There is no single answer: it depends on how the shadowing is designed — and it is rarely designed explicitly.
\nOn-the-job training is the process through which a person acquires, directly on the job, the operational skills needed to perform a specific role independently.
\nIt differs from professional development, which builds broader skills that are transferable beyond the single role.
\nIn 2020, about 70% of Italian companies with at least 10 employees provided training for their staff [1]: what happens within that scope, however, is often left to each department's improvisation.
\nThe following sections describe a method for designing, delivering and checking on-the-job training without stopping production.
\n\n\nOn-the-job training is not the phase that comes before work: it is a production process in its own right, and as such it is designed, carried out and measured — with a scope, phases and a final check.
\n
Is a mandatory safety course on-the-job training or professional development?
\nThe distinction is not academic: it changes who delivers it, where it happens and how its results are measured.
\nThe Italian word for this kind of training, addestrare, literally means making someone dexterous, that is, skilled at a specific action [5].
\nProfessional development broadens a person's skills; on-the-job training makes them autonomous in a specific role, directly in the workplace.
\nConfusing the two leads you to delegate to the classroom what the classroom cannot provide: operational mastery of the machines, procedures and tools of a specific department.
\nThe boundary extends to two other terms that are often confused in growing companies.
\nOnboarding is the overall integration into the organization — relationships, unwritten rules, culture — of which on-the-job training is only the technical and operational component.
\nShadowing, in turn, is one of the methods through which on-the-job training is delivered, not a synonym for it: you can also train with a written procedure or a guided simulation.
\nA well-written onboarding plan can therefore leave uncovered the actual training part, the one that makes a person autonomous on a machine or a department procedure.
\nIf almost one role in two is hard to find on the market, how valuable is it to be able to build it internally?
\nIn 2025, 47.0% of the hires planned by Italian companies were reported as hard to fill [2]: when a skill cannot be bought, only one alternative remains — producing it.
\nHiring difficulty is highest in metallurgy and metal products (64.2%) and in construction (62.7%), and it rises as company size decreases: 51.2% for companies with fewer than ten employees and 49.8% in the 10-49 bracket, compared with 36.2% for companies with at least 500 employees [2].
\nThe scope of training is not improvised: it is derived from the job description, which lists the activities and responsibilities of each role.
\nComparing what the role requires with what the person can already do produces the list of skills to transfer, which can be ranked by criticality.
\nA company with up-to-date job descriptions already has, without knowing it, the training program for every position.
\nThe starting point is described in the guide to job descriptions (https://blog.prodability.com/mansionario-role-description/).
\nFor a business owner who splits time between the desk and the shop floor, turning the job description into a training matrix is straightforward: rows for activities, columns for people, cells for status, as in the example:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n| Activity (from the job description) | Person A | Person B | Person C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating the production line machine | Autonomous | In training | Not started |
| Outgoing quality control | Autonomous | Autonomous | Not started |
| Managing supplier orders | In training | Not started | Not started |
| First-level routine maintenance | Not started | In training | Not started |
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\nThe matrix, updated at every step, shows where to focus training in the following weeks.
\nIs it enough to put the new hire next to your best colleague for them to learn?
\nA field experiment published in 2012 indicates that structured training is associated with an increase of about 10% in individual performance, with positive effects on untrained co-workers as well [3].
\nShadowing works when it stops being mere coexistence and becomes a sequence: preparing the task, demonstrating it while explaining the critical steps, having the person perform it under observation, checking and correcting.
\nThink of the owner of a small manufacturing company bringing a new operator into a department: without phases, the outcome depends on chance and on the trainer's patience.
\nWith phases, it depends on the method.
\nThis is where the underlying idea takes shape: on-the-job training is not the phase that comes before work, but a production process that is designed, carried out and measured.
\nThe four phases echo Training Within Industry, a US method from the 1940s for training factory workers, now a historical and popular reference.
\nThe method works like this:
\nPrepare the task: isolate the activity, the materials and the critical points to demonstrate.
\nDemonstrate and perform: the trainer performs the task, explaining the steps and the reasons out loud.
\nHave the person perform it under observation: the person repeats the task, and the trainer steps in only for errors that compromise the result.
\nCheck and correct: the performance is assessed against a criterion defined in advance, and the date of the next check is set.
\nThe 10% study was conducted in a call center, a service setting different from a manufacturing department [3]: the mechanism observed does not depend closely on the sector, because it concerns the structure of the training, not the type of activity.
\nWhat is the point of a procedure nobody uses to teach the job?
\nIn Italy, training activity grows with company size — over 95% among companies with at least 500 employees [1]: where structured courses are lacking, written procedures are the most accessible teaching resource.
\nA well-written procedure is a trainer who never goes on vacation: it sets the correct sequence, the checkpoints and the typical errors of an activity.
\nUsing it as the outline for shadowing reduces the trainer's omissions and gives the new hire a reference they can consult afterward.
\nThe time invested in documenting a process pays for itself with every subsequent hire.
\nA procedure becomes training material when it stops being a compliance document and becomes a step-by-step guide (https://blog.prodability.com/procedure-aziendali-guida/).
\nIt is worth pairing every procedure with three minimum elements: a criterion for correct execution, typical errors observed in the past, and a reference for whom to contact in case of doubt.
\nA procedure structured this way (see also https://blog.prodability.com/checklist-processi-aziendali/) lets the trainer focus on observation, instead of reciting the steps from memory.
\nIt is not correct to attribute a precise reduction in time to documentation alone: the written procedure nonetheless remains a support that reduces dependence on a single person.
\nWhen can you say that a training program is finished?
\nNot when the trainer declares themselves satisfied: in the second cycle of the OECD PIAAC survey, 34.7% of adults in Italy score at or below level 1 in literacy, compared with an OECD average of 26.1% [4], and taking learning for granted is a real risk.
\nOn-the-job training ends with an observable check, not with a feeling.
\nAn autonomy checklist — the list of activities the person must be able to carry out without supervision — turns the trainer's judgment into a data point.
\nAn observed practical test, repeated after some time, distinguishes what has been learned from what has only been shown.
\nAn autonomy checklist works when every line can be verified by a third person, not just by the trainer.
\nThe minimum format has four columns: activity, pass criterion, check date and outcome, as in the example:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n| Activity | Pass criterion | Check date | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating the production line machine | Full cycle with no blocking errors, observed by the trainer | Sep 12 | Passed |
| Outgoing quality control | Defects correctly identified on 10 sample pieces | Sep 12 | Passed |
| Managing supplier orders | Order completed without assistance | Sep 20 | To be repeated |
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\nThe risk to keep in mind is assuming that a clear explanation is the same as learning that has taken place: the gap between what is explained and what is understood is not an isolated exception.
\nTo place the individual check within a broader path, see also the guide to the company training plan (https://blog.prodability.com/piano-formazione-aziendale/).
\nIs the best trainer really the most experienced worker?
\nNot necessarily: someone who has performed an action for twenty years has often compressed it to the point of no longer being able to break it down for a beginner.
\nThe recurring training mistakes in smaller companies share a common trait: they stem from good intentions that lack structure.
\nRecognizing them in advance lets you neutralize them with simple fixes, already described in the previous sections.
\nThe most frequent ones, with the direct fix:
\nThe data cited in this article describes statistical associations, not guarantees of results in every company.
\nThe study on the performance increase [3] was conducted in a service setting: the figure should be read as a trend, not as a percentage that can be replicated in every department.
\nThe four-phase method assumes protected time for the trainer role: in a micro-business, the scope needs to be adapted.
\nThe skill matrix and the autonomy checklist do not replace mandatory licenses or certifications for regulated equipment or roles.
\nThe OECD PIAAC figure [4] describes a phenomenon in the general population, not how well a single company's procedures are understood.
\nIt depends on the complexity of the role and on the critical activities in the job description: there is no fixed duration.
\nNo: mandatory courses remain a separate requirement and run alongside on-the-job training.
\nGo back to the training matrix, identify the activities not yet covered and update the check.
\nEffective on-the-job training starts from the job description, which defines the scope of the skills to transfer and enables a simple matrix showing who is autonomous, in training or not yet started.
\nThe method unfolds in four phases — prepare, demonstrate, have the person perform under observation, check — that turn shadowing from informal coexistence into a repeatable sequence.
\nWritten procedures, with clear pass criteria, reduce dependence on a single person.
\nThe program ends not with a feeling but with an autonomy checklist verified by a third person, on a set date.
\nApplied consistently, the method turns on-the-job training from something you put up with into a process you plan and measure.
\nA company that treats on-the-job training as a process — with a scope defined by the job description, shadowing structured in phases and a final autonomy check — turns a cost it puts up with into a measurable investment.
\nThis is the idea to hold on to: on-the-job training does not end when the trainer declares themselves satisfied, but when the autonomy checklist is complete.
\nTo place on-the-job training within a broader people development strategy, we also recommend reading the guide to corporate training (https://blog.prodability.com/formazione-aziendale-pmi/) and the in-depth article on onboarding new hires (https://blog.prodability.com/onboarding-nuovi-dipendenti/).
\nA department where every new hire reaches autonomy within known, verifiable timeframes is a department where the business owner can plan growth instead of chasing it.
\n\n[1] ISTAT, \"La formazione del personale nelle imprese (CVTS) — Anno 2020\", Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica), 2022. Available at: https://www.istat.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/REPORT-formazione-imprese.pdf
\n[2] Unioncamere — Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policies (Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali), \"La domanda di professioni e di formazione delle imprese italiane nel 2025\", Sistema Informativo Excelsior, 2025. Available at: https://excelsior.unioncamere.net/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/2025/Domanda_professioni_formazione_imprese.pdf
\n[3] De Grip, A., Sauermann, J., \"The Effects of Training on Own and Co-worker Productivity: Evidence from a Field Experiment\", The Economic Journal, 122(560), pp. 376-399, 2012. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02500.x
\n[4] INAPP, \"Le competenze cognitive degli adulti in Italia. Prime evidenze dall'Indagine OCSE-PIAAC ciclo 2\", Italian National Institute for Public Policy Analysis (Istituto Nazionale per l'Analisi delle Politiche Pubbliche), December 2024. Available at: https://www.inapp.gov.it/wp-content/uploads/Non-organizzati/INAPP-PIAAC-Short-report.pdf
\n[5] Treccani, \"Addestrare\", Vocabolario Treccani online, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Available at: https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/addestrare/
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