Professional versus Amateur

Written by:

TL Peters II, President & Founder

There is a question that I often ask my students. Can you tell me the difference between a Professional and an Amateur? I have a lot of fun with this question. One reason is, because of what I learn from their answers. “The professional has more experience.” “The professional has a higher skill level.” “An amateur isn’t as disciplined.” Every so often, a student will have the correct answer. The answer is a simple one. There is only one difference between a Professional and an Amateur. The one and only difference between a Professional and an Amateur is money. That’s right. A professional is compensated for what they do and an amateur does it for free. Now don’t mistake an amateur for a professional that does pro bono work.

So the simple truth is this. If you are compensated to do a job or perform an activity, then you are a professional. If you only do that job or perform that activity for free, because it is something you simply enjoy doing, then you are an amateur. At this point, as you read this, your blood pressure may be rising to a catastrophic level. Okay, maybe not that high, but you still may not be in agreement with what I just stated. Well, let me attempt to reduce your blood pressure. By definition, a professional is “engaged in by persons receiving financial return” (Merriam-Webster). So it by no means degrades your accomplishments when stating that a person is a professional, simply because they are being compensated. The only thing that I am referring to at this point is the status of a person’s position. Status or position is of no value to us. Knowing what their status is will not provide us with any assistance in eliminating injuries.

Now, since all of your employees are compensated for the work that they do, this means that everyone that is employed at your company is in fact, a professional. But as I just stated, status is of no importance to the objective that we are trying to accomplish and that is eliminating workplace injuries. What we must focus on and concern ourselves with is, Skill Level. Skill level is where the rubber meets the road. When an individual does not possess the level of skill that is required to correctly perform a specific job task, then that will be the weak link in the chain that will break and that is when a workplace injury will occur. Read my blog on training (Do You Really Know What Training Is?)

There are three levels of skill. There is the Novice, the Advanced and the Expert, and I am going to share with you how to recognize them and the results to expect.

 The Novice

Let’s begin with the Professional Novice. Every one of us have been, and believe it or not, still are functioning at this skill level within many of the job functions that we are required to perform. A novice has absolutely no idea as to what they are doing. This person is often required to perform a job function that they are not qualified to perform. One of the scary parts is, the novice knows that they are not qualified. But instead of saying something to someone and refusing to perform the job function until they have been properly trained, they will often attempt the job function anyway. Now, you and I both know that disaster doesn’t always occur when a novice attempts a job function that they are not qualified to attempt. But, you and I also know that when it does occur, it is often very expensive.

Think about the times when you worked for someone and they wanted you to perform some type of job function. One that you had never done before and you knew little or nothing about it. Maybe they told you that it was easy and you can figure it out or maybe they gave you very limited information and sent you on your way. Now you possibly knew that what you were about to attempt could turn out bad. The warning signals were going off in your head, but you either wanted to impress your boss or worse, you thought that if you didn’t do as told, you would lose your job. In either case you attempted the job function and you clearly did not know what you were doing. Maybe you are in that situation right now.

Have you ever been in a situation like that at work? Did something go wrong? Maybe you weren’t injured, or maybe something else happened. You broke a tool or a piece of equipment or maybe you damaged the very thing you were working on. In either case, you were about to be blamed for the problem and you were probably willing to accept the blame. The fact is, you shouldn’t have been there in that position in the first place. You didn’t have the skill level that was needed. Now I am about to tell you something that is really scary. The vast majority, the largest employee population that is out there, are Professional Novices. That’s right. Every company that I have ever worked with, these are the people that I find there.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that their employees are novices in all aspects of their jobs. I am not saying or implying that at all. What I am saying is, the condition that resulted in harm, in most cases was because of the novice factor that is related to the specific incident. So one of the main reasons that year after year, why nearly 3 million men and women are injured in the workplace is because professional novices are being required to perform a job function that they should never be attempting. This must be corrected and it must be corrected now.

 The Advanced

Next on the list is the Professional Advanced. Unlike the Professional Novice, the population of this group is much smaller. However, the skill level of this group is much higher and less likely to be harmed or to cause any other type of damage. The reason is, the professional advanced is going through the training process. They are under the guidance of an expert. (Do You Really Know What Training Is?)

Individuals that are proceeding through the training process – taking into consideration that training is being conducted properly - are developing the cognitive understanding and the physical capacity to correctly and consistently perform each required job task of the job function correctly. When a workplace injury occurs, it is often because the individual performed the required job task incorrectly and the reason they performed the job task incorrectly is because, in most cases, they did not know how to perform the job task the correct way in the first place, hence the Professional Novice as described earlier. Proper training is the process to remove that element. As long as the professional advanced performs only within the realm of their training, as guided by the expert, then the job task will continue to be performed correctly and a workplace injury will not occur, nor will there be any other expensive damage to your product/service, tools or equipment.

 The Expert

Finally there is the Professional Expert. The population of this group is very small and the probability of the professional expert experiencing a workplace injury is highly unlikely. Although not impossible, but much more unlikely. A professional expert can still experience a workplace injury, but it will not be because they did not know or have the ability to correctly perform the required job task. Professional experts normally experience a workplace injury for a completely different reason than a professional novice does. The professional expert is often injured because they made the wrong decision and that decision was either made consciously or subconsciously.

I will write more about the decision making process in future blogs and I will teach on the decision making process in future webinars. At this point however, what I want you to understand is, there are very few professional experts in the workplace today and because of that, employers will continue to experience, very expensive workplace injuries and all of the “safety” games and employee blaming arguments in the world will not solve the problem.

One of the most insane comments I hear, and I hear it a lot, is that employees have to be motivated to work safe. The thought that someone has to be “motivated” to work safe is 100% insanity. For one thing, there is no such thing as “working safe.” Working safe is a philosophy, it is not an action that you can perform. Eliminating workplace injuries can only be accomplished by doing every job task the correct way and that can only be accomplished through proper training and then only allowing the professional expert to perform the required job function.

 To Use An Expert or To Not Use An Expert? That Is The Question.

Employers are faced with this question every day and often times, they select the wrong answer. What I have found when having this discussion with employers is not that they do not want to hire experts. The truth is that many of them would actually prefer to hire experts instead of novices. Their concern is that they think that they cannot afford them. Then there are other employers that think they have hired an expert, when in fact they have only hired, at best, an advanced person that has not reached expert level yet, but the employer did not discover the mistake in time because their hiring process is flawed.

For the employer that thinks they cannot afford to hire an expert. The truth is, you cannot afford not to hire an expert. If the person that you hire is an actual expert, then the probability of expensive damage is drastically reduced. Let’s assume that to hire an expert to drive a forklift it would cost $20.00 per hour. For a 40 hour work week, you would pay them $800.00 a week and approximately $3,200.00 a month. This is not taking into account the months that will have five work weeks or overtime. On an annual basis, the amount paid could be $41,600.00. Keep in mind, this is assuming the expert will experience no workplace injuries and that they will not cause damage of any kind.

Now consider the novice or even the advanced that you just hired to drive your forklift and you are going to pay them $10.00 an hour. Half the cost of the expert. Based on simple math, this looks like a great deal. Now your cost will only be around $20,800.00 per year. Now you can have the same job done for half the price. Nothing wrong with that, right? Sounds like a good solid business decision to me. Or is it?

The first problem is, the probability that the advanced and especially the novice individual will cause some sort of damage to your operation is extremely high. If they cause damage to your product because they dropped it or ran a fork through it, now you have the cost of either repairing or replacing the product. So add that cost to the amount you are paying the advanced or novice forklift driver and keep adding the cost for every time they damage your product throughout the year and I promise you it will happen many times. Or they do something wrong that damages the very forklift that they are operating. Now you have the cost of the repairs. Keep in mind, this still does not include the injury or injuries that will occur. Your $20,800.00 a year forklift driver now has probably cost you around $50,000.00, $80,000.00 or more for the year. Even the cost to properly train a novice or an advanced person, is far less than the cost of all of the damage that will be caused instead. So how does the decision to not hire an expert look now?

Now, I am not saying that an expert will not also cause some sort of damage while operating your forklift. What I am saying is, any damage that might be caused by the expert will not be because they do not know how to properly perform each required job task. It will be because they made a wrong decision and the ability to correct wrong decisions are much easier and less costly. If someone does not know how to perform the job task correctly however and proper training is not provided to fix the problem, then it will be much more difficult and it will take much longer and it will be more costly to correct the problem.

One final point. If you decide to hire a novice or even an advanced person, instead of an expert, you can still make it a good business decision, but it will require you to properly train the individual so that they can reach the expert level. (Do You Really Know What Training Is?)

If you would like to continue to learn more about how you can actually eliminate workplace injuries, please subscribe so that you do not miss out on any of the extremely valuable lessons, teaching you how you can be successful in the People Business and join me on the wonderful journey to do what no one has ever done before, Eliminate Workplace Injuries. And let’s work together to make sure that every working man and woman returns home to their families unharmed. So until next time, keep learning and never give up.