A case study in forecasting the financial benefits of unstructured and structured on‐the‐job training

This case study sought to compare the forecasted financial benefits of unstructured and structured forms of on‐the‐job training (OJT). It contributes to the limited empirical literature on OJT and expands the reported use of the financial benefits forecasting model. The study was conducted in three task settings within a large truck‐assembly plant; each task setting differed in task difficulty and turnover rate. The results showed that structured OJT was forecasted to provide approximately twice the financial benefits and five times the efficiency compared to unstructured OJT across all three task settings. In general, turnover rate more than task difficulty affected the size of the benefits. It was concluded that structured OJT should be the preferred training option over unstructured OJT when considering financial benefits alone.