may ask us to do may be confidential or sensitive in nature. We never discuss sensitive projects outside of our company, and if you request it, we destroy all hard and electronic copies once the project is completed.
We give you an easy-to-use process. We have a checklist of the steps we go through on every project. Since each project is a little different, we modify it--with your input--to suit your specific needs. We give you a copy so that at any time we can show you where we are in the process. We also use a chart that clearly lays out the roles and responsibilities of all team members. Whether your project is large or small, we use the same systematic approach.
We guarantee our work. We guarantee that your trainers and your customers will be able to implement the training system we build for you if they follow our direction. If after reviewing our work you feel it does not meet your expectations, we will review and revise the materials in accordance with your requirements. There is no risk to you.
We bring in subject matter experts when required to handle technically complex content. If you do not have the necessary technical expertise or experience on site, we have access to experienced subject matter experts and mobile and plant equipment operator trainers through our strategic partner, RW Consulting and Training Services Ltd. of Sparwood, British Columbia.
We want your trainers to feel comfortable dealing with us. We work alongside your trainers and training department, guiding you through the complexities of developing and implementing competency-based courses.

Learner-Centered vs. Instructor-Centered: The Difference

The only reason for training someone is to enable them to learn. Learning means change and transformation. Thus as trainers, we are striving to transform our learners into more skilled individuals in ways that are beneficial for both them and the company.

Imagine you are an experienced haul truck operator who has been asked to conduct a training program for a number of young employees who have been hired to become equipment operators. Your assignment is to teach them how to drive haul trucks. How will you prepare for this important event? Which of the two scenarios below describes the actions you would take?

Gather materials on haul trucks. Pour through documents and pull out key concepts and terms. Write a content outline with a flow that includes all the basic concepts. Study your material and even rehearse your delivery so you can look credible and answer any questions the trainees ask. Put together information on what the trucks are designed to do and how they operate. Verify that all of your content is accurate and up to date.

Collect information on the haul truck operator job. Get information on the background of the new employees and their experience operating heavy equipment. Discover problems that new haul truck drivers encounter. Gather a list of the mine’s expectations of these newly-hired drivers. Create realistic, field-based scenarios and routines to help the trainees become competent at doing the job. Create a list of benefits to them and the mine when they drive their haul trucks competently and efficiently.

People tasked with this activity typically prepare in a way similar to that shown in the first scenario, meaning they focus on the content.

The second scenario is more effective, however, because it focuses on the learners. It enables the trainer to identify and address the learners’ needs, concerns, desires, fears, experiences, frustrations and characteristics.

The first scenario emphasizes the instructor. It results in lots of talking by the trainer and not much action on the part of the learners. It also results in the transmission of information. However, it is not the mission of a trainer to transmit information, but to enable people to learn and thus change their behaviour through increasing or adding to their skills.

Why Being Performance-Based Is Key to Training

In addition to being learner-centered, effective training must be performance-based. Most courses have lots of content and big manuals bursting with information. The thinking seems to be that somehow more is better. And yet the trainers in these courses almost always say at some point, “We don’t have time to cover that here.” Do they really need all that information? Or do they just need to be able to do their job correctly?

Knowing everything there is to know about the job is a nice thought, but the priority is that learners are able to perform, not just have a lot of knowledge about the job. The first approach described above results in a content-based course while the second results in performance-based training. It leads to learners able to perform and achieve measurable, observable results.

Thus training courses for operators need to be learner-centered and performance-based. Remember that courses that are instructor-centered and content-based lead only to telling and information transmission. Learner-centered and performance-based courses result in learning and skill development.

North Pacific’s approach is always learner-centered and performance-based. We start with the learner and keep that focus. Our course design is based on learning research to ensure our training facilitates effective learning that show up on the job with positive results.

Back to Top

Engagement: What happens once you engage our service?

When you choose our defensible training system development service, we assign a development team to your project. Our team works in conjunction with your people. We follow a step by step procedure that systematically determines where your training is currently at, and what resources are available (people, existing documentation, etc.)

We use the DACUM approach to occupational analysis. It establishes our starting point for the development of your entire training system. DACUM (acronym for Designing A Curriculum) is a process that has been used by course developers to create competency-based training for over 30 years. It identifies the knowledge and skills that have been mastered by an individual who is competent in a targeted job; achievement of the same knowledge and skills becomes the curriculum for training another to become equally competent.

Using the DACUM chart as our guide, we systematically and objectively collect job and task-relevant content. Our team interviews and observes master performers or subject matter experts, and consults equipment manufacturer manuals and industry safety guides.

We take photographs of your equipment in your environment, minimizing the need for time-consuming, costly graphics and illustrations. The quality of digital photos and word processing programs today enable the use of real-application photos in your training materials. We use photos wherever possible, but also create illustrations when it’s the best way to communicate a concept.

Once the data is collected, technical writers assemble the material using a format we have developed and refined over the past twenty years. We use one format designed specifically for equipment operators, and another for plant operators; both are based on instructional design theory and experience.

The subject matter expert conducts a technical review once the first draft is completed. Revisions are made and the material is turned over to the client for a pilot to ensure the instructional parts of the system are all working as they should. Any required changes are made and the system materials are turned over to you for general course delivery.

At each stage in the development process, especially in more complicated projects, we send you our work for review, comments and approval. We welcome your input at any time during the process.

Back to Top

Our Guarantee

Our operator training system contains all the components required to demonstrate that you have taken every reasonable step to ensure your operators are well trained.

We guarantee that your trainers and your customers will be able to implement the training system we build for you if they follow our direction. If after reviewing our work you feel it does not meet your expectations, we will review and revise the materials in accordance with your requirements. There is no risk to you.

What’s your next move?

Email us with your contact information. We’ll call to discuss your current situation. If you wish, we’ll include our free, no-obligation, 30 minute over-the-phone Training Audit and give you a few good ideas you can implement immediately.

Click here to learn more about our Operator Training System.

Back to Top