How do we train new press minders when the senior one will not share?

The short answer: stop asking him to share and start paying him to teach. A senior minder who keeps the second hand busy with wash-ups and ream carrying is rarely being spiteful. He has watched owners replace expensive people with cheaper ones. His value on the floor is that only he can bring a four-colour job to the OK sheet quickly. Teaching someone else that feels like signing his own release letter.

Two moves solve it. Alter what the veteran gains once an apprentice can mind. Then chop the craft into chunks small enough to learn and verify. Both are covered below, followed by the worries owners raise afterwards.

• Job security: if the feeder can run make-ready, the owner might not need a senior wage.
• Status: crews defer to whoever can rescue a scumming plate or a doubling image, and that deference took decades.
• Pay: teaching takes time off his own run, and nothing in his wage recognises it.
• Habit: he learned by watching an older hand who never explained, and he assumes the same route works.
• Pride: an apprentice's spoiled sheets on his machine look like his own failure to the proprietor.

Each reason has an answer. None of them is solved by an order from the office.

1. 1

   Talk privately before anything else

   Explain, after the shift and over tea, that one minder is too thin a thread for a costly press, and that nobody intends to push him out. Then ask what coaching would need from the owner's side.

2. 2

   Upgrade his title and grade

   Press in-charge, chief minder, or minder-trainer. Add a coaching allowance, payable for every month an apprentice stands at his delivery.

3. 3

   Hand him the choice and the pen

   He picks the apprentice from among the second hands or feeders, and only his initials pass each skill. Holding the pen converts a threat into authority.

4. 4

   Shield his production

   Schedule coaching on repeat dockets, never on a calendar job due out at dawn.

5. 5

   Credit him openly

   Whenever the apprentice clears a rung, announce it at the morning huddle and name the veteran who coached it. Standing was exactly what he dreaded losing.

Minding feels like one big skill when it is really dozens of small ones. Writing them down makes progress visible and stops the learner getting stuck as a permanent assistant. A typical list for a sheetfed offset machine looks like this.

Feeder and lays: set suction, side lay and front lays for a new stock; feed without double sheets.
Plates and blankets: mount a plate square, check blanket packing, change a blanket.
Damping: set fountain solution level and water rollers; spot and cure scumming and tinting.
Ink: set duct keys from the job's colour bar, bring solids to the approved sheet, manage ink-water balance.
Register: read the register marks, correct circumferential and lateral register.
Faults: diagnose hickeys, doubling, slurring and setoff, and say what changed.
Wash-up and shutdown: clean rollers and blankets correctly at job change and at shift end.
Make-ready alone: take a repeat job from plate to OK sheet with the senior watching only.

Every rung is passed at the machine, never in a classroom: the veteran observes the apprentice performing it solo on a live docket. Lodge the ladder within the press's training and development plan so it outlives everyone now on the machine.

A few veterans dig in despite a generous offer. Do not let that freeze the plan. Start a settings diary yourself: ask the second hand to note duct-key openings, damping levels and speeds for each repeat job, and keep pull sheets with the job docket. Bring in a second learner who can watch closely. Once coaching sits in his written duties, a continued refusal is a performance matter, handled calmly and on file like any other duty declined.

Occasionally, yet it seldom cures anything. A poached minder arrives with another press's quirks and needs months to learn yours and your customers. He may hoard just as tightly. Hiring helps when no internal learner exists. Even then, attach the same teaching role and settings ladder from day one, so the next gap does not repeat.

Count in seasons. The apprentice should meet thin maplitho, coated art, duplex board, heavy solids and each season's rush dockets with the veteran within shouting distance. Rushing the sign-offs to meet a deadline means the learner meets a hard job alone and loses confidence. Longer handovers are discussed in planning for a veteran's retirement.

It should, rung by rung. Apprentices minding half the jobs while drawing a feeder's wage get poached. Post the wage for every rung on the board. Background reading: the veteran minder as quality gate. There is also a page on people issues in offset press houses, plus our printers and converters hub. Describe your pressroom on the owner questionnaire if you want GullyHR involved.