ABSTRACT
The objective of Job Relations Training (JRT) is to build strong, positive personal relationships among all members of an organization in order to prevent any personnel situations from interfering with production. If such detrimental personnel situations do occur, however, a secondary objective is to identify and correct them as soon as possible using a standard method. Thus, the main objective of JRT is to prevent personnel problems from interfering with production. No one is naïve enough to believe that any organization, no matter the size, will never have a personnel problem, so the secondary objective is to solve it as soon as possible using a standard four-step method. Each supervisor is to use a list of basic personnel foundations, which are stated as principles, to prevent problems from occurring. There is no standard method for using these principles. Each supervisor should keep them in mind and use them as each situation warrants. In the 10-hour training program,
whatever foundations are used in a particular case study will be discussed, and any not used for a given case study will not be discussed. The four-step method, however, will be used and discussed for each case study during the week. The four-step method has a tendency to overshadow the foundations when delivering the JRT program. A mistake often made in delivering the JRT is to focus on problem-solving instead of problem prevention. This happens because while there is a standard four-step plan for problem solving, there is no standard plan for problem prevention. Therefore the emphasis in the 10-hour program should be on the foundations for problem prevention rather than on the four-step method for problem-solving. Both are important, but the Service emphasizes, “a campfire is easier to extinguish than a forest fire.”
