Teaching new employees the nuances of operating an embroidery machine starts with hiring the right candidate for the job.

The embroidery machines we use today to provide our livelihoods are sophisticated, state-of-the-art, computerized machines. Despite all this sophistication, the sewing part of the machines is still a manual process. Although the machines are capable of creating and rendering three-dimensional looking embellishments, the garments still have to be manually prepared for sewing by unpackaging the goods, hooping them, unloading and loading the machine, and then manually finishing and repackaging the completed work. This requires a properly chosen and trained individual to achieve the best results in both quality and productivity.

Teaching new employees the nuances of operating an embroidery machine starts with hiring the right candidate for the job.

The embroidery machines we use today to provide our livelihoods are sophisticated, state-of-the-art, computerized machines. Despite all this sophistication, the sewing part of the machines is still a manual process. Although the machines are capable of creating and rendering three-dimensional looking embellishments, the garments still have to be manually prepared for sewing by unpackaging the goods, hooping them, unloading and loading the machine, and then manually finishing and repackaging the completed work. This requires a properly chosen and trained individual to achieve the best results in both quality and productivity.

In any business, employees are not only one of your largest expenses, but also one of your most valued assets. Considering direct labor costs — FICA, unemployment, workman’s compensation, paid holidays, vacations and insurance co-pays — your employees are often a double-digit percentage of your total operating expenses. As an asset, employees develop experience that enables them to perform their jobs and generate revenue for the company. When you lose employees, it’s a burden to find a suitable replacement and a challenge to avoid losing revenue while a new hire learns the trade.

One way to get the best return on investment when hiring a new employee is to provide comprehensive training. Highly skilled operators rarely evolve by themselves. When they do, it often takes many years of properly reinforced experience to achieve that capacity. Some business owners think an alternative to training is hiring experienced people away from another shop. If you are seriously contemplating this option by offering merely a wage enticement, consider two important factors:

• If that individual has no allegiance to her former employer, she is less likely to be loyal to you.
• That person’s skills may be nothing more than an assortment of bad habits. Don’t confuse tenure for skill level.
• Let’s first explore the selection process and then digress into the training function.

KNOW WHOM TO CHOOSE

All people are not the same when it comes to work. We all have something imprinted in our DNA known as temperament, which manifests itself in our behavior as things we enjoy or don’t enjoy doing. For example, some people may think that collecting garbage might be a bad job. Municipal trustees often set pay scales that are disproportionately high compared to the pay rate for firefighters or police officers because they may believe that they have to offer extra money to get someone to take that job. However, there are people who enjoy that line of work because of the satisfaction they get from keeping the community clean and safe. Pay scale for any position should be based on the work involved in the job, not on an erroneous evaluation of the job by someone with the wrong temperament for it.

When it comes to choosing an embroidery operator, search for a candidate with the proper temperament for that type of work. Ideal candidates should enjoy working with their hands in a multitasking environment. The challenges found in an embroidery operation fit well with a creative person who has good dexterity when it comes to decorating methods.

The computerized nature of the machine controller necessitates a comfort level with simple computer operations and functions. The task will involve filling orders by embellishing wearable products with pre-programmed, numerically controlled designs. This order fulfillment process will include machine operation, hooping goods, removing backings, and folding and packaging completed orders.

To a managerial type of person, this work may appear repetitious and boring. To someone who has worked only as a simple laborer, the same tasks may seem challenging and complex.

To the right person, the job is perfect. When companies choose a job candidate, they should always match that person’s temperament with the job requirements rather than just filling jobs with warm bodies. This rule will not only secure happier employees, but also reduce some unnecessary turnover. Employees are motivated and productive when they have high job satisfaction. The effort spent making this match of person to the job is an investment in not only the longevity of your shop’s workforce, but its productivity as well.

HOW DO THEY LEARN?

Before we look at the teaching side of training, let’s examine the learning side. Just as we are all programmed with a particular work temperament, we also have unique learning temperaments. They can be broken down into three categories: verbal, visual and tactile.

Each one of us is a unique blend of these categories. A verbal learner gains information from listening to instructions. This type of learner does well with language cassettes and self-help cassettes. A visual learner does well with pictures, diagrams, videos and live demonstrations. A tactile learner does well with touching items and mimicking demonstrated manual skills. While some people may be strong in one of these particular temperaments, many people are a blend, exhibiting various percentages of each of the three learning temperaments.

To be a good teacher, you must be sensitive to the learning temperament of the candidate and then configure the instruction around that temperament. For fulltime teachers, that becomes an instinctive part of the process. Trying to teach without adjusting to a new hire’s temperament would be like trying to teach in a foreign language and expecting students to comprehend the material. The burden of conveying the information lies with the teacher, who must make the training material palatable for the recipient and not expect the new hire to adapt to the method the teacher prefers to use.

TRAIN AT THE RIGHT PACE

Once you have identified the learning temperament of the recipient, you can proceed with the material. Start with an outline, progressing from simple, fundamental tasks to complex and advanced tasks. Don’t assume anything. Show the employee how to properly hold the pair of scissors and the garment that is being trimmed. Make sure to structure the training over a reasonable period of time. Embroidery machine operators usually take about 30 to 90 days to become very proficient at their jobs. By rushing the candidate’s progress, you may lose him along the way or develop frustrations that are manifested in other adverse behavior.

Start operator training with simple tasks such as trimming backing materials, finding and removing loose threads, and packaging finished products. As new hires become comfortable with those skills, add tasks such as loading and unloading frames from the machine. Next, you can cover bobbin skills such as removing and replacing cases, and cleaning and loading cases with fresh bobbins. After that, teach proper techniques for using hooping aids and backing materials to achieve properly aligned work.

Once candidates have demonstrated a satisfactory knowledge of the preceding skills, they are ready to get involved in operating the embroidery machine itself. Since any brand of embroidery machine includes numerous features, these tasks also should be sorted by degree of difficulty and digested in steps. After an orientation of the controller screens and buttons, teach your new machine operator how to load a design, program color changes, orient a design, set a start point, trace a design, and use the start and stop buttons. Once she has mastered these functions, you can add memory management and machine parameters.

Teach thread tensioning skills simultaneously with machine and controller training. Tensioning can be taught by touch and feel, but using affordably priced tension gauges adds a tangible dimension to an otherwise intuitive process. Even if the operator soon weans away from using the gauge, you can use it with future trainees or to troubleshoot difficult material applications.

One of the best ways to maintain stability in your production area is by crosstraining everyone in the shop to perform any and all of the tasks involved in the process. When someone is absent, simple reassignment of tasks will keep production on schedule. When adding new hires, the simpler tasks can be used for training, while the advanced tasks can be juggled among the experienced personnel until the new trainees are brought up to speed.

Most shops have good personnel. Their success and productivity will be determined by the employees' comfort level in their work and, ultimately, their job satisfaction. And job satisfaction stays high when management provides opportunity and ability. Opportunity is reflected in properly serviced machines and adequate work orders. Ability is reflected when a job is properly matched to a new employee’s temperament, as well as the degree of appropriate training provided by the management staff.